Clause 44 - Power for police to make schemes
Criminal Justice and Police Bill
4:30 pm
Mrs Jackie Ballard (Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 34, line 21, leave out subsection (2).
I am surprised that the official Opposition do not have a position on the extension of child curfew orders to teenagers under 16. I have made clear my position and I shall not take up much of the Committee's time in moving the amendment, because we do not want either clause to be in existence. However, accepting that it was likely that clause 43 would be passed, we decided to try to improve clause 44.
The idea of the measure is that the public should not be subject to intimidation from large groups of young people, but when the Government talked initially about the provision for under 10-year-olds, they said that child welfare was the key issue. Local authorities were to make child curfew orders, because they have to provide for the education and welfare of children, through social services, youth services and a whole raft of measures that may give young people alternatives to hanging about on street corners. To say, as the clause does, that the police can also have the power to make local child curfew orders, independently of local authorities, which are reduced to the level of consultees, is to move away from any pretence of considering child welfare and into the sphere of criminal sanctions.