Clause 12
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
11:30 am
David Hanson (Minister of State, Ministry of Justice; Delyn, Labour)
I shall try to answer this short debate positively. I have some sympathy with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, and I hope that that shows that it is not all confrontation and disagreement among Committee members, and that there are occasions when we can reflect in a productive way on amendments that are tabled.
I recognise that there is precedent for a measure of the type suggested by the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, the murder tariff was debated in the context of the Bill that became the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and after consideration during the passage of that Bill, the Government reduced the starting point for juveniles convicted of murder. I have said that I have some sympathy with the amendment, but I ask the hon. Gentleman not to press it to a Division—I think that he has indicated that he will not. I ask him to withdraw the amendment and I will examine the issues in detail before we return to the matter following the end of the Committee’s consideration of this Bill.
I have little, if any, disagreement with the comments made by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough. Unfortunately, I did not see him when we exited Oakhill STC very rapidly. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families and I had to dash for a train so that we could return to London urgently for a further meeting. Had that not been the case, I would have happily had the hon. and learned Gentleman accompany me at Oakhill to look at the work going on there.
The hon. and learned Gentleman makes a valid point. I am not proud of the fact that when I woke up this morning, nearly 4,000 young people were in custody in secure training centres and other establishments. That is a failure of the system. We need to do several things, not least ensuring that when those individuals leave our care they are better individuals than when they came in. That means that we need to look at education—literacy and numeracy—at the difficulties in dealing with drug and alcohol problems, and at interventions outside establishments, with families and others. We must look at training and at skill levels and development, and we must consider housing and employment when individuals leave custody.
I know that the four Opposition Front Benchers and I have a common cause. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate take a positive view on this. I know that the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood is interested in the Blue Sky project in his constituency, which promotes positive investment in individuals, and I know that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome shares that aspiration. There is work to be done, and I hope that we can reach some form of cross-party consensus on what should be done to make secure training centres efficient and effective. It is not just a matter of detention and punishment, although it does involve that. It is also about rehabilitation, preventing reoffending, and ensuring that people leave those centres in a more positive way.
I say to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough that there is work to be done at Oakhill to raise standards still further, and the reason for our visit was to look at how we can do that. We all have that objective. In giving sympathy and consideration to the amendment, I hope that both in Committee and elsewhere we can look at how to make the operation of STCs more effective.
Finally, the reason why the Minister for Children, Young People and Families and myself were there was because since the new Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr. Brown), took office, he ensured that the Youth Justice Board was not the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Justice, but that of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, too. The purpose of that is to better integrate work in education and training, and outside-establishment interventions, and to ensure that we do exactly what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough says: make the experience more positive for those going through the system. Hopefully, in doing so, we can reduce the awful reoffending rate for those coming out of an STC, which is at about 75 per cent. That is not satisfactory to anybody. I hope that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome will withdraw his amendment and that my comments have helped to restore balance to the debate and to the Committee’s temper.