Offender Management Bill

I support the amendment. I too received the briefing of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice and therefore most of the information that we heard about from the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. It makes shocking reading. I do not know whether many Members of the Committee have seen what these sweatboxes look like, but just from seeing the vans from the outside it does not take much imagination to know that they are cramped and bleak. To face an admission to detention is bad enough. A vulnerable child will be at his or her most vulnerable at such a moment. Given that he or she is likely to have a multitude of problems and difficulties, as all the statistics tell us, these journeys, under such awful conditions, are almost impossible to imagine. This can also be a time of great and additional difficulty for staff, who have to cope with children who may be angry, distressed or even suicidal. Both skill and understanding of what the children are going through will be required so that the famously difficult first night in custody does not result in even greater distress and trouble. To be locked in a cell is not an experience any of us would wish to go through, but to be forced to urinate in your sweatbox, or, having done so, to clean it out on arrival at Onley, is an example of worst, not best, practice. If being locked in a cell is an experience that none of us would ever wish to go through, still less should we find it acceptable that a child should be delivered to it at 11 pm from a sweatbox.