Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

That was a pithy comment. The debate is a fitting conclusion to an extraordinarily interesting day. I say to my noble friend Lord Judd, who is a great humanitarian, that I am sorry about his exasperation. I fully accept that after-care, resettlement and integration of the young person back into society after release from custody is critical to a successful outcome from the youth justice system. I welcome his acknowledgement that the new Ministry of Justice is in a good position, albeit in close co-operation with our friends at the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I acknowledged to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, that I would be delighted for my noble friend Lord Adonis to be standing here today taking part. I have watched with interest the debates that he has been having with noble Lords on his Bill. Although it is early days, we are establishing a stronger relationship between the two departments, which is essential to achieving the integrated approach that noble Lords want to see. I will not comment any further on the country house clean sheet of paper. I was tempted to talk about aircraft carriers to the noble Lord. I will not refer to Titans tonight, although I anticipate a good discussion tomorrow in the noble Baroness’s debate, where my noble friend Lord Carter is also speaking. That should be extremely interesting. If young people have to go to custody, they should be placed in accommodation that is fully adapted to the needs of that young person. Noble Lords will know that we are not persuaded that local authority secure children’s homes will be suitable for all young people, even if places were available for all of them, which is far from being the case. I will not go into the detailed reasons, as they were set out by my noble friend Lord Adonis, but I want to assure noble Lords of two things. First, the Government have taken on board the views of noble Lords who have spoken on the matter, both today and on earlier occasions. Secondly, the Youth Justice Board is committed to developing the secure estate for children and young people to ensure that the accommodation provided continues to become more closely adapted to the needs of those young people. In response to the interesting contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, I say that, since the YJB assumed responsibility for commissioning and purchasing custodial places in 2000, it has created a diverse and secure estate. Of course, the balance of provision could be improved. We recognise that the provision for the needs of more vulnerable older boys is a particularly worrying issue, which the YJB is working on. As I said earlier, we are looking at options for developing the kind of provision required for the young adult offenders to which Members of the Committee have referred. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and other Members of the Committee who have spoken about looked-after children in custody and in general, that we are all aware that they represent some of the most vulnerable children in our society, and that their educational attainment can be pretty poor. In terms of offending, my understanding is that 9 per cent of children in care for a year or more have been cautioned or have committed an offence, compared to 3 per cent for the general child population. We know that many of these problems will continue into adulthood for many looked-after children. There are some signs of encouragement. The educational outcomes of children in care have improved quite dramatically: 49 per cent of looked-after children got one GCSE in 2000; it rose to 63 per cent in 2006. In 2000, 7 per cent got five A to C grades at GCSE. That is not a good figure at all, but at least it rose to 12 per cent in 2006. Clearly, there is an awful long way to go, but there are some signs of improvement. Of course, there is more to be done. We are listening very carefully to the comments that Members of the Committee have made, both today and when the Children and Young Persons Bill was being debated. The noble Lord referred to attending the sentence planning meetings, which was a very relevant point. Where the local authority shares parental responsibility for a looked-after child, we would expect its representatives to participate in sentence planning meetings. We will deal with this in future revised guidance to the Children Act 1989. That will be necessary; we will have to change the guidance in the light of the legislation currently going through the House, which offers a valuable opportunity. We have also made clear our intention to use the delegated powers to impose a requirement for local authorities to arrange visits to those looked-after children who lose their status when they enter custody; namely, those voluntarily accommodated under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989. That will ensure that these children continue to receive the support they need, and that local authorities are aware when they are likely to be discharged from custody. The purpose of the visits will be to assess the young person’s needs and establish the kind of continuing support that will be necessary to resettle the young person back into the community. For some young people, this will involve ensuring that, on release from custody, they are provided with appropriate accommodation and that the local authority should therefore arrange for them to become ““looked after”” once more. The new requirements being introduced by the Children and Young Persons Bill will, as I have said, be supported by revisions to regulations and statutory guidance. We will use these revisions to set out that the person responsible for visiting a formerly looked-after child in custody will be an officer of the local authority children’s services, rather than a member of the youth offending team and that, where possible, this officer should be a qualified social worker familiar with the child’s case. I very much understand that we are dealing with one of the most vulnerable groups of young people in our society, and that the outcomes for them have been very poor indeed. It is going to be a tremendous challenge to turn this round, but there are signs that we are beginning to see improvements. I also refer to the children leaving care legislation which is helping, as will the joint work between my department and the Department for Children. I understand my noble friend’s exasperation, but I hope he will accept that we believe that this is a critical area of work to be undertaken by the Government and our partners in local government. I hope that he might stem his exasperation a little more to see how this turns out.