Public Bodies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate, especially the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who appears to have damaged his career prospects in doing so. I began to feel a bit sorry for the Minister as the afternoon wore on. He dealt with the debate with his customary charm and evasion, and I pay tribute to those skills—particularly with some of the noises coming from behind him. If he thinks that he has trouble with me, I think that he has a lot more trouble with the noble Lord, Lord Elton. It is interesting that five former Ministers spoke today from different Benches. They all showed a healthy scepticism about the ability of government departments to take on these jobs. It is worth bearing in mind that it is not just a load of head-bangers like me who are saying that but some of the Minister’s colleagues, who have spent their time in the salt mines of government. I note that the Prime Minister was not entirely overwhelmed by the performance of the Civil Service this week in some areas of its activity, so if the Minister gets too energetic in defending the MoJ’s civil servants, he may want to think about whether he will join the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, in the doghouse in terms of his ministerial prospects. There is quite a lot here for the Minister to dwell upon. Perhaps I might just correct him and others who spoke this afternoon: they are youth offending teams not youth offender teams. It helps you to convey a sense of knowledge about the sector if you get the titles right, I have always found. I will not spend long talking about the issues that were raised but I will spend a few moments on the secure estate. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, raised the interesting point about money. He was quite right to do so, because the secure estate gobbles up most of the Youth Justice Board’s budget. It will gobble up a lot more money if the good work that Francis Done and others have done is not continued to keep down the number of young people going into custody down. The Government might find that any savings they make by taking some of these functions in-house will, in a few years, result in a some surprises in the Ministry of Justice’s budget if not such a great job has been done as that carried out by Youth Justice Board in commissioning services and keeping youngsters out of custody. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, raised an interesting point, which I would certainly want to reflect on before Report. It was an important point about whether one can ensure the good behaviour of future Ministers in this regard. The Minister mentioned that his colleagues wanted the adult criminal justice services to learn from the advantages of the youth justice service. That is a praiseworthy objective, but it seems to me that he is more likely to achieve that if he looks at the instrument that was used with the youth justice services to try to drive change. It took a long time to get some of these programmes—their structures, relationships and working practices—changed when the Youth Justice Board was set up. The youth offending teams did not all say, ““Hurrah! Parliament has passed the Crime and Disorder Act and we’re all going to change our practices””. It took a lot of hard graft to get people to do that. You are seeing the results of that hard graft coming through in the work of the Youth Justice Board in the past few years. Before you throw it all away, you need to think about how long it takes to get change in most public services. I will reflect on what the Minister said. I am after not a Pyrrhic victory but a real victory. I am very encouraged by some of the responses from across the House on this amendment. I will reflect on everything that was said, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 63 withdrawn. Schedule 1 agreed. Clause 2 : Power to merge Amendment 64 Clause 2 : Power to merge Amendment 64 Moved by