Orders of the Day — Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill – in the House of Commons at 3:31 pm on 20 January 1997.
(4A) The local authority which may be appropriate in relation to a power to commit a person under paragraphs (a) or (aa) of subsection (1) or subsection (4) above may. without prejudice to the generality of those powers, be—
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
, Edinburgh West
I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
Miss Betty Boothroyd
Speaker of the House of Commons
With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government Amendment No. 99.
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
, Edinburgh West
New Clause 5 is similar to an Opposition Amendment tabled in Committee concerning the committal of a child to local authority care. At that time, I expressed sympathy with the purpose of the amendment, but suggested that it unnecessarily fettered the discretion of the court in making a disposal to the most appropriate local authority. On that basis, I undertook to table a Government amendment on Report. Amendment No. 99 is a technical one.
Mr Norman Hogg
, Cumbernauld and Kilsyth
He will be brief, Madam Speaker.
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
, Edinburgh West
That depends on a number of factors. It may be the local authority in which the child is living, or in which the child is being looked after, but it is not necessarily the authority where the child's permanent residence has been. The new Clause would allow the court—in dealing with cases where a young person under 16 years of age is charged with or is convicted of an offence and remanded for trial or for sentence—to commit that young person to a local authority that it considers appropriate. Such a local authority could be the authority in which the court is situated, the authority in which the young person is usually resident or the authority that is already responsible for the young person where he is subject to a supervision requirement.
The Amendment replaces the current obligation on the court to commit to the local authority in which it is situated. It gives the court greater flexibility and discretion, which is I am sure what the hon. Gentleman would like and was the tenor of the representations made in Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
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