Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 34: 34: Clause 33, page 22, line 35, at end insert— ““( ) After section 100(3) (offenders under 18: detention and training orders), there is inserted— ““(3A) On the making of a detention and training order, it shall be the duty of the court and the provider of the youth detention accommodation to ensure that the child’s well-being is considered. (3B) ““Well-being””, in relation to children and young people, is a reference to their well-being having regard to the matters mentioned in section 10(2) of the Children Act 2004.””.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is the first of four related amendments that in some ways we should have grouped, which are about special groups and how we deal with them in our offender management system. I apologise that your Lordships have the inexpert Liberal Democrat Member to speak on this topic, but unfortunately my noble friend Lady Linklater is kept in Edinburgh at the moment by family concerns. The purpose of the amendment is to look further at some of the issues my noble friend raised in Committee on how we handle young people. The key to the amendment is the duty to ensure that a child’s well-being is considered. We know from a great deal of research that a large proportion of young children who receive detention and training orders have themselves suffered maltreatment and have a range of psychological and other vulnerabilities. We therefore wish to make sure that those are picked up at an early stage. We know very well that investment at this stage which may help to break the downwards spiral into adult offending is extremely important. We are concerned that suicide or harm to others is also a high risk for young people in safe accommodation and we are also uncomfortably aware that problems with young offenders are a gift to the tabloid press and therefore the mix of accommodation provided, not too strong but also not too weak, requires careful assessment as they come in. The amendment’s purpose is to place as strong a duty as possible on those at an early stage of dealing with young offenders to look beneath the surface of the immediate problem, to look at a special educational needs assessment and a mental or physical health assessment to make sure as far as possible that we can pick up some of the underlying causes before it becomes too late. I beg to move.