Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

My Lords, I wish I could reply so briefly. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Judd and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for their passionate commitment to improving the regime for those in custody, particularly young people. Underlying my noble friend’s concern is the long-term issue of the use of custody for children. I can best deal with it simply by reading to the House paragraph 6.69 of the recent children’s plan, which sets out our long-term ambitions in this area. It states that, "““we are taking a fundamental look at the way in which the criminal justice system overall is working for young people to ensure we learn from existing good practice and address current concerns. This includes examining what we know about why young people offend, what a more effective approach to prevention would look like, the options available for dealing with children who commit crimes, how we can use the time when young people are in contact with the criminal justice system to ""reduce re-offending and how best to tackle the most serious offenders. Detailed action on how we will jointly tackle these problems will be set out in next year’s Youth Crime Action Plan. We aim to significantly reduce by 2020 the number of young people receiving a conviction, reprimand or final warning for a recordable offence for the first time, with a goal to be set in the Youth Crime Action Plan””." That plan will be published this summer. I hope that that gives some comfort to noble Lords who seek a statement from me that we have regard to long-term policy trends in this area. However, I shall deal with the here and now in respect of custody. There was a major change when the Youth Justice Board assumed responsibility for commissioning and purchasing secure places in April 2000. That was accompanied by the creation of a discrete secure estate for boys and a national placement system to enable optimum use to be made of the secure places available at any time—most crucially, enabling the more vulnerable young people to be placed in establishments suited to their needs. Perhaps the biggest single achievement is the progressive development of a discrete estate for girls. Following a commitment in 1999 by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Justice, in his then role of Home Secretary, all 15 and 16 year-old girls were moved out of Prison Service accommodation by the end of 2003. That was a major step, but we followed it by developing five new special units for 17 year-old girls within the Prison Service estate but entirely separate from adults and young adults. The opening of the last of these facilities, at Foston Hall, Derbyshire in January last year, marked the completion of the separate girls’ estate. Inspection reports have repeatedly praised the work of the new units. They are clearly an important step towards creating the secure estate that we want to see. However, progress has not stopped. The Youth Justice Board is now concentrating on its next priority for the secure estate, which is getting better provision for 15 and 16 year-old boys who are more vulnerable. A new unit is being developed at Wetherby young offender institution, which is due to open in October. My noble friend Lord Judd rightly reminded us of the need for vision. I believe that we are applying ourselves to a vision for the medium-term future in this area. In respect of ensuring that the quality of the criminal justice estates is better suited to the needs of the young people who are placed in custody, I hope that he will accept that we are at least taking some sensible steps forward.