I shall speak to Amendments 43, 44B, 45, 47 and 48 in my name and support without further comment Amendments 42F, 42G, 42J, 42K, 43, 43A, 44A and 45A, to which I have added my name, and about which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has spoken so eloquently. Later in the proceedings I shall speak on clause stand part, putting forward alternative proposals to those about which so many object so strongly—witness the Lib Dem complex Amendment 43C.
At Third Reading of the Bill in the other place, the Secretary of State said of the Government that they were not a Government who,
“legislated without taking into account the views of Parliament”. —[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/14; col. 1070.]
Those of us who observed the deliberate way in which Parliament was denied the opportunity to discuss changes to the way probation is delivered have reason to question this. There has already been discussion about secure college rules at Second Reading, when the Minister told the House that some, but not all, were to be subjected to the consultation process, which would be launched before Report. He assured us that this included those related to the use of reasonable force in the interests of good order and discipline, which subject is to be discussed in the next group. However, in addition to its incomplete nature I am concerned that the consultation process will not be completed before the Bill has completed its passage through both Houses, thus reducing parliamentary involvement in the consultation to something of a farce. The Minister will remember that I asked him, when he addressed a Cross-Bench meeting, whether or not these rules had been published. The head of the Bill team said that they had not, in contradiction to the Secretary of State, who told the other place at Third Reading that they had; that appears in col. 1071 of Hansard on 17 June.
As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has pointed out, instead of laying down what regime potential contractors are to provide in secure colleges, the Government appear to be inviting them to say what they propose to do, the best alleged value for money then presumably being adopted as government policy. But by no stretch of the imagination should any country that claims to be civilised do the same as far as rules governing the good order and discipline of children are concerned. Therefore Amendment 43 is designed to ensure that Parliament is given an opportunity to scrutinise and approve whatever the Government lay down in this regard.
I have a further plea for the Minister regarding the consultation on the rules. I hope that this time it will be a proper consultation and not yet another Ministry of Justice travesty which consists of calling for consultations and then publishing a pre-determined plan regardless.
Amendment 44B relates to changes made during the passage of the Children and Families Bill regarding children with special educational and speech, language and communication needs. Originally, children in detention were excluded from any provision, including education, health and care plans that home local authorities were required to make for any child with such needs. However, that has changed, and not only are places of detention now required to provide resources to enable an EHC plan to be continued while in custody, but that place is responsible for informing the local authority if the child is moved. Furthermore, a child can be assessed while in custody and an EHC plan made which is then binding on the home local authority on his or her release.
My amendment is designed to place a duty on the principal of a secure college, not only to use their best endeavours to ensure that the needs of those children arriving with the existing EHC plans are met, but that staff are trained to identify those with problems so that they can then be assessed for such plans. This is not a new subject, because on Report in the other place, the Minister agreed that,
“a great deal of further thought will be given to how those needs can be met”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/5/14; col. 538.]
What action has been taken in this regard?
Amendment 45 relates to the vexed issue of staffing. As the Minister knows, the principal reason for the relatively high cost of secure children’s homes is the high staff-child ratio, which reflects the numbers of specialists whom this age group needs. As I found when inspecting private sector prisons, companies were tempted to take risks with staffing to preserve their profit margins, which led to problems over safety. Furthermore, because of the wages that such companies pay to unskilled employees there is a very high turnover of junior staff, which is the very antithesis of a key point in successful working with the kind of children we are talking about, namely enabling long-term contact with responsible adults. Can the Minister say whether minimum staff-children ratios have been laid down, so that secure college contractors cannot take short cuts with children’s safety?
Amendment 47 seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State specifies the content of the educational programme that the Government have said they will provide in order to double current provision. So far, we have no details of whether this refers to academic-only content—related to the current 12 hours a week provided in YOIs, 25 hours in secure training centres or 30 hours in secure children’s homes—or what proportion will be vocational, physical, social or whatever. Without any baseline, how can the Government possibly judge the efficacy of any competitive bid? To be quite honest, it seems that the Government simply have not a clue about what is needed to satisfy their specious claim and that, under the smokescreen of phoney commercial in-confidence claims, they are hoping that potential
providers will come up with some answers that they can then pretend are their programme. I challenge the Minister to prove that I am wrong by producing evidence of the details of the programme that has been put out to tender, and details of who evaluated its ability to meet the need.
Finally, Amendment 48 refers to the statutory training of secure college custody officers. To be utterly frank, the twin issues of quality and qualifications of staff trouble me greatly because of the damage that unsuitable or ill trained people can do to already damaged children. I remember meeting an old Army colleague—a member of my personal protection team when I was commanding my regiment in Belfast—after a gap of 20 years, when he was the senior officer responsible for the reception of children at HM YOI Onley, which was first the YOI that I inspected. I had added a social services inspector to my team because at that time we had no children’s custody expert. After two days, she told me that if Onley were a secure children’s home, she would have recommended the immediate closure of its children’s part because of the paucity of its regime and the lack of qualified staff.
I then met Corporal Gibbons and asked what I could give him if I had a magic wand. I shall never forget his answer: “Time—20 minutes trying to convince these young people that, for the first time in their lives, a responsible adult is taking an interest in them is worth all the hours of programmes, or whatever they call them”. The lesson still applies today and woe betide anyone who forgets it. The purpose of this amendment is to enable Parliament to ensure that all secure college staff are qualified to make the best use of the time available to them, which will enable them to make the vital breakthrough in changing troubled young lives.
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