Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I will not speak about the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, on raising the age of the custody threshold to 21; I will speak only to those which have my name against them. Anticipating perhaps what the Government’s resistance to this might be, I would argue that one of the problems here is the definition of ““so serious””. Section 152(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires that: "““The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence … was so serious””." The problem is that the threshold and the meaning of ““so serious”” is too vague. That definition necessarily will relate to a person’s age and circumstances, and, dare I say, emotional and intellectual development, on which we have had such a robust debate earlier. I direct the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, to international comparisons, which were articulated so clearly yesterday in the opening speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, on the principles. In this country, we cannot have children who are more feral, who are worse, than comparable children elsewhere—at least in comparable economies, GDPs and populations. When we talk about the situation in this country we seem to believe that something is particularly wrong with us here—I call it British exceptionalism—which is an admission of defeat. International comparisons clearly show that custody thresholds apply and are successful elsewhere. I shall not answer those questions directly—I shall leave that to my noble friend Lady Linklater—but I make that observation. We know that custody does not rehabilitate the vast majority of children; three-quarters of them reoffend within a year. The amendment would enable interventions to be improved. It perhaps is a little too narrow and perhaps we need to think again about whether we can make it more practically applicable. But it would provide interventions for those who need to be locked up for genuine reasons of public protection and would enable the reallocation of resources for more suitable and effective community work. We know that community programmes are not adequately funded. About 70 per cent—£280 million—of the Youth Justice Board’s programmes budget is spent each year on locking up—I know that the Minister is sensitive about those words—children.