Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I apologise to the House for not being here for most of the early part of this afternoon, but I was attending a sitting of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, which I thought was also my duty. I have several concerns about this Bill, and at this late stage do not propose to go into them in any detail. I very much oppose Clause 42, which is obviously wrong, for reasons that have been so well set out by others. I also have great concern about Clause 105, which has already been so well expressed by my noble friend Lord Low of Dalston. The effect of the Legal Services Act is to set out clearly the disciplinary processes for barristers and solicitors who fall below acceptable professional standards. No such process exists for those who are not trained lawyers, including non-qualified Crown Prosecution staff. They do not owe the same overriding duty to the court that all professional lawyers owe. This is a matter of very considerable concern, as there is a danger of potential miscarriage of justice—and I shall say a lot more about it in Committee. Perhaps I should add that the presence of the clause appears to owe a great deal more to the benefit of cost-cutting than to any advantage whatever to the administration of justice. I should like to speak today on children, and children who offend. I commend the Government on their drive towards prevention and early intervention for children as well as the good work of youth offending teams, but I feel that a lot more should be done. I preface my comments by a recognition that some children, even young ones, commit serious crimes, which under our system cannot be overlooked. They face the rigour of the law and have to do so in exactly the same way as the young men who kicked a man to death and were convicted of murder. But children who offend were not born bad; they may be born with character defects and they may have developed behavioural problems, but inadequate parenting, the family and social environment, as well as their character defects, have a part to play—often a very large part—in their offending. As the House knows all too well, there is a great deal of research on this subject, which makes clear the impact on children of problems in the home such as drink, drugs, domestic violence and mental health problems—as well as households where there are many other offenders. Early intervention and diversion from offending or reoffending should play an important part in the approach towards children. We must remember, as other noble Lords said earlier, that children who offend are also children who need help. I very much support the proposal of my noble friend Lady Stern on Clause 9 to give priority to the welfare of the child, especially to younger children. I was also greatly impressed by and very much support the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, to this debate. More could and should be done at an early stage to identify the problems in the family, rather than necessarily treating all children as offenders. YOTs deal with children after they have been to the youth court. I propose to put down some amendments, and I hope that the House will bear with me as I explain their background. I have proposals for the diversion of young offenders, starting with 10 to 12 year-olds, so that they do not go to the youth court at all and therefore do not have a criminal finding of guilt but are dealt with in the family court system and not the criminal court system. I suggest that 10 to 12 year-olds who offend and whom the police or the Crown Prosecution consider should be dealt with by the youth court should be looked at by a local committee, chaired by either a judge or magistrate with representatives from police, CPS, probation, social services, education and health, to see whether the offence is so serious that it has to go to the youth court. It may well be known that the family is dysfunctional or the committee may consider that there should be an investigation to see whether there are reasons for offending that might be dealt with so as to avoid repetition of offending and without the child receiving a finding of guilt. That would give social workers an added burden, but it could have the effect of stopping or at least alleviating the cause of offending and, if so, would save years of repeated visits to the criminal courts, with the huge cost per person of an adult in the criminal courts. If the circumstances point to family or other influences pushing the child into committing crimes, the family proceedings court may be where the child and family should be considered rather than the youth court. The local committee might decide that informal intervention by social workers might do the trick or that the local authority should issue care proceedings to give the family proceedings court the power to deal with the case—it does not have that power at the moment. Social workers would then have to be prepared on such a recommendation to issue care proceedings. The youth offending team could be involved before the child is found guilty rather than afterwards. An alternative—or, indeed, concurrent—possibility is that, on the child's arrival at the youth court, the magistrate should have the power, which is sometimes called the Section 37 power of the family proceedings court, to require a social report on the child before the child pleads guilty, to see if this is a case for social work intervention rather than a decision of the criminal court. That would no doubt require the family to agree, but if the alternative is for the child to be found guilty, the family may well agree. The youth court, on receipt of the social work report, could then decide whether to deal with the child within the criminal proceedings or adjourn or dismiss the criminal proceedings and transfer the child's case to the family proceedings court. Again, that would require primary legislation. It would also require the local authority to be prepared in some cases to make the appropriate application in the family proceedings court, which some local authorities, on past experience, have not been at all keen to do. There would be an added burden on social services and local authorities or possibly the youth offending team, but if it diverted the child from reoffending, it would be extremely cheap at the price. My proposals might fit well with those that I know are being considered for restorative justice for children. Together, the proposals might go forward. I would therefore like to add my proposals to Part 1 of the Bill.