Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I put my name to the stand part debate for exactly the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has outlined. In his letter to us of 12 December, the Minister said that a curfew can be an effective tool in punishing offenders, preventing reoffending and giving respite to victims. At the same time, the National Audit Office said in a report that such curfews were a problem for employment and could pose real barriers to people finding work. That seems to be the antithesis of preventing reoffending through helping people to live purposeful lives. I have two comments, one about Clause 67 and one about Clause 75. There is a particular problem with women who are disproportionately affected by such increases, especially if they have children. I cannot believe that this has been thought through. The other people I am particularly concerned about are those with mental health problems. They certainly do not need to be locked up under virtual house arrest—they need the stimulus of company and everything that goes with it. Again, I do not think that extending such a curfew for a year would serve any useful purpose. I will always remember visiting young offender institutions where the youngsters were locked up all day, and watching what happened when they were let out for an hour at about 6 pm. They were just like puppies, all over each other. The prison staff, who did not know how to handle this, called it assault. It was not—it was the letting off of the adolescent steam which is a normal part of growing up. Locking up youngsters who come from a dysfunctional family, living in a small number of rooms, surrounded by others, for 16 hours a day for a year, is not a civilised way of coping with the problem. It is punishment, punishment, punishment, to the exclusion of civilisation. The present system, which has a 12-hour curfew lasting six months, is in many ways causing the problems which the National Audit Office has commented on. Therefore, an extension would make things worse. As the noble Baroness said, we are setting these people up to breach the curfew, and then all we will do is make the problem worse. So I beg the Minister seriously to consider this extension and preferably to omit these clauses from the Bill.