Secure Training Centre (Amendment) Rules 2007

rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the rules laid before the House on 13 June be annulled (SI 2007/1709). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am grateful for the opportunity that I have enjoyed to consult and discuss these matters with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who has been as helpful as ever, with the Minister of State, David Hanson, who is known for his fairness and objectivity, and with the Youth Justice Board. All have shown the utmost courtesy, for which I express much thanks. I await with much interest the Minister’s response to the Motion. I hope that the Motion will demonstrate that, if not the power of prayer, then the power of a Prayer can save one from unintended and dreadful consequences. I hope that this will be one of those occasions when the procedures available in this House can be shown to be of use in achieving a consensus on issues as extremely important and very difficult as secure training centres. I feel bound to say to the House that when Statutory Instrument 2007/1709, which we are now debating, appeared last month, it caused cavernous consternation among those of us who have an interest in and some knowledge of the use of physical restraints in secure training centres. We were shocked that there appeared to have been no, or almost no, consultation outside the Youth Justice Board and the Government before the statutory instrument was promulgated. The instrument appeared to reject in its entirety, and contrary to previous indications, the Howard League’s independent report of January 2006, which I had had the privilege of chairing. It appeared to reject the well informed opinions of individuals and groups, including the Children’s Commissioner for England, the Commission for Racial Equality, Inquest, the NSPCC, the Children’s Rights Alliance, the National Children’s Bureau and Justice. The sheer bareness of the text of the statutory instrument offers the spectre of turning back the clock several years in relation to the use of restraint on young offenders in custody. The frankly awful and inadequate Explanatory Note increased that concern. I regard the term ““Explanatory Note”” in this context as almost an oxymoron. In general terms, the Government owe a duty to the many people interested in this kind of subject to produce better explanations than that arid Explanatory Note. If that note was to be taken at face value, physical violence towards teenage prisoners is to be permitted where, in the subjective opinion of what may be a fairly junior person in temporary charge of a privately operated secure training centre, to use that violence is necessary, "““to ensure good order and discipline””." The effect of this, on the face of the statutory instrument at least, is to make the use of physical restraint one of the items on the menu of first choices available in any secure training centre, whenever there is a sign of trouble. That is simply unacceptable. The Explanatory Note was regrettably exacerbated by the Youth Justice Board’s so-called stakeholder briefing of 27 June this year. That stakeholder briefing deserved the fate that its title implies—to be burned, and quickly—because it was so misleading in several respects. I gave a number of examples of these to the interim chair of the Youth Justice Board when I had the welcome opportunity of seeing him recently. Given the cohort of young offenders we are discussing, the approach as it appears from the statutory instrument is an extremely bad idea. Various experts on this subject, I believe without serious or informed demur, share some broad conclusions. I will cite five of these. First, some staff, albeit a tiny minority of a hugely dedicated cohort of professionals, are too ready to use violence. Unfortunately, rogue staff are persistent, devious and difficult to root out. Secondly, being restrained is seen as a mere right of passage by some detainees. I was told this on numerous occasions when conducting the Howard League inquiry. If I may be forgiven a mixture of metaphors, when staff rise to the bait, more violence is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thirdly—and this is very important—a large number of detainees have suffered physical and sexual abuse already in their young lives. They need to be taught by and find from the examples of adults that there are other ways in which to deal with tension and that it is possible to break the cycle of violence to which they are accustomed; they do not need to suffer yet more at the hands of rogue staff in secure training centres. Fourthly—and unfortunately there is empirical evidence for this—the use of even authorised violence can prove dangerous and even fatal. The fifth of what I believe are the shared conclusions is that, whereas in a generally unsuitable youth custody estate such facilities as exist for organised physical activity, if used fully, would lower the general level of violence, physical restraint does the opposite. In that context, I make a plea to the Minister and to his right honourable friend David Hanson to look at the physical estates of secure training centres. They are far too small, have practically no playing fields and hold groups of young men who need outdoor activity but are not receiving it. I turn for a moment to the statistics, which speak for themselves. The use of restraint in the four privately run secure training centres in England is an unpleasant secret of our overstuffed custody estate. There are only 250 or so children currently housed in the STCs, yet those children—some as young as 12—are subject to an extraordinary level of restraint. The STCs were originally designed for those children who were too young or vulnerable to be in Prison Service-run young offender institutions. Yet in the STCs physical restraint—using what are called distraction techniques, which involve up to 10 staff restraining children and inflicting pain by bending the thumb forwards or down, hitting the nose from underneath and using the knuckles to hit into children’s ribs—is used disproportionately and often against the same children several times a day. Last December, I asked a Parliamentary Question that revealed that in the space of a year physical restraint had been used 3,036 times on a population of around 240. Of those incidents in which restraint was used, 1,245 involved girls, which meant