Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Does the noble Lord agree that the statistic which, to be candid, I gave to the House in the context of an Oral Question this afternoon makes his point very clearly? While it is true that since 1990 30 children have died in custody—that is a disturbing enough statistic—during the same period 201 people aged 18 to 20 have died in custody, including 178 self-inflicted deaths and five homicides. We somehow as a society just say, ““Oh well, those are the statistics””. Think of the human tragedy that every case represents and the appalling situation for families, relatives and others. For all those reasons, we cannot overemphasise the importance of the noble Baroness’s amendment. I am very glad to see that she seems to be indicating that she has no difficulty with our proposition that it should be extended to cover the 18 to 21 age group.