Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness who has tabled these two amendments. Her record in this field is well known by all Members of the Committee, and on behalf of the Government I pay tribute to it. We agree with her that there is an anomaly that needs putting right about 17 year-olds who are treated as adults for remand placement purposes, but as children in every other respect of the youth justice system. We are committed to looking at the issue and we have stated that publicly, as the noble Baroness mentioned, in our response to the consultation, Youth Justice—The Next Steps. We also acknowledge that the United Nations Commission on the Rights of the Child has identified the issue as requiring resolution and we accept our obligation to consider how to reach an acceptable solution. I reassure the Committee that we have not forgotten about this issue. Indeed, following the publication of Youth Justice—The Next Steps, the issue was the subject of an exhaustive and wide-ranging review. The aim of the review, like the aim of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, was to replicate the remand placement structure for 12 to 16 year-olds for 17 year-olds. However, it has proved an extremely complex issue for which we have as yet been unable to devise a workable solution. I hope the noble Baroness accepts this in the spirit in which it is intended: we have looked carefully at her amendment, but there are parts of that complexity that are not solved by it. I shall come to that in due course. It would probably be helpful if I briefly set out the current remand position for young people. As Members will be aware, where a young person appears before a court on a serious charge and has been bailed to attend, the court itself will normally remand the young person, either on bail or in custody, until a fixed date. This test is essentially the same for all ages, although a young person may be refused bail if it is necessary for his or her own welfare. We should remember, though, that the criteria for bail are not the subject of the proposed new clause. The Bail Act applies to young and old alike. For those aged 17 or older, if the offender is remanded in custody, the remand for 17 year-olds will be in a youth offender institution. For those aged under 16, a young person will normally be remanded to the care of a local authority and two options for dealing with that remand are then considered—whether to detain the child or young person in secure or non-secure accommodation. The Committee will know that that power is contained in Section 23 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. A secure remand can include a placement in a youth offender institution, a secure training or a local authority secure children’s home. A non-secure remand can include a children’s home or foster care, or a local authority may choose to remand the young person back to the family home under the supervision of their parents. The amendment would effectively bring 17 year-olds in line with the provisions applying to young people aged 16 and under. That would mean that a 17 year-old would be remanded to the care of the local authority and, subject to either the secure or the non-secure criteria, could be placed in a secure training centre or a local authority secure children’s home. Our position is that ideally we want courts to consider whether a secure or non-secure remand option is most appropriate for a 17 year-old. However, we do not believe that they should be remanded into the care of the local authority. Section 23 of the Children and Young Persons Act also provides for the placement of the very youngest and the most vulnerable young people into local authority accommodation. Are we wrong to think it inappropriate to introduce 17 year-olds to local authority care and allow them to mix with that vulnerable group of younger children, particularly those who are there for welfare reasons? That would be wrong in precisely the same way as it was absolutely wrong, in the days the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was talking about, to have 17 year-olds in Her Majesty’s adult prisons.