Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support these amendments and shall speak also to Amendment No. 28 in my name. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has spoken in the way that he has about the rehabilitation that is at the back of the proposals that I have put forward in my amendment, which I have amended slightly since Grand Committee to try to include the fact that, in order to have continuity, the same care worker should, if possible, be responsible for the same person in custody throughout the period that they are there. All of us in this House have been enormously grateful to the Minister for the way that he has corresponded with us, kept us informed of what has been in his mind, and has listened to what we have to say. However, I have to say to him that I remain disappointed that one sentence of his that I referred to in Grand Committee has still not been replied to. My interest in that was heightened by the regulatory impact assessment published on 31 October last year about the Bill, which included statements that: "““Outcomes for children in care are strikingly poor … children in care are three times more likely to be subject to a final reprimand or warning or convicted of a crime than other children … 62% of children enter care because of abuse or neglect, which has a profound impact on a child’s development””." On reading those statements, I felt, hooray, the people responsible for this Bill really understand that of all the young people in prison, those who gave me most concern had come from what purported to be care, but which, in terms of what they had gone through, certainly did not amount to care under the meaning of that word. Therefore, I was concerned when, in his letter to us of 3 December, the Minister said: "““It is important to ensure that young people in custody are safeguarded and protected from harm””—" he added— "““but we do not accept that this requires them to be looked after and the state to assume a formal parenting role for them””." I challenged the Minister in Grand Committee and I have not yet had a response to that challenge. The reason for my concern is exactly what my noble friend Lady Meacher mentioned—that, in custody, the youth offending team responsible for administering what goes on is not responsible for the formal parenting role. Unless someone is put in that role, those from care will not have someone acting for them in that role throughout the detention and training order. That was the purpose of my amendment. On 19 December, the Minister wrote again to me about the amendment and said: "““It is intended that local authorities will be required by regulations to ensure that children who were voluntarily accommodated … are visited when they lose their looked after status because they cease to be so accommodated when detained in secure training centres, young offender institutions or prisons””." In other words, regulations are intended to do what you want done. I am sorry, but the history of too many subjects brought up in the Bill, and my experience of looking at what was going on in the young offender estate, did not convince me that regulations were a strong enough requirement on people to do what they ought to be doing. This has come up time and time again. While we are very happy with the tone and intention of the Bill, many of us have concerns that there are so many regulations and so many instructions that people simply cannot keep in touch with them. Some things need to be lifted out of the regulatory and instructing environment and put into the statutory environment so that someone can see that they happen. I can think of no one to whom this description applies more than young people in custody denied all the safeguards and parenting, about which we have had so much discussion. Now, unless something is put in place, these young people are likely to be denied the attention when they need it most, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, when they are approaching rehabilitation. Someone must be responsible for seeing that the basics, such as accommodation and employment, are properly covered. When I came to the House this morning, I was sorry to discover that, for the third time running, there would be a Statement which was likely to take one hour out of the time available to discuss the Bill. It meant that yet again, in realistic terms, I would be unable to test the opinion of the House on this matter. One thing that I find of considerable interest in the legislation that comes before this House is how much of one Bill is included in another. For that reason, I have tabled my amendment for discussion in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which applies to youth justice. The fact that unfortunate timing and a Statement have prevented me from testing the opinion of the House on this occasion will not stop me trying to do so when we reach the Report stage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. However, it is unfortunate that I should have to press this subject over and over again when I would hope that the Government, in the spirit of some of the things that they have said—although not in that unfortunate sentence of the letter of 3 December—would pick it up as a requirement that they should exercise themselves, and that is why I continue to press this amendment.