Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I very much support the amendment. I would have added my name to it, but it was too popular and there was no space left. It provides a welcome opportunity to talk about the inappropriateness of most of the accommodation in which children and young people are held and to see if we can persuade the Minister that we can do better, given our recent, small successes. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for the way that he moved the amendment and for what he said about Brinsford. I am grateful to the Printed Paper Office, which always sends me the reports of the Chief Inspector of Prisons. When I do not have time to read the all of the reports, I always look at the sections on time in the open air. I have to tell noble Lords that, so far, one in 10 establishments, including those for juveniles, allow time in the open air every day. That is astonishing, considering that one of the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners is that everyone shall have time in the open air every day. Our starting point is that we are discussing vulnerable young people. The starting age for placement in an institution of this nature is, I think, 12. If I am wrong, I am sure that the Minister will tell me. About 200 of the juveniles who are locked up are put in local authority secure children’s homes that are run according to childcare principles, as my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss has told us. The rest we put in prison-like establishments that are run either by the Prison Service, according to its rules, or in secure training centres. The Joint Committee on Human Rights very recently published a report on the use of restraint in secure training centres. The committee had tried to get hold of the training manual that set out how to train members of staff to restrain children in those centres and young offender institutions. That training manual is secret; but following pressure from the Joint Committee, a redacted version can be seen in the Library. The headings of some of the redacted sections are very interesting and I shall bring them to the attention of noble Lords. The Joint Committee’s report stated: "““We were alarmed by the headings of some of the redacted sections, namely ‘hair grab’, ‘strangle against the wall’, ‘strangle on the ground’, ‘kicks standing’ and ‘kicks on the floor’. It was not possible to ascertain the content of these sections””—" clearly because they were headings followed by plain white space. One of the secure training centres that trains people according the manual is called Oakhill. The Chief Inspector of Prisons and Ofsted recently inspected it, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for referring to the inspection report. The chief inspector said: "““For some time, Ofsted and the YJB have been concerned about the centre, particularly the lack of sufficient order and control, without which the safety of both children and staff cannot be assured. As a result, in July 2007 the YJB limited the number of children at the centre to 56 and required the contractor to put in place a recovery plan””." Therefore, 56 of the children locked up in an establishment needed a recovery plan. The Youth Justice Board asked the prisons inspectorate to inspect and the chief inspector concluded: "““Sadly, our inspection confirmed that staff at Oakhill continued to struggle to maintain order and to control safely the children in their care ... The scale of the centre’s difficulties was illustrated most starkly by the staggering levels of use of force by staff, often in response to the all too frequent assaults by children on staff and on other children. In the nine months before the inspection, force was used 757 times. On 532 occasions””—" that is, within nine months— "““this involved the highest level of restraint, requiring at least three members of staff, with one holding the child’s head. Without a sharp reduction in these statistics the centre cannot pretend to be anywhere near the recovery required by the YJB””." The chief inspector ended by saying: "““We had some confidence that the new direction could, given time, turn the centre around, but this required the YJB to provide certainty about its future, which was … unlikely while matters remained at such a low ebb. It might be more realistic for the YJB to empty the centre briefly, so that it can be re-launched with a properly trained and reinvigorated staff””." I hope the Minister will tell us that it was emptied but I fear that he will not. Finally, perhaps I may raise a point about Section 34 of the Offender Management Act 2007, which some of us who were involved in the passage of that legislation will remember. Section 34 gives the Secretary of State power to specify by order types of custodial provision in which a detention and training order may be served in addition to young offender institutions, secure training centres and local authority secure children’s homes. Can the Minister tell us whether that power is being used, how often it has been used and whether it has led to new and interesting therapeutic interventions for young offenders? If it is being used, it could be a basis for implementing this amendment, which I very much support.