My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, for the very long campaign he has fought to put restorative justice on a statutory footing. Although I am sure he is right to pay tribute to and thank the Opposition for their support, it is also worth pointing out that it was this Government who actually did that. In the battle to do so, I pay tribute to the former Prisons Minister, Crispin Blunt, who joined battle with me within the department to make sure that we got the first foothold as far as restorative justice is concerned.
I am glad that we have the eagle eye of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. Of course, reparative and restorative justice are not the same thing. I fully associate myself with the points that the noble Lord made about the value of reparative justice. It can be very significant, in not only what it does but also getting the confidence of the community—the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. The community sees a derelict site cleaned up or some piece of community work restored as part of reparative justice and has confidence that it is worth while.
I also fully agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, about what we are trying to do in this Bill. We are doing a little smoke and mirrors with the money we have available—I freely confess that—but even if we had all the money we wanted, it would still require that change in culture to which the noble and learned Lord referred.
I hope that we can make this work and carry it through. I am not sure whether we will ever carry the great British press with us. My office always gets very perturbed when I attack the British press. I merely observe that the regular comments on this area of policy always leave me in despair, not about humanity but about journalists.
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However, I am sure we will get a change of culture from a public that sees results. I think we will get support from victims. I went to Thames Valley to have a look at the restorative justice operation that is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Blair. Meeting victims there left me in no doubt that they found it an extremely
restorative exercise in coming through the trauma of crime. I fully associate myself with the work of the Butler Trust. Anyone who goes around a prison knows what a difficult job we ask our prison officers to do. That change of culture is certainly part of what we want to do.
Both today and on other occasions in this House, noble Lords have made the powerful case for the importance of restorative justice. It is clear that there is little that divides us on this. As I say, anyone who has met victims and offenders who have taken part in restorative justice will know the positive impact it can have. For victims, it offers an opportunity to have their voices heard. For offenders, it provides an opportunity to face the consequences of their actions and the impact that they have had on others. The Government are firmly committed to ensuring that more victims and offenders can take part in restorative justice. I am particularly proud that in the Crime and Courts Act the Government were able to put pre-sentence restorative justice on to a statutory footing.
Let me deal with Amendments 27, 27A and 28 first. Taken together, Amendments 27 and 28 would make explicit that a rehabilitation activity requirement can include restorative justice activities. They would do this by removing the reference in Clause 13 to rehabilitation activities including those whose purpose is reparative. Amendment 27A does much the same, except it would retain the current provision that activities can include those whose purpose is reparative—what I would call the “Beecham sticking plaster”.
In response, I start by reassuring noble Lords that it is absolutely the Government’s intention that restorative justice should be delivered under the new rehabilitation activity requirements. Given the good evidence of the impact that restorative justice can have on reoffending, I am sure that many providers will want to make use of restorative processes in appropriate cases. We would not want to stand in the way of that, and Clause 13 is certainly not intended to prevent that—quite the reverse.
It may be helpful here if I explain what the current Clause 13 provides for. It creates a new Section 200A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Subsection (7) of new Section 200A makes clear that activities an offender is required to participate in can include those whose purpose is reparative as well as rehabilitative. The clause is drafted in this way to refer back to the statutory purposes of sentencing. As noble Lords will know, the making of reparation to persons affected by their offences is one of these purposes. Restorative justice—as a process that can deliver various positive outcomes—is not a purpose of sentencing in itself, but by linking the new requirement to both reparation and rehabilitation, our firm intention is to give scope for providers to deliver restorative activities that can benefit offenders and victims. It is also worth noting that the same link to reparation applies to the activity requirements available under the top-up supervision created by Clause 2 of the Bill.
Schedule 1 to the Bill makes clear that if an offender released from a short custodial sentence is required to take part in activities, key parts of new Section 200A also apply, including the provision that activities can deliver reparation as well as rehabilitation.
In short, Clause 13 already gives scope for delivery of restorative justice activities. None the less, noble Lords have made a good case for bringing greater clarity to the types of activities that supervisors might require offenders to do, both as part of a rehabilitation activity requirement under a community order or suspended sentence, and as part of an activity requirement during post-release supervision. I am therefore happy to take this point away further to consider it and bring it back to the House.
Taken together, Amendments 25 and 29 would create a new stand-alone restorative justice requirement that could be imposed as part of a community order or a suspended sentence order. Noble Lords will know that courts can and do already order restorative justice activities to take place as part of a community order or suspended sentence order. This is currently done through the activity requirement, which provides for activities to include those with a reparative purpose. Although Clause 13 replaces the existing activity requirement, as I have already explained, it maps across this provision to allow for restorative justice activities to continue to take place under the new rehabilitation activity requirement. When the Government consulted on restorative justice as part of community orders in 2012, respondents did not identify that there was a major gap in the use of restorative justice as a requirement of non-custodial sentences. That was why, in the Crime and Courts Act, we focused on making provision for restorative justice pre-sentence.
While I therefore support the noble and learned Lord’s intention in tabling these two amendments, I do not believe that they are necessary. I hope that in the light of the undertaking I have given to take away the issues raised by Amendments 27, 27A and 28, and my explanation of the other amendments, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will agree to withdraw the amendment.