Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 101: 101: Clause 35, page 27, line 27, leave out from ““occasion”” to end of line 28 and insert ““; or (iii) has previously been referred to a youth offender panel under section 16 above and a further referral has been recommended by a member of a youth offending team, an officer of a local probation team, or a social worker of a local authority.”” The noble Lord said: We now return to justice issues and referral orders in particular. Our amendment is intended to give the courts the power to make a second order rather than to give a custodial sentence. The circumstance in which we want that to happen is if a young person has previously been referred to a youth offender panel under Clause 16 and a further referral has been recommended either by a member of the youth offending team, by an officer of a local probation team or by a social worker of a local authority. I am aware that the Standing Committee for Youth Justice is extremely keen on this approach. As a number of your Lordships are aware, referral orders are now being used on a large scale. There are somewhere between 15,000 to 20,000 a year, and they comprise around 35 per cent of court sentences for indictable offences by young people. It is fair to say that they have operated rather well. They involve more than 5,000 trained volunteers who chair and participate in panels, diagnosing the problems that young people face and trying to identify practical ways forward that are relevant to young people’s problems. Even if we allow for those who pleaded guilty, the reconviction rates for young people who have been subject to a referral order have, by youth justice standards, been good. Based on the 2005 figures, which are the latest available, one-year reconviction rates for referral orders were 44 per cent, which are the lowest for any court sentence and compare favourably with other penalties—discharges are 61 per cent, fines are 63 per cent and reparation orders are 70 per cent—let alone community sentences, which are 70 per cent, and custody, which is 76 per cent. When the amendment was debated in another place, the Minister, the right honourable David Hanson, objected to the option of the second order on three grounds. First, if a young person reoffends, they have clearly failed to take the restorative opportunity. Secondly, the referral order is deliberately designed to be targeted at those who receive a court sentence for the first time. Thirdly, the youth rehabilitation order introduced by the Bill, rather than a second referral order, is the appropriate next stage. In my submission, all these reasons are unconvincing. The first argument did not address any of the reasons why the circumstances of a first order may have been particularly inappropriate or very different. The second argument gave no substantive reason why referral orders could not be operated selectively on a further conviction and was contradicted by the Government’s own concession in the same debate, which allowed a referral order on a second court appearance. The third argument did not acknowledge the unique nature of the referral order and the erratic nature of young people’s offending patterns, which mean that escalation should not be the automatic response. Moreover, certain safeguards are built into the amendment. The use of a second referral order would be discretionary for the courts, with no obligation or presumption in favour of it. Referral order costs range up to around £1,500 and require the time of trained volunteers. The amendment would therefore limit the use to where the YOT or equivalent officer had recommended it to the court. It is they who administer the resources. In any case, if the court had to choose a YRO, this is generally unlikely to be cheaper. For all those reasons, I beg to move.