Police and Justice Bill

I would endorse virtually everything the hon. Gentleman said, other than his remarks about Government funding. Surely the Government hand out rate support grant to the local authorities and the local authorities decide how it is spent. The Conservative party has always and consistently argued that decisions should be made nearer to the point of service delivery. My local authority calls itself a rainbow alliance of Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, but it will not fund leisure services that are critical to ensuring that youngsters realise that we adults value them, want them to engage with society, and want them to enjoy services of a quality that will offer them an alternative to hanging around on street corners, sitting on old ladies’ front walls, throwing petrol into the street and setting fire it, and throwing flour bombs and ink bombs. Such low-level bad behaviour makes communities despair. I am glad that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) also wants my local authority to support funding for youth services in Bridgend. I do not want young people to become part of the criminal justice system because of a lack of youth and leisure facilities or adequate children’s social services departments. My local authority has been criticised in that regard. As my community safety partnership says, we must recognise that virtually every antisocial behaviour order represents a failure on the part of the statutory services to provide the support network and skills needed to show youngsters an alternative way of behaving. I am reaching the end of my ““buts””, but I have a final ““but”” in regard to conditional cautions. I feel that they have a key role in presenting offenders with an immediate response to their actions—an immediate recognition of what they have done and what they need to do to make reparation. However, I question whether the policeman on the beat has the necessary skills base on which to construct a rehabilitative conditional caution. Somewhere along the line, we need to incorporate responsibility for a senior police officer and liaison with social services, community safety partnerships and youth justice teams, to establish what conditional cautions should contain. The Bill’s aim is justice, not punishment. Justice requires that people have alternatives, that there is rehabilitation, and that there are opportunities for those who will come within the purview of the police. I hope that in Committee the minor changes for which Members have called today will be possible. It has been pleasing to observe the common desire to find a constructive and effective solution, and that is what a Committee stage should be for. Apart from my few ““buts””, I support the Bill.