My Lords, speaking first to the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, which would make provision for regular reviews of out-of-court disposals, there is a method for this. It is scrutiny panels, which were introduced in previous legislation. They work very unevenly across the country. As a magistrate, I have served on a number of scrutiny panels for the British Transport Police and for a certain area of London, for both adult and youth offences. It is a very interesting exercise because you work with the police, the CPS, probation and some representatives of civil society. We had a rabbi on the scrutiny panel I was on for the British Transport Police, and we reviewed the out-of-court disposals.
The big problem with this approach was that there was no central record of what we were doing with our assessment of the out-of-court disposals. As far as I could find out, neither the Home Office nor the Ministry of Justice collected any of the results of these scrutiny panels. In fact, scrutiny panels do not sit in some areas of the country. Nevertheless, the approach advocated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, is a good one. He said that he had held sympathetic discussions with the Ministry of Justice on this matter, so I wish him well with that endeavour.
I too am very sympathetic to Amendments 66C and 66D. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, simple cautions are quick, simple and, when they work, effective. One of the downsides of being a magistrate is that you see things only when they are ineffective—that is why they have come to court in the first place. Of course, if a simple caution is effective they would not come to court, but the noble Lord makes a very strong point about having something that is quick and simple for the police to administer and which is, for a first-time offender, a salutary experience: they have admitted their guilt, they have got the caution and they are on their way relatively quickly.
It is a similar point for the on-the-spot penalties for littering and other minor offences. A quick on-the-spot penalty will have a salutary effect for someone who is largely law abiding. It seems a pity to lose that from the armoury of the police. If the noble Lord moves his amendment, we will support it.