Lord Blencathra:

Moved by Lord Blencathra

54: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—“Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014: Amendment(1) Schedule 2 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 is amended as follows.(2) After paragraph 1(3) insert—“(3A) A detention order must be made in relation to a person between the ages of 14 and 18 who has been in breach of three injunctions.(3B) A person subject to a detention order under sub-paragraph (3A) must be detained in youth detention accommodation as defined by paragraph 14(3).”.(3) After paragraph 2(7) insert—“(8) Any person subject to a supervision order under this paragraph is eligible for an electronic tag.”.”Member's explanatory statement This amendment and another in the name of Lord Blencathra add a power of detention for 14 -18 year olds who have a record of breaching inunctions.

My Lords, in moving my Amendment 54, I will also speak to my Amendment 55. Amendment 54 seeks to amend Schedule 2 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. The relevant section says that:

“A youth court, if satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that a person aged under 18 is in breach of a provision of an injunction under section 1 to which he or she is subject, may make in respect of the person—(a) a supervision order or (b) a detention order”.

Dealing with the detention provisions first, the court “may” make a detention order. My amendment seeks that it “must” make such an order, tying the court’s discretion, if a person between the ages of 14 and 18 breaches three or more injunctions.

As the Minister knows—indeed, as we all know—the problem with juvenile crime is habitual offenders. None of us want to lock up little kiddies who make a couple of mistakes or commit minor crime—of course not. However, before any juvenile gets an injunction, the anti-social behaviour has to be reasonably serious. This is what the College of Policing says on the grounds for an injunction:

“A civil injunction is issued on the balance of probabilities. It must be just and convenient to grant the injunction to prevent anti-social behaviour, and the respondent must have engaged in or threatened to engage in either: conduct that has or is likely to cause harassment, alarm, or distress … or conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance”.

The College of Policing states that a civil injunction is used for

“drug/alcohol-related ASB … harassment … noise (tenure-neutral)”— whatever that means—“vandalism” and “aggressive begging”. Therefore, I submit that if a juvenile between the ages of 14 to 18 breaches three of those, we have passed the stage where the court may—I stress “may”—make a detention order. Anyone who has breached three injunctions is rapidly heading to becoming a habitual offender. If he does not get a detention order after all that behaviour, what signal will that send to him and his mates? It will signal that you can get away with it, and nothing will happen but another appearance before the court, a rap on the knuckles and being told to be a good boy. As parliamentarians, we owe it to innocent members of the public to protect them from habitual trouble-makers, and my amendment would do just that.

The court also has a discretion on whether to make a detention order when a juvenile breaches one or two injunctions. I am happy with that. I submit that we only remove that discretion when the offender breaches three or more.

I will move on to supervision orders. The court could order a supervision order instead of detention. Such an order could impose one or more of three requirements: a supervision requirement, an activity requirement or a curfew requirement. We do not need to go into what each of those requirements can do or the obligations they might impose. My amendment simply seeks to add an additional power, so that:

“Any person subject to a supervision order … is eligible for an electronic tag”.

Note my wording: it states that they would be “eligible” for an electronic tag; I am not tying the court’s hands here to make it compulsory.

One of my reasons for attaching electronic tags to juveniles under court-imposed supervision orders is the enhancement of accountability. Electronic monitoring provides a reliable, objective mechanism for tracking the whereabouts of young offenders. This not only helps to ensure compliance with curfews and exclusion zones stipulated by the court but gives our Prison and Probation Service immediate insight into any breaches. The knowledge that their movements are being monitored can act as a significant deterrent against further anti-social or criminal behaviour.

I suggest that electronic tagging offers reassurance to communities affected by persistent anti-social behaviour. Enabling authorities to monitor offenders more closely would reduce the risk of reoffending while under supervision. This is particularly pertinent in cases where the offence involves intimidation, vandalism or harassment in a particular locality. The visible commitment to monitoring can help rebuild public confidence in the justice system’s capacity to protect communities.

I have no doubt that some will argue that tagging for a juvenile is punitive, but I suggest it can also help with rehabilitation. Electronic monitoring allows for greater flexibility compared with secure detention, enabling juveniles to remain in their communities, continue education and maintain family relationships. The structure imposed by tagging can help young people develop routines and take responsibility for their actions, while still being held accountable. For many, this balance of liberty and oversight provides a constructive framework for positive behavioural change.

As we all know—the Minister knows this, and he knew it from his last experience in the Home Office—for many young offenders, early Intervention is critical to prevent escalation into more serious criminal behaviour. Electronic tagging, as a clear and immediate consequence, can serve as a wake-up call, highlighting the seriousness of continued non-compliance. This timely intervention can disrupt cycles of offending and encourage reflection, potentially diverting young people from the future of criminality.

I will not speak to my Amendment 55, since I think I have a bit of inadvertent duplication here. I was drafting an amendment to the Act and then one to Schedule 2, and my Amendment 55 is my first draft, which I should not have sent to the Public Bill Office by mistake. Therefore, I beg to move Amendment 54.

My Lords, we recognise the legitimate concerns about persistent anti-social behaviour. Repeat offenders represent a significant challenge; within many communities there is a small core of individuals creating a disproportionate amount of misery and distress to victims. However, the Liberal Democrats remain sceptical about the approach taken by Amendment 54. On these Benches, we believe that youth incarceration should be a last resort, not an automatic consequence. Mandatory detention after three breaches not only removes judicial discretion, it risks criminalising young people for behaviour which is below the criminal standard.

