Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The amendment is grouped with one of ours. I have been given a signal of two fingers from the other side of the Committee, implying that there are two amendments. The noble Baroness is quite right. The substantive point in our two amendments is that the interests of the child should be the first and main thing to be considered. The reasoning behind this is that if the child’s interests are looked after properly, that child is more likely to be reformed and made good. That is in the interests of us all. It is in the interests of the sink estates, so ably described by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, who moved the amendment. We are all conscious of them. As he rightly said, they are not only in big conurbations but appear in parts of leafy conservative country towns as well. That problem is not confined to inner cities and it is extremely difficult to get to grips with. It is not a very new problem but it will be one that my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will probably address in the future. We can only just struggle to make it better. If we get our order of priorities right, which is to ensure that the interests of the child come first, and follow our international obligations, we shall inch a little way further to try to help some of these severely damaged children to the benefit of not only them but us all. I note that in the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, there is a great list of things to which the court should have regard. I would hope that the courts would have regard to those things anyway. I was slightly depressed to hear of the young man getting three and a half years, which is a quarter of his life, for nicking mobile telephones. I am sure that it is extremely irritating to have one’s mobile telephone nicked; I am not defending that offence, but it seems to be quite a harsh sentence. Whether its effect is productive or counterproductive is open to question. It seems to me that the proposals in the amendment should automatically be observed by any judge or magistrate involved in such cases, but I hope that we can concentrate on the important bit, which is the primacy of the child’s interests in the criminal justice system as a whole. I support the amendment.