No-fault Divorce

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, we of course recognise that divorce can be a stressful time for families. We want to make sure that support is there for separating couples. We have invested in family hubs and the family mediation voucher scheme. We also have a Reducing Parental Conflict programme. However, we also think that the new divorce Act will lead to more amicable divorce and will itself take some of the heat out of the issue.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, let us not put the cart before the horse by changing the law before thinking about the most acrimonious part of divorce. Is it not true that a no-fault divorce does not necessarily mean that there was no fault? In which case, is it not all the more important that there is equality of arms between the two people concerned when it comes to mediation on a financial settlement?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, yes: no-fault divorce means that the question of fault is essentially irrelevant to the fact of the divorce. As to equality of arms, that is where mediation is so useful. Families who participated in the mediation voucher scheme tell us that it really took the heat out of the issue as they could sit down outside a court setting and resolve their issues. For every multi-million pound divorce that you read about in the papers, hundreds—indeed, thousands—of divorces go through without too much acrimony, other than the acrimony perhaps inherent in the fact of being divorced. We want to build on what we think is a movement in the right direction.

Criminal Justice: Secure College

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

It is very much a matter that will be at the forefront of our mind. Of course, one of the difficulties is that if a limited number of young people are in youth custody establishments of one sort or another, they will inevitably be scattered all over the country. Having, as it were, local institutions creates quite a challenge but it is a consideration that is highly relevant.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, the purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation. In view of the growing clarity of the importance of education in that function, when did the Government last review sentencing policy, and are there available sentences that enable children to be held in suitable accommodation long enough to achieve some educational progress?

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I raised this matter at Second Reading and draw to the Committee’s attention the fact that the amendment was tabled by Nick de Bois, an Enfield MP, strongly supported by David Burrowes, another MP for the Enfield borough. It is a borough not unfamiliar with knife crime, which in some cases involves fatality. These are MPs who have direct experience and I hope that that ameliorates the suggestion that this provision is just a knee-jerk reaction. Knife crime has been an issue for Enfield for some time. It has also been drawn to the House’s attention by the Lord Chief Justice that we have a problem. Whether this is the correct solution is another matter but we have a problem with the carrying of knives by young people that is often seen as some kind of status symbol.

I remind your Lordships of what perhaps seems an obvious point. There have to be two convictions before this power comes into play. I have read of situations in the media in which people have carried penknives. One would have to possess these weapons,

“without lawful authority or reasonable excuse”.

This does not apply to anyone accidentally having a knife left over from pruning the roses or working on the farm at the weekend. These are people who are carrying knives without being able to provide an excuse. This power is supported by not only the former commissioner but the current Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who said:

“Where we are getting gang members or young people carrying knives and there is no excuse, then this is a serious matter for me”.

So we also have the Metropolitan Police saying that it wants additional powers in relation to knife crime. I have looked at the discretion given, and this is not a mandatory provision that necessarily would lead to injustice.

I should really like to highlight the issue of discrimination, and I strongly disagree with my noble friends on this. I raised this matter way back, in my maiden speech. There sometimes seems to be a disproportionately low response to victims of violent crime when they are not white. One must not forget that, in this situation, the figures from when I checked—I thank the Library—show that one is twice as likely in London to be a victim of knife crime if you are black. From my experience of speaking to community leaders, they are extremely concerned about the effect of this on their own communities. They are the victims of this, so it is flawed to suggest that the provision is discriminatory because of stop-and-search powers. I accept that elements of our criminal justice system have been discriminatory over the years and one can point to the discussion in the other place involving the Home Secretary, who has brought in a review of stop and search. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has looked at this, and the Home Secretary had the support of Diane Abbott, of all people. We had grasped a nettle that had not been grasped for a long time.

This Government have also rid the ethnic-minority communities of the injustice of a DNA database that held innocent people’s DNA. These issues have been addressed and it ignores the effect on victims in minority communities if we refer only to the perpetrators.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate and will do so briefly. I have listened carefully to those who oppose my noble friend Lord Marks, and I am afraid that I am not convinced by them for two reasons. First, the cases that they cite are ones in which the judge would almost certainly have sent the person to prison anyway. When somebody carries a knife with serious intent and uses it, that is when people go to prison. We do not need the clause for that reason.

