Clause 8 - Arrangements to safeguard and promote welfare
Children Bill [Lords]
2:30 pm
Mr Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre, Labour)
Welcome back to the Chair, Dame Marion.
The amendments would bring the courts within the safeguarding framework, and require them to notify local safeguarding children boards of decisions to detain children in custody. I hope that the Youth
Justice Board could be required to notify LSCBs and to produce an annual report on children who are not placed in appropriate custodial accommodation. The Munby judgment in the judicial review of the case brought by the Howard League for Penal Reform decided that the Children Act 1989 applied to children in prison, but it is the local authority that has the duty under the Act to ensure such protection. Amendment No. 102 would ensure that the LSCB had oversight of all the children from its area who were in custody, whether they were in young offenders' institutions, youth treatment centres or local authority secure units. The reasons for the amendments are well known: there have been far too many tragic deaths of children and young people in custody. [Interruption.]