that 41 per cent of all restraint usage was perpetrated on girls, who represent only about one-third of the STC population. Furthermore, the Commission for Racial Equality has highlighted a disproportionate use on young black males, with evidence of discrimination. We should sit up and take notice of those findings. The STC rules are clear that restraint should be used only when children are attempting to escape custody, injure themselves or others, damage property or incite other children to a violent act. A quick glance at the figures that I have given—and there are many other figures available—immediately suggests that, if these rules were being adhered to, the number of restraint incidents could be reduced dramatically. Recently there have been inquests into the death of Gareth Myatt while being restrained and the suicide of 14 year-old Adam Rickwood, who hanged himself with his shoelaces after being restrained by staff at an STC. It became clear in the inquest that restraint was being used routinely to secure compliance—in Gareth’s case because he refused to clean a sandwich toaster and in Adam Rickwood’s case because staff wanted him to go to his room. Once the lawyers for Adam Rickwood’s mother raised this clear breach of the STC rules, the Youth Justice Board signalled that the rules would shortly be clarified. Yet what we got in response to those inquests was this statutory instrument. I am afraid that the impression has been left that this statutory instrument was introduced not to meet the criticisms of those inquests, but to evade them. I hope that the Minister will confirm today that the evasion is now over. The inquest into the death of Adam Rickwood concluded in May of this year. He was found hanging in his room in Hassockfield STC at around midnight on 8 April 2004. In the hours preceding his death, he was subjected to restraint by four male officers, including a technique designed to inflict pain known as ““nose distraction””. This was said to have caused Adam to have a nosebleed that lasted for an hour. There was no suggestion that any of the criteria set out in the STC rules that could have justified Adam’s restraint had been met. It became clear at the inquest that the circumstances in which Adam had been restrained were commonplace and that children were regularly being restrained as a punishment and to secure compliance outside the rules, which had been in existence for some years. Safeguards put in place to protect vulnerable children were not affording them the protection that they should have under the law, nor had the monitoring of the Youth Justice Board identified and acted on these unlawful practices. The inquest heard that, in the year leading up to Adam Rickwood’s death, restraint was used in Hassockfield, which has a capacity of only 42 children, on 972 occasions. Gareth Myatt died while being restrained and in wholly unacceptable circumstances. Such events must not be repeated and loose rules should not permit such events. I hope, therefore, that the Minister, in a spirit that I know he will follow of trying to assist this House, will be able to provide clear ministerial guidance of the kind that will clarify in a Pepper-v-Hart-usable way—in other words, usable in administrative judicial review proceedings—that this new statutory instrument is not intended to dilute the rules at all. I hope that the Minister will tell this House loud and clear that the use of physical restraint remains a last resort and that what appears in these rules and the arid Explanatory Note are not to be taken at face value. I trust that the Minister will tell the House that physical restraint should be available only where it is necessary and when no alternative method is available to prevent escape, injury or serious damage to property by the person restrained or another. Within the past few days, an inquiry was announced into the use of restraint in STCs, although, I fear, without as much clarity as one would have wished. I first discovered it on the Youth Justice Board website in a press release that welcomed the inquiry, but without details. I hope that the Minister will clarify the scope and nature of the inquiry. I have conducted one independent inquiry into this subject and I suppose that I should be the first to welcome one more inquiry—but perhaps only one more. This inquiry should not be seen as a major delaying tactic. The evidence, including the Howard League report, is sitting there, waiting to be acted on. To be of value, the inquiry announced this week must have a chair truly independent of government, of the Youth Justice Board and of the Ministry of Justice. To meet need, the inquiry should report quickly. It should truly involve the new Department for Children, Schools and Families. One of the thrusts of the Howard League report is that we are dealing with children and that this group of children fit more comfortably with a government department dealing with children than with one dealing with criminal justice. At the very least, there should be a clear partnership between the two departments in dealing with that question. The inquiry should look at medical issues. In my view, serious issues about the medical safety of restraint techniques need to be addressed. Above all, the inquiry should be prepared to consult widely, albeit over a short period, to call for papers and to consider the views of everybody who wishes to make submissions to it. In that, I include consultation with members of the client group—I have done it and it is possible—while they sit in custody in these places. They have a lot to offer; some of them are very bright but have a long way to go to put their ability to good use. Given the level of support that our Howard League report found, it is a disappointment that the report remains largely unacted on after 18 months. However, there are much more important things than my personal disappointment because I chaired that review. Much more important is that we ask for reassurance today that the statutory instrument means rather more, in a positive sense, than it appears to say, and that we ask for a commitment from the Minister that the Government will look in an enlightened way at this most important question of public policy. Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the rules laid before the House on 13 June be annulled (SI 2007/1709). 25th Report from the Merits Committee.—(Lord Carlile of Berriew.)