Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 36: 36: Schedule 2, page 171, line 26, leave out sub-paragraphs (12) to (16) The noble Baroness said: I rise with some trepidation because what I have to say on these amendments follows on directly from what has already been said, with which I entirely concur. If I am seen to be replicating what everyone else has said, I apologise, because I am speaking to two separate amendments which should possibly have been grouped together. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, would stay for a moment, because I shall start by giving him, as well as the Government, a possible ““out””. The amendment specifically refers to the CRC’s requirement that, "““children are dealt with in a manner appropriate to their well-being and proportionate both to their circumstances and the offence””." That excerpt may or may not be helpful. I will also speak to the amendments in my name which refer again to the use of ISSPs or, more particularly, to their breach, when the original offence was not so serious as to warrant it and even more because the breach is then likely to end in custody—an even more inappropriate disposal. The Bill does not include the relevance of the child’s age and emotional and intellectual maturity, which may be extremely important, given what we know about the profiles of children who end up going through the court system. Given the preponderance of children who have been abused, who have been in care and who have mental health difficulties and learning difficulties or, for instance, autistic spectrum disorders, this is a very important requirement to include in the Bill. Instead, the Bill’s proposals cause us real concern. They emphasise the importance of breach over all else, regardless of the seriousness or otherwise of the original offence. I hear the Government’s argument that where an order is breached, rigorous enforcement action is essential. I also heard the Minister say that in order to maintain confidence in community sentences, we cannot tolerate breaches. I will have quite a lot to say about community sentences and my involvement in them later on, but for the moment I should just like to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, that not only is confidence essential—indeed, it is the pillar of the whole process—but rigorous enforcement, of itself, is not nearly so important as successful outcomes, particularly by reducing reoffending. That is what the public want above all else and there is lots of evidence to show this. We must remember the damage that custody can do unless it is indeed used as a last resort. In fact, with many children, especially those with the sort of problems I have just referred to, breaching reflects even more the need better to match orders to the situation of the offender. Last year, I met a child of about 13, a tiny boy, who was in an STC for breach. It was absolutely clear that he would continue with the breach when he got out because he was determined to skip school and do anything in his power to be with his sick mother. Clearly, there was a need to find other means of dealing with his situation than by putting him into a child prison. No one was gaining, least of all that little boy. Nor did such an enforcement do much for the confidence of the community in the enforcement of community sentences—it may, however, have done something for the confidence of a local reporter looking for a lurid headline if the story got printed. There has been a worrying increase in the number of breaches coming back to court in the past few years—a threefold rise in the breach of supervision orders in the past seven years—which has in turn led to a rise in breach proceedings leading to custody, which has increased from 18 per cent to 25 per cent over the same period. The Bill reduces the discretion of the courts, as Minister just made clear. As a result, breaches of ISSPs resulting in custody rose by 98 per cent in 2005-06. That is an incredible figure, and calls into question whether they have been used as a last resort before other options have been tried and whether they were imposed inappropriately for offences which should not necessarily attract a custodial sentence. That is at the heart of my amendment. I therefore strongly recommend to the Government that the Bill be amended to include specific reference to the CRC’s requirement, which I quoted earlier, that children are dealt with in ways that are appropriate to their well-being and proportionate to their circumstances and their offence. To do otherwise would be to compound an already unhappy situation, as is the case with the child who is in low-level trouble, and create an infinitely unhappier one. It is surely wrong in principle that a non-imprisonable offence should lead to custody through breach, particularly for children, and more particularly for low-level offending and vulnerable children, whom, as the figures show, breach has rippled out to engulf. I beg to move.