Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord for moving this more fully than he did his earlier amendment. I have a copy of the Commons debate on this. I suppose the noble Lord is right to say that there was some confusion in the debate. Certainly, on the face of it, this seems a not unreasonable amendment, except in its effect, which could be very confusing. This issue of immediate family, in particular, could cause considerable difficulty. I am not quite sure how one accurately defines ““immediate family.”” It is not clear to me from looking at the detail of the debate in another place. I certainly appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment, even though it is not something that we can agree with. It would not be practical to extend the consideration as the amendment does, in the terms that it does, because of the difficulties of definition. We should properly be concerned about the duty of the responsible officer to the young person. When sentencing, the court has to take into account the young person’s family circumstances, as well as the offender’s religious beliefs as stated, before making a youth rehabilitation order. In practice, we would expect that the youth offending team would have regard to the young person’s family circumstances in so far as that is practicable. However, taking account of his or her family’s religious beliefs should not be a mandatory requirement imposed in the legislation. No doubt that is an issue that could be picked up in the round, and no doubt it is something that would be considered. The Bill’s approach is consistent with similar provisions in Section 217 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which relates to the adult community order. I should add that interpreting so wide a duty could be fraught with problems of definition. I referred to one such problem in the concept of immediate family. Moreover, a situation could develop where there were conflicting demands or needs—where, for instance, parents are separated and have a different religious belief from the offender’s, or where parents as a couple have a different religious belief from the offender’s. That said, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.