Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Greg Pope (Hyndburn, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 12, in schedule 14, page 137, line 18, at beginning insert—

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

The purpose of the new clause and the amendment is to provoke a debate about the fact that the Bill is increasingly drifting away from the assumption on which some of the original legislation in this area, including the Children and Young Persons Act 1933, and even the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, is based. In cases covered by those, it is assumed there is a benefit to anonymity for children and young people in criminal and similar proceedings. The lifting of reporting restrictions and the ability to name and shame pose certain risks.

We see value in antisocial behaviour orders, as I have repeatedly said, despite the scepticism on the Labour Benches. However, the attendant publicity is sometimes counterproductive. I have heard about kids coming out of the courts in my constituency and going up to reporters from the local paper, the Gloucestershire Echo, and asking, essentially, “Will this get me my picture in the Echo?” To be named and shamed almost becomes a badge of pride in some families—it is seen as a mark of achievement. That is counterproductive. I can see the value of antisocial behaviour orders if they apply to an immediate local area, and of a level of publicity being given to a particular offender in the area, so that people going in to a particular newsagent or shop know that person’s identity and that they should not be in that immediate local area. However, the wider use of publicity and naming and shaming gives cause for concern.

It is worth revisiting a few issues. First, the Children and Young Persons Act originally imposed restrictions to protect the identity of children who are at a formative stage in their lives. In some cases, we are talking about children as young as in their teens, and perhaps younger, and who are still capable of being directed down more positive paths in their lives and able to respond to positive intervention, support and some of the other methods we have talked about, of a more supportive nature. The naming and shaming begins to set in stone the pathway down which those children are going, and risks placing them on a one-way path to further antisocial behaviour and perhaps ultimately criminal behaviour.

The Government and this country are signatories to the UN convention on the rights of the child. It is worth revisiting some of the clauses that we have   signed up to in that convention because they should give us pause in the headlong rush to name and shame young people. Article 3 of the convention states:

“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”

In other words, it is not a matter of weighing up the interests of the children concerned against the wider interests of the community. We have to treat the child’s interests as a “primary consideration”, and if there are other ways of meeting communities’ justifiable concerns, without naming and shaming, perhaps we should be looking at those more often.

Mark Pritchard (Wrekin, The, Conservative)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, on occasions, punishment can be beneficial for children, and if naming and shaming is part of that punishment, that they might actually benefit from it?

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

I think that authorities need to retain the flexibility to respond appropriately to individual cases. Personally, I am more an enthusiast for supportive and more positive approaches, than for punishment as a first option. However, I understand the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for punishment.

Article 19 of the UN convention states:

“Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation ... while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child”.

Again, there is the risk that by naming and shaming children in that way, we are putting them at risk of, for instance, reprisals from other families or children in the community. Those are serious matters that should give us pause for thought.

Finally, Article 40 states:

“Parties recognize the right of every child alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth, which reinforces the child’s respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others and which takes into account the child’s age and the desirability of promoting the child’s reintegration and the child’s assuming a constructive role in society.”

Mark Pritchard (Wrekin, The, Conservative)

I hope that you will indulge me for one moment, Mr. Pope. Can we really take seriously that statement from an organisation that saw tens of thousands of children killed because of its inaction in Rwanda and Burundi?

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman may like to know that I worked for Oxfam at the time of the Rwandan genocide and was involved in raising millions of pounds to support the victims. Oxfam field workers, who might have been critical of the actions of particular UN, or other international agencies—although there were mitigating circumstances—are extremely supportive of the UN convention on the rights of the child, and take it very seriously. It is an important convention to which everybody has signed up. The United Kingdom is a signatory, and it is very   important that we take the convention’s provisions extremely seriously. I think that that was a slightly ill-judged intervention.

The article to which I was referring mentions treating any child accused under penal law

“in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth”.

With the naming and shaming for which there is great enthusiasm, we can sometimes forget the damage that might be done to individual children—we are still talking about children—by a process that sets them on a pathway and fixes their sense of themselves in a negative way. The amendments are designed to probe the Government’s attitude and response to that point.

Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)

Sometimes antisocial behaviour is caricatured as emanating simply from the activities of young people. It is important that the Committee is aware that more than half of antisocial behaviour orders are on adults. There are some nasty adults out there who think that they can behave in whatever way they like without the prospect of any action being taken against them. People sometimes think that every bit of antisocial behaviour is about young people, which it is not.

