Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 32: 32: Schedule 2, page 170, line 17, leave out from ““ways”” to end of line 18 The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 39. Under current provisions, courts can choose to leave a youth rehabilitation order unamended after a breach. For instance, a young person on a standard six-month supervision order might have kept more than 90 per cent of his or her appointments but still qualify for breach action. Breach proceedings may often be brought where the young person’s compliance and motivation to co-operate with the intervention are very high, particularly given the chaotic lifestyles associated with many young people who come to the attention of the youth justice system. Breaches can occur easily for children with unstable home lives. Currently the courts tend to respond to technical breaches with warnings or encouragement. The provisions in the Bill would preclude such an approach and would require that a court must, when it is satisfied that a breach has occurred, impose a fine or amend the terms of a youth rehabilitation order, even if the young person has responded well and the youth offending team and the court consider that the order should be allowed to continue in its present form. Why is the Bill reducing the discretion of the court? Here is yet another example of the Bill doing that. National standards require breach proceedings to be initiated relatively early on, so courts will confront a wide range of different levels of non-compliance. They should have flexibility in how they respond to them. We share the concern of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice that the provision might reduce the potential for compliance with the order if the young person feels unfairly or harshly treated. In that event, the imposition of such a punishment might be counterproductive, leading potentially to further proceedings for breach or the subsequent revocation of the order, the potential for increased offending associated with non-compliance of the order and, in some cases, a custodial sentence. We are concerned, in other words, that the Government’s emphasis on robust enforcement for breach, because of their view about the need to maintain confidence in community sentences, might accelerate offenders into custody despite original offences not being serious enough to warrant it. Our amendment would ensure that the courts retain the discretion that they currently enjoy to deal with the wide range of breaches that come before them in the most appropriate fashion in all the circumstances. In particular, the power of the court to issue a warning would provide some form of encouragement to the young person without the imposition of a further punishment. I beg to move.