Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for his comments on Clause 175 in the sense that I thought I heard a rather more reflective tone in his approach to something that I know he does not have a great deal of sympathy with. I understand where he is coming from. In essence, I think, he was trying to pose the question for the Committee: is the ISO route the best way to make better use of anti-social behaviour orders? That is a reasonable and fair issue to raise. I do not agree with the noble Lord’s conclusion. The fact that ISOs have not been as extensively used as we would perhaps wish is due to two reasons. First, they have not been in place for an overly lengthy period of time so the experience of using them is not so profound, whereas ABSOs have been in place for the better part of a decade and there is more knowledge and understanding of their use and value. However, ISOs can have value, and add value to ASBOs. We must ensure that the ISOs can work better. They have been in place only since May 2004 and can be attached to ASBOs made against young people between the ages of 10 and 17. Individual support orders impose what one could fairly recognise as being positive conditions on young people designed to tackle the underlying causes of their anti-social behaviour. Such conditions might typically include attendance of an anger management course or different forms of counselling. Those are valuable forms of support and will be recognised as such. Individual support orders can last up to six months and are currently available for stand-alone ASBOs made in the magistrates’ courts only. Legislation sets out that, where a magistrates' court makes an ASBO against a young person, it must also make an individual support order if it considers that that order would help to prevent further anti-social behaviour. That is positive support to prevent anti-social behaviour in the future. They are also a significant part of our strategy to reduce anti-social behaviour. Practitioners like them and, where they have been applied, they have a proven track record of success. However, the circumstances in which individual support orders can be made are rather limited. They are available only where a magistrates’ court makes a stand-alone ASBO on a young person between the ages of 10 and 17. We believe that other young people could benefit from the ISO approach, to say nothing of the communities which would benefit if the underlying causes of anti-social behaviour are tackled. The clause extends the availability of ISOs. It gives the court the power to make an individual support order where an ASBO is made on conviction. It gives the county court the power to make an individual support order and substantially increases flexibility around when an ISO can be made. Individual support orders could be made more than once and could be made subsequent to the making of an original ASBO. A major benefit of the clause is that it ties in with Clause 174, which would require young people’s ASBOs to be reviewed annually. Clause 175 would give the applicant authority the flexibility to be able to apply to the court for an individual support order or a further individual support order, for example, if the annual review concludes that it would be merited. Finally, the clause allows an ISO to be issued if it is desirable in the interests of preventing the repetition of anti-social behaviour which led to a variation of an ASBO rather than merely the behaviour that—