At least 95 per cent. of our young people are good and decent and make a fantastic contribution to the community. Hundreds of thousands are involved in volunteering, and we are trying to get another million volunteering in the next few years through the Russell commission and the youth and community service, into which we have put £100 million. That is a fabulous opportunity for young people to get involved in their communities and do something positive. A huge amount of Government policy has been about investing in young people. Some £115 million will shortly go into new youth facilities to be designed and shaped by young people. The thrust of our policy is not about being punitive towards young people or demonising them in the way that they are sometimes caricatured by various individuals and organisations. However it is important that where a small minority of people are engaged in antisocial behaviour, the public should have confidence that steps are being taken to address that and ensure that it does not happen in future. That is why ASBOs have broadly been welcomed across the country. They give people a bit of peace and respite and allow them to get on with their lives in a way that most of us take for granted. Unfortunately people in a few areas do not have that luxury.

New clause 1 would repeal the sections of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 that removed the automatic imposition of reporting restrictions, but gave the courts discretion on the matter, in proceedings against juveniles for breaching their antisocial behaviour orders. Publicity in such cases is sometimes an integral part of tackling antisocial behaviour in an area. I say to the hon. Gentleman that it is not about naming and shaming, as he put it. Publicity is not to punish or shame the individual, but is there to let the community know that action has been taken and to engage local people in helping to monitor the conditions that have been set out in the ASBO. If the conditions are   breached, people can get in touch with their local neighbourhood policing team and say that they have seen a person in an area who is not supposed to be there, or that somebody has carried on harassing someone. The police can then take action to enforce the ASBOs. The orders must be taken seriously and enforced whenever there are breaches, so that the community can continue to have confidence.

If there is no publicity at all, the process will be hidden and people who have been very brave in coming forward and giving evidence in court will have no sense that an order has been made. They will not know that conditions have been imposed so that people have to behave in a decent and proper way, or that if they do not, the breach will be taken seriously and sanctions will follow. It is important that each of those elements is in place if the system is to have proper public confidence.

The courts can still impose reporting restrictions if they believe that the situation warrants it. That is the right position to be in. The court will look at the individual case, and if there is somebody who is particularly vulnerable, and there are real reasons why reporting restrictions should be imposed, the court has the power to do so. To remove that ability would undermine the use of the orders and the public’s confidence in those orders being imposed.

I take our responsibilities under the convention on the rights of the child very seriously; in fact, the whole country does. We have a proud record of making sure that we support and look after young people in this country. However, it is also important that we consider the interests of the victims of antisocial behaviour. If we went through the record of the previous sitting of the Committee, we would probably find half a dozen occasions on which I told Liberal Democrat Members that they had been considering the issues from the point of view of the perpetrator, not necessarily the victim and the community. This whole debate has been about getting the balance right. All that I would say to Liberal Democrat Members is that they draw the line in the wrong place. Most people in our communities would agree that our priority should be making sure that we protect the decent, law-abiding majority who play by the rules and just want to get on with their lives.

Martin Horwood (Shadow Minister (Environment), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

In response to the Minister’s last comment, the record will show that I have talked quite a lot about the victims today. I have given several examples of how crime and antisocial behaviour blight people’s lives, and I take the issue extremely seriously. There is a slight tendency for the Minister and Labour Members to put words into the Liberal Democrats’ mouths. For instance, I did not say that anything in the legislation demonised or caricatured young people. I did not even suggest that all ASBOs applied to young people. It is simply that the amendments relate only to young people. That is why young people were the subject of my earlier comments.

I agree with the Minister that it is important that breaches in ASBOs be tackled, and that the community have complete confidence in the process. With the amendments, we are urging a pause for thought about not just the benefits resulting from the provisions, but the damage that they may do to some individuals.

The Minister is confident that there is no difficulty with the UN convention on the rights of the child, but that view is not shared by the current chair of the Youth Justice Board, who was asked by the Select Committee on Home Affairs in February 2005 whether the provisions constituted a breach of human rights principles. He said that he thought that they did. Therefore, there is a risk with publicity, although, as I said earlier, I accept that publicity in the immediate local area, communicating the nature of the ASBO, may have value. As the Minister says, that helps the community to have confidence in the process.

I hope that, even if I withdraw the motion, the Minister will look into possible ways in which the administration and use of publicity could be more sensitive and subtle. I hope, too, that the kind of problems that I have addressed can be considered. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.