The other point has not been mentioned at all. The clause is supposed to be a deterrent, mainly for young people, to prevent them getting involved in carrying knives in the first place, which is a very laudable objective. However, let us remember the development of children’s brains. The majority of the development of children’s brains happens between birth and three years of age, but there is a boost during the teenage years. That is when risk taking comes in. If noble Lords consider that, they will realise that a deterrent such as this very small prison sentence—I quite agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, that it will do nothing but harm—will certainly not deter someone whose brain is telling them, “Now you can take risks, and you should”.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I ask the Minister to clarify one issue, and ask for help from my noble friend Lord Blair on another. The first issue concerns children in care. As the Minister will be aware, a disproportionate number of children in care are in custody: more than half the boys and just under half the girls in custody come from the care system. I would be interested in clarification about any exception under the proposal that will look at the backgrounds of young people, particularly if they come from a care background. I imagine most of your Lordships will be aware that 60% of children originally come into care because they have been abused and a further 10% because their family has broken down. As the noble Lord, Lord Deben, described, these are children who are very damaged and sometimes troubling to others as well.

When we discussed mobile phone crime seven or eight years ago the law was strengthened because of concerns at that period. I remember a case where a 15 or 16 year-old boy, on his first day at a children’s home, joined a group of people he did not know. One of that group stole a phone. The judge was obliged to be tough with him and sentenced him to custody. There was no suitable secure local authority children’s home for him. I think he was placed in a young offender institution and he hanged himself. One must also remember that these children are more vulnerable to knife crime. It is of course a very finely judged argument.

My question to my noble friend Lord Blair concerns his experience, which was most interesting. His first example concerned women taking guns out of their handbags, so it was an older group. What was the experience of 16 or 17 year-olds in the second example he gave, if he is aware of that? I share the concern of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss that 16 and 17 year-olds may not be able to understand the weight of punishment that may await them if they continue—although they will have committed a first offence, so they probably should be aware.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

I welcome the gracious Speech and in particular the good Liberal Democrat policies in it. I especially welcome the extension of 15 hours’ free care to more two year-olds, a policy introduced by the Liberal Democrat former Minister Sarah Teather. Despite all the free care currently available, the poorest fifth of our young children are still 19% below average by the time they reach the age of five. The best way of changing that is to provide more high-quality professional care and education, and make it available as early as possible. I do not underestimate the role of parents but the best quality early-years settings work with the parents, helping them to extend the good work when the child goes home. This is as it should be.

I also welcome the tax relief on childcare for working families, another Liberal Democrat policy. In Wrexham, near where I live, just over 4,000 working families will be eligible for up to £2,000 under this scheme. This will make a big difference to their family budget and enable more young parents to go to work to provide for their families and contribute to the economy. What is very important, however, is to ensure that good- quality places are available wherever they are needed, especially in the poorer areas where they can make so much difference.

I welcome the proposed changes in the Serious Crime Bill to change the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to make it explicit that cruelty which is likely to cause psychological harm to a child will be an offence. The current law on neglect is outdated and inadequate. The UK is one of the only countries in the world that fails to recognise emotional neglect as the crime it is. That is about to change.

However, the Bill is not perfect and many of us will be working to improve it even further. Currently the Bill provides that cruelty to a child must be “wilful” to be considered a criminal offence. Replacing “wilful” with “intentional and reckless” could enable more effective identification and response to this offence. I am sure that we will talk about that as the Bill progresses. But while we work on the Serious Crime Bill, recognising emotional neglect as an offence, we must also take further steps towards prevention and ensure earlier, and more effective, interventions for neglected young people and prevention of neglect in general. Under this Government, there have been several very successful initiatives providing support for parents, helping them to develop positive parenting skills, and better support and interventions for families with problems such as domestic violence, drug and alcohol addictions and other issues. But we must do more. In this case, prevention is not just better than cure but cheaper too.

I welcome the modern slavery Bill and congratulate my noble friend Lord McColl on his role in particular in raising the issues relating to children. The 23 local authority trials of providing independent advocates have been successful and now we have an enabling power to put that on a statutory footing. I trust that the Secretary of State will use it at a later date. We will be watching. I particularly welcome the measure that provides that trafficked children are not prosecuted for crimes that they were forced to commit by their traffickers. At last the law will recognise that children are not equipped to resist the pressure put on them by those who exert total power over them. I know that there are those who are calling for other specific measures, and I suspect that we will have some interesting debates.

However, although there is much to welcome, there is something missing. I would have liked to see the Government announce an intention to clarify the law on reporting of child abuse and abuse of vulnerable adults, whether physical or sexual in nature, which comes to the attention of those working in public institutions. I am talking about mandatory reporting, which would address the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, about vulnerable elder people.

