Policing and Crime Bill

I have a great deal of sympathy for the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, about the stereotyping of the young in relation to offences of various kinds and the way in which that stereotyping may unduly influence the police and others in power, such as magistrates. However, I must express a certain doubt about the desirability of imposing a statutory duty on police authorities to consult children and young persons specifically. The noble Baroness did not define "children" and "young persons", and I assume from other parts of the law, such as employment law, that "young persons" normally means those between 16 and 18 and that, when the phrases "young persons" and "children" are alongside one another, "children" presumably covers those below 16. While I have some feeling that consulting young persons may be worth while and beneficial to everyone concerned in judging what the police should or should not do, I am rather doubtful about children if they are to be defined as those under 16. I know that we have youth parliaments and so on; they are of great educational value, to help people debate and understand and listen to others. But the idea that the police authority should seriously sit down with children—presumably, to be representative, they would have to be not just under 16, but some of them under 10, or under 8, or maybe even under the age of criminal responsibility for all I know—seems to be taking liberalism too far.