Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I do not disagree with what the noble Earl said. I hope that I did not give the impression that I simply saw punishment as retribution. I think that I said earlier that it could be part of a constructive approach to helping young people move away from the circumstances in which they commit crimes and helping them to rehabilitate and not to reoffend. On a technical point, I wish to make it clear that, although punishment is listed first, it is not a hierarchical list. The purposes of sentences have equal weight, but they are subject to the principal aim of the youth justice system. One of the glories of these debates is that Members of the Committee read out my answers because they have already been placed on the record. I do not want to bore the Committee by repeating that. However, I shall speak a little on Clause 9, which is designed to clarify the current law in order to remove confusion and to bring sentencing into line with the rest of the youth justice system. It is interesting that this has been welcomed by a number of relevant organisations. The Magistrates’ Association welcomes the clarity that the clause will introduce for magistrates when they are sentencing youths in the court. The Youth Justice Board welcomes this clarity, which would further emphasise the principal aim of the youth justice system. Interestingly, the Nacro response, is that, in view of the principal aim of the youth justice system to prevent offending, as set out in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, it is congruent to make this more clearly the purpose of sentencing. It is also interesting that, in December 2006, the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, said that it believed that the primary focus of the youth justice system should be the prevention and reduction of offending for those who are already in trouble. A number of organisations have commented in general in support of the way in which Clause 9 is constructed. Members of the Committee have again referred to Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the need to ensure that in all actions undertaken in a court of law the best interests of the child are a primary consideration. The Government believe that, while of course that is the position, it should not be ““the”” primary consideration. I realise that there is a bit of problem of semantics between ““a primary”” and ““the primary””. The noble Earl knows what I mean, even if he thinks that it is an incorrect use of English.