We have recently seen reports in the media of suspicions of sweeping under the carpet and covering up historic child abuse. Here I point out that there is no such thing as “historic” child abuse. Child abuse persists throughout the life of the abused person and often leads to mental and emotional illness later on. Unfortunately, there is currently no law under which those who become aware of offences against children or vulnerable adults in public institutions and do not report it to the relevant authorities can be held to account. Recently, we had a report from the NSPCC that showed that there are now more than 500 people who have made allegations about the offences of the late Jimmy Savile. Many of these offences were carried out against children in schools and vulnerable adults in Broadmoor. I cannot believe that these offences went unnoticed at the time or unreported by the victims, but nothing was done to stop it. We have also had a horrendous case of child neglect where the child subsequently died, although he was seen scavenging for food in the school dustbin and injuries were noticed on his body. This is not all in the past; it is happening now, today, in schools and institutions. It is whispered about, but it is not shouted from the rooftops, as it should be.

A few brave victims and journalists have highlighted the problems that we face today. The people who perpetrate these atrocities are clever. They hide in full view, relying on their charismatic personalities, gaining support from parents through their apparent care for children, while at the same time abusing them. A recent case of a teacher in international schools is a perfect example. It is time to bring a full stop to it. Abuse of children is a crime and the law should say so.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I will be brief but I have six big guns to call in aid. I support Amendment 34 in the name of my noble friend Lady Eaton and the sensible proposals of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, about child abduction and mediation.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned the comments of my right honourable friend the Minister for Children, Sarah Teather, about the best interests of the child. She was of course talking about the child’s rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Big gun number one is Article 4 of the UNCRC, which states that the Government must take,

“all appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures”,

to ensure the realisation of rights protected under the UNCRC, and must also apply,

“the maximum extent of their available resources”,

to this purpose. This convention right is engaged by the Bill. It is one of the important general measures of the convention.

Big gun number two is Article 6 of the ECHR, which states:

“It is central to the concept of a fair trial, in civil as in criminal proceedings, that a litigant is not denied the opportunity to present his or her case effectively before the court … and that he or she is able to enjoy equality of arms with the opposing side”.

The Children’s Commissioner stated the blindingly obvious in her letter of 6 January to the Secretary of State. She said:

“Children, by virtue of their age and capacity, will not be able to present their case effectively in the majority of proceedings”.

I share her concern and that of the Joint Committee on Human rights that,

“the ability of the Director of Legal Aid Casework to grant exceptional funding is insufficient to make rights practically effective due to the need”,

to speed things up. She also stated that,

“children without legal advice and assistance will encounter difficulties even in accessing a determination by the Director”.

Big gun number three is Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides that states parties,

“shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child”.

Article 12 states in particular that the child shall,

“be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or appropriate body”.

Big gun number four is the whole of Article 3 about the best interests of the child, which has been quoted by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It is also enshrined in UK law in the Education Act 1986.

Big guns numbers five and six are the Hague convention and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. As she has already fired her fiery cannonballs at my noble friend, he does not need my bit of buckshot to add to them.

Those are international convention obligations to which we have signed up voluntarily. We now need to step up to the mark and honour them. If we do not, we will be taken to the international court. It is as simple as that.

Young People: Custody

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Walmsley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will respond to the report by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner on the restraint of young people in custody.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, we consider this a thought-provoking piece of research that will be fed into our wider-ranging independent review on restraint. I should point out, however, that the authors themselves say that the size of the sample of young people they talked to—89—was not high enough to be statistically significant and therefore not necessarily representative of young people across the secure estate.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I thank my noble friend for his reply. In his review, will he bear in mind the inconsistency of the types of restraint and pain distraction that can be used in different kinds of children’s settings, with an objective of producing consistent standards to the highest international level and compliant with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? What arrangements are being made to provide independent legal advice to the young people who gave an account to UserVoice, which was published in the report, of treatments that might be unlawful, to ensure that they have the advice that they need to be able to challenge those treatments?

Criminal Justice System

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I intend to restrict my remarks to the matter of children and young people in custody.

There are too many children in custody; England and Wales have the highest rate in western Europe. In the last 20 years, the number of children sentenced to custody has risen by nearly 800 per cent. However, I am pleased to say that the number is declining. In March, the number was 416 less than the previous year. It is now the lowest since 2000, which is good news.

Prison is costly and does not work for most children. Each year, the Government spend £415 million on placing children in custody. Reoffending rates are high. Three-quarters of those released in 2007 reoffended within a year. These are children with problems and they are not being sorted out by locking them up. Half of them have spent time in care; 40 per cent of girls and a quarter of boys have suffered violence at home; one in three girls and one in 20 boys have suffered sexual abuse; and nearly one-third have mental health problems.

We cannot say that we have not had early warning about these children. Nine out of 10 have been excluded from school. That tells us that there have been severe behavior problems earlier in their school career. Children who behave like this need early intