Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

The noble Lord is correct. The priority factors for a person’s placement are their age, vulnerability and closeness to home, which is where usually a person would receive their education. No one likes to move people. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked me to address two things. The first is the importance of the first placement, with which we would agree and which is one of the factors. His second point is what happens when you have to transfer a young person. Of course, as a parent, that is the last thing you ever want to do, but there are occasions on which it happens; for example, when the safety of the young person or the young person’s behaviour makes it a requirement that they have to move. In considering those moves, the Youth Justice Board follows a protocol which covers all transfers made across the entire secure estate for children and young people, and prescribes a process for each type of transfer. There are four main types of transfer; namely, vulnerable and at risk, discipline, planned and overcrowding. Now that the young offender institutions are not so full, we hope that overcrowding will not be such a problem. Other types of transfers include emergency transfers, mental health transfers and transfers within the individual case management process protocol where the person is being particularly disruptive.