The evidence shows that detention is largely ineffective and often counterproductive. In reality, it increases the likelihood of future offending. Indeed, a chief constable I spoke to told me that short-term sentences simply equip people to be better at crime. The aim of these measures may be to help victims, but the risk is that they could ultimately result in the creation of more of them.

We believe that the key to tackling persistent anti-social behaviour is properly funded community policing. There are about 10,000 fewer police and PCSOs and neighbourhood teams now than in 2015. More than 4,500 PCSOs have disappeared, and their loss is continuing. Some forces simply do not have enough personnel in neighbourhood teams to actively address anti-social behaviour. In his response, will the Minister say what is being done to reverse the exodus of community officers?

My Lords, the contributions we have heard demonstrate the seriousness of the issue and highlight why communities and victims need reassurance that persistent anti-social behaviour will be confronted robustly and effectively. I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for bringing forward these amendments. They provide a welcome opportunity to examine whether the current response to repeat breaches of injunctions is sufficient.

It goes without saying that ongoing and persistent anti-social behaviour has a profound impact on the lives of ordinary residents, including the feeling of individual safety and a wider sense of cohesion in our neighbourhoods. Amendment 54 seeks to provide that if someone under 18 breaches three injunctions of supervision orders, they must be given a detention order. It seems likely, to me at least, that someone who has broken three such injunctions is plainly on the path to becoming an habitual offender. Repeated breaches should not simply be met with ineffective sanctions—communities have to know that the law has teeth and that those who repeatedly defy court orders will face meaningful consequences. The amendment seeks to reinforce that principle and to signal clearly that a cycle of breach, warning and further breach is unacceptable.

I hope that the Government give the amendment the thought and time that it deserves, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for Amendment 54 and for fessing up to Amendment 55, which we will accept as an honest mistake. I welcome his honesty in raising the issue.

There is a recognition that Amendment 54 still wants to provide for minimum sentences for persistent breaches of youth injunctions. I emphasise that the Government do not want to criminalise children unnecessarily, an aspiration we share with the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. That is why the new respect order in the Bill will not apply to those under 18. However, we know that in many cases the behaviour of offenders under 18 requires a more formal deterrent and Intervention. That is why we have retained the civil injunction as is for those under 18. Practitioners have told us that it is a particularly helpful and useful tool to tackle youth anti-social behaviour and to ensure that their rights and the safety of the community are upheld.

Youth injunctions are civil orders and fundamentally preventive in nature, which again goes to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. It is more important to intervene to prevent than it is to punish afterwards, particularly when young people are the individuals who are causing those challenges in the first place.

The important point about youth injunctions, which, again, goes to the heart of the noble Lord’s amendment, is that if the respondent abides by the terms of the order, they will not be liable for any penalties but, self-evidently, where a respondent does breach an order there needs to be some action. The noble Lord has suggested one course of action. I say to him that the courts already have a range of responses, including supervision orders, electronic tagging, curfews and, in the most serious cases, detention orders for up to three months for 14 to 17 year-olds.

I hope there is a common theme across the Committee that detention of children should be used only when absolutely necessary, and that courts should consider the child’s welfare and other risks before imposing such a response. This should be on a case-by-case basis, and the prescribing of a mandatory minimum sentence, even for repeat offenders, would both undermine the ability of the independent judiciary to determine the appropriate sentence and potentially be disproportionate. There is a place in our sentencing framework for mandatory minimum sentences, but I submit that this is not it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, is quite right again that one of the best preventive measures we can have is to have large numbers of boots on the ground in neighbourhood policing. She will know that the Government have a manifesto commitment to put 13,000 extra boots on the ground during this Parliament. In this first year or so, the Government have put an extra 3,000 in place. We intend, where we can, to increase the number of specials, PCSOs and warranted officers to replace those who were lost between 2010 and 2017. When I was Police Minister in 2009-10, we had 20,000 more officers than we had up to around 2017. That is because they were hollowed out and taken out by the two Governments who ran the Home Office between 2010 and 2017.

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that visible neighbourhood policing is critical to tackling anti-social behaviour, but the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, seeks to provide minimum sentences, which I do not think will achieve his objective. It does not have my support either. I hope he will withdraw the amendment, having listened to the argument.

My Lords, once again, I am grateful to the Minister for his courteous and detailed answer. I did not realise that electronic tagging was already an option and it is very important that it is applied in appropriate cases. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, that I am not creating a new criminal offence here. The power of detention already exists to be used by the court when it thinks fit.

On the general principle of minimum sentences, why do we fetter a judge’s discretion by having a maximum sentence? If we want proper judicial discretion, we should say that the judge can sentence anything he likes, but we do not—and I am glad we do not. We say that Parliament cannot set a minimum. Why is it appropriate, in a democracy, for Parliament to set a maximum sentence but not a minimum? I knew that the Minister, in his courteous way, would say that we would fetter judicial discretion, but I have suggested three breaches of injunctions. When can a court say, “You’ve done six now”, or, “You’ve done 10, Johnny”, and impose a sentence of detention for continued breaches of injunctions? As a democracy, it is perfectly legitimate for us as parliamentarians—and Members in the other House, whose constituents are suffering—to say that judges will have a discretion to impose orders of detention up to a certain level, but once the breaches of injunctions go past a certain threshold, Parliament demands that they impose a level of detention, whatever that level may be.

I have made my point. The Minister will probably hear me make a similar point about minimum sentences at various other points in the Bill but, in view of his remarks, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment 54 withdrawn.

Amendments 55 and 55A not moved.

Clause 12 agreed.

Clause 13: Coordinating officer