Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I am pleased to be able to welcome to a certain extent the progress that we have made. It is good to know that 47 hours or so in Committee have not been wholly in vain. I will be able to go to my local courts, where I practise as a solicitor, and hold my head high to some extent when the people there try to battle with yet another piece of criminal justice legislation and ask me, ““Why has there not been proper scrutiny and why did you not come to us to ask for advice?”” There has been some progress. It is welcome that we have an opportunity, albeit limited by the constraints of time, to consider what is in many ways the essence of the Bill: the part 1 youth rehabilitation orders. Now we have a maelstrom of other new clauses and amendments, but at least we have an opportunity to consider on Report what is a significant part of the youth justice system. The essence of the concern, which is reflected in the progress made by the Government in response to amendments, was that there needs to be proper discretion for magistrates, judges and indeed practitioners dealing with youth rehabilitation orders and that we should not over-legislate. The concern was that there needs to be proper evidence when putting more legislation in the way of the courts. On the issue of discretion, it is welcome that the Government, through new clauses 4 and 5, have recognised the arguments advanced in Committee. New clause 10 is in many ways replicated by new clauses 4 and 5. In the context of other orders before youth courts, referral orders have been relatively successful with regard to reconviction rates, which are generally woeful in respect of young offenders. Forty-four per cent. of those subject to referral orders are reconvicted, whereas the figure is 70 or 80 per cent. for those in detention. There is a need to deal properly and flexibly, and with discretion, with young offenders when imposing referral orders. New clauses 4 and 5, by way of revocation and extension, provide that element of discretion which we sought in Committee. There are certainly cases where the offender comes back before the court having passed the time of the referral order and the referral order has not had an opportunity properly to commence. That can often be through no fault of the offender: the youth offending team may have had problems trying to gain the agreement of other agencies to commence the order. It is therefore welcome that there is that extension within new clauses 4 and 5 to allow time for the order to put the wishes of the court in place. There is a need, in welcoming the opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the referral orders, to question whether there should not be further discretion. New paragraph 9ZD(2), which is introduced by new clause 5, places some restrictions on the order in that the order must not so extend a period"““as to cause it to exceed twelve months.””" I ask the Minister to explain why there is that limitation on the court's discretion, when it might be in the interests of justice to extend a referral order further. In such exceptional circumstances, why should magistrates be prevented from exceeding the 12-month contract period? There is a need for further discretion, and amendment No. 129 seeks to provide that in circumstances in which a referral order needs to be replicated. In 2004, the Government announced proposals for extending referral orders in a limited way and they gave the example that where the young person received a referral order at least two years before, there would be a case for limited extensions to referral orders. Now, however, in yet another criminal justice Bill, the Government have not remained true to those early intentions to provide the flexibility and discretion that they promised back in 2004. There may be cases where a young offender has complied with an earlier referral order, but the youth offending team, local probation team or social workers—as referred to in our amendment No. 129—recommends a further referral order because that is in the interests of the young offender concerned as it would prevent them from reoffending. Under the current provisions, there is not the capacity for such discretion or flexibility, which the youth offending team in particular would want to be put in place. If there is time, I would like the Minister to outline why the promise of 2004 has not been made good. Another area of scrutiny in Committee was to do with the concern that we should not go where we do not need to go—that there does not need to be legislation where there is no evidence that it is required. There is a body of opinion that we should look to use properly the existing powers of the court and of practitioners, to ensure that we do what we all wish to do: stop the young offender who is before the court committing further offences. Amendment No. 116 seeks to preserve what already exists. It seeks to allow decisions on breaches of youth rehabilitation orders to remain subject to national guidance and standards, and to allow the youth offending team to be able to treat issues of enforcement flexibly, rather than that being on a statutory footing. Questions were raised in Committee about the need to legislate in this area. Where is the evidence that the national standards are not working in relation to breaches and the requirement for cases to go before a court? Is there a need to put the enforcement of orders on a statutory footing? The consequences—perhaps unintended—of the provisions in the Bill could be that local discretion is removed. Young people, who do not often fit into bureaucratic boxes in relation to timeliness and understanding, could well be victims of such a statutory enforcement of the limits. There