Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

moved Amendment No. 47: 47: After Clause 9, insert the following new Clause— ““Principle aim of the youth justice system (1) Section 37 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (c. 37) (aim of the youth justice system) is amended as follows. (2) For subsection (1) substitute— ““(1) It shall be the principal aim of the youth justice system to promote the welfare of children and in so doing have particular regard to the need to prevent offending (including reoffending).”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships are aware that I have already spoken on this amendment, because it was grouped with the government amendments at the beginning of our deliberations today. I do not propose to rehearse again the arguments that I put at that time. I was grateful for the support I received from all quarters of the House for the amendment. There are one or two points to which I am entitled to reply that were made at that time—in particular, on the syntactical infelicity to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, referred. I do not think that there is such an infelicity. Proposed new subsection (2) says: "““It shall be the principal aim of the youth justice system to promote the welfare of children and in so doing—””" in other words, in so promoting— "““have particular regard to the need to prevent offending (including reoffending)””." All of us who have listened to today’s debates will appreciate that it is very much the welfare of children that we have in mind and that if there is a promotion of the welfare of children it may well stop offending or reoffending in the way in which this amendment is phrased. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, was good enough to say that we confront Section 37 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with which, he said, the law began to go wrong. I was interested to discover that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, who was in his place earlier today, said about the provision in the then Bill, at Second Reading in December 1997: "““As far as I can tell, creation of a general duty is an innovation not to be found in other parts of the system of criminal justice. While it sounds desirable enough in principle, there may be difficulties in reconciling it with international treaty obligations on the rights of the child and there will be an awkward question to be faced as to whether or not it should extend to defence counsel in criminal proceedings. But they are good intentions and good intentions often have practical consequences which must then be faced and resolved in some way that is regarded as satisfactory to the legislature””.—[Official Report, 16/12/97; col. 569.]" There have been practical problems. In my earlier remarks, I outlined how the provisions in the 1998 Act has been overtaken by later legislation that has incorporated our duties and responsibilities under international treaties. What we are trying to do with his amendment is to rebalance the youth justice system so as to put the welfare of the child first and make it the purpose and principal aim of the statement of principle for the youth justice system as a whole. It is a principle that should not simply be confined to the court’s sentencing and the purposes of the court in sentencing, to which Clause 9 refers. It should be a principle that applies across the board to every agency, whether it is the police, prison officers, youth offending teams, probation services and so on. I am interested to hear that a youth crime action plan is being proposed by the Government, in which no doubt those cross-agency problems will be addressed. I put the amendment forward for your Lordships’ consideration in order to bring the 1998 Act up to date, having regard to the obligations of which I have spoken. I beg to move.