Violent Crime Reduction Bill

I will speak in support of Amendment No. 15 on the basis that I take it as a probing amendment to explore the Government’s rationale for setting the age limit at which a court may make a drinking banning order at 16. It asks the Government to justify why it should be 16. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, simply raises the age to that of adulthood—18. There was a useful debate on this matter in another place on 18 October, at cols. 66 to 74 of Hansard, but a couple of matters were not addressed then that we need to look at today. We on these Benches do not contest the argument that some young people under 18 drink when they should not, sometimes drink to excess and sometimes then become involved in disorder. We do not oppose the idea that help should be available to them to ensure that they do not behave in public in such a way as to cause distress or harm to other people, or indeed to cause harm to themselves. The question is whether a drinking banning order is the right way to go about forcing those under the age of 18 to change their behaviour, or whether there are other and better ways of addressing that problem. What is it about drinking banning orders that the Government believe is uniquely valuable in ensuring that young people under 18 will change their behaviour? In addition, we now have before us the new proposals—the Government’s new clauses on approved courses that we have just now agreed to have added to the Bill. What steps will the Government take to ensure that courses are available to young people under 18, and that they are specifically appropriate for young people as opposed to adults? Does the Minister agree that it would not be appropriate for the content of the course and the method of delivering it to be the same for young people under 18 as it would be for adults? What if courses are available to adults, but not available on the same geographical spread to young persons? Would that not create two different classes of people subject to drinking banning orders, with one class being at a disadvantage because they would be unable to get the chance of the discount on the length of their order? The other matter to which I have to draw attention is that the Government seem to have a split personality when it comes to legislation regarding those under 18. Sometimes they treat them the same as adults; sometimes they recognise the fact that they are, as I would say, different from adults. We see that split personality within the Bill. In Part 1, young people are treated as adults for the purposes of drinking banning orders, yet, when we reach Part 2, suddenly young people are not treated as adults. For example, the Government seek to raise the age at which young people are permitted to buy or hire air guns from 17 to 18. I am not going to object to that; what I object to is inconsistency in the way in which the Government treat young people between 16 and 18. That is extraordinary anyway, but it is even more extraordinary that such an inconsistency should be within one Bill. That is why I hope that the Minister will address the questions that I have put today on the way in which drinking banning orders treat young people as adults.