is a concern that a youth offending team dealing with enforcement would be obliged by statutory duty to return a matter to court rather than being able to deal with it flexibly and locally with full discretion. When the youth offending team wishes to issue warnings and initiate proceedings for breach, there would be a concern that a case would have to go to court, rather than the team being able to comply properly with national standards within proper limits. Amendments Nos. 117 and 118 seek to deal flexibly and with discretion with other areas. They seek to maintain the existing powers of the court when dealing with breaches of community service. There might be cases where there has been a third unacceptable failure to attend appointments within 12 months, when court proceedings would inevitably be initiated; even if the offender has successfully attended, for example, 95 per cent. of appointments, the position is that it would go to court. Under the Bill's provisions, the court would have to deal with the matter by way of an additional community penalty or other additional punishments. Courts often deal with cases by acknowledging that technical breaches have taken place. If a young offender wanted to comply with an order, the courts would not be able to deal with the matter as they do at present—by warning that offender to comply with the order. They would be obliged to impose an additional punishment, thus ratcheting up the punishment, which may not be in the interests of the offender and the public at large. The Bill precludes discretion, and I again invite the Minister to justify that. There is a third area on which I should comment: Government amendments Nos. 82, 83, 104, 106 and 107, which concern intoxicating substance treatment requirements. The Government have moved to plug the gap caused by the fact that there was no treatment requirement to deal with alcohol and other such issues, and I welcome that. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) for having raised concerns about volatile substance abuse. This issue should be properly dealt with by way of the new substance treatment requirement. It was welcome to hear today, as was mentioned in Committee, that an issue of practice and deliverability must be addressed. We must consider how deliverable the youth rehabilitation orders are. There are grand aims to have activity requirements, supervision requirements, programme requirements, attendance centre requirements, prohibited activity requirements, curfew requirements, exclusion requirements, residence requirements, local authority residence requirements, mental health treatment requirements, drug treatment requirements, education requirements and now intoxicating substance treatment requirements, but is there the ability to deliver on them? The concern that the courts have expressed, including in evidence to us, is whether the resources are in place to meet those requirements. Let us focus primarily on these new intoxicating substance treatment requirements. Are the resources available to deliver? Should we not heed the words of the chief inspector of probation? He says that"““resources have in practice still not kept pace with the increase in demands.””" As there are a raft of new requirements, we must ask whether there are the resources to deliver. The Government have responded that £600,000 is available for training requirements, but no resources have been provided to deal properly with these requirements. If one looks in detail at the treatment requirements, one finds that little resource is available to deal with adolescents who have alcohol problems. Country-wide, some 6 per cent. of the budget that is focused on drugs is apportioned to alcohol. Alcohol services are the Cinderella of treatment services. Tomorrow, we will find out the latest pooled treatment budget, which will be predominantly fixed around drugs services. Alcohol will be very much down the list, as will other intoxicating substances. Inevitably, we will be dependent on the voluntary sector, which helps to provide treatment for an estimated 17,000 adolescents. That treatment is often limited, and it certainly does not extend to what the Government set out in amendment No. 106. That provision proposes a new paragraph 23(A) to schedule 1. Sub-paragraph (3) is where one finds a reference to the treatment that would be required to give any reality to this order. It states:"(a) ““treatment as a resident in such institution or place as may be specified in the order, or""(b) treatment as a non-resident at such institution or place””." Where are these residential treatment places? Where are these day place treatment services? Middlegate Lodge is the only residential place for adolescents in the whole of the country that will be giving effect to this new intoxicating substance treatment requirement. That illustrates a concern that exists about the whole of part 1 of the Bill: that the resources will not be in place to deliver, and that increasingly the probation service and youth offending teams, whose resources are focused on managing prolific offenders, and dealing with public protection expectations and the serious end of offending, will not be able to deal with the other end of offending, as all our communities want them to do. Although part 1 has many worthy intentions and although it is commendable that the Government have moved to recognise flexibility and discretion, as well as introducing treatment requirements for intoxicating substances, the concern is that there will not be the resources to match those intentions and that we will see more promises with little in return. I would be interested to hear the Minister's response to those concerns, if there is time, and I commend the move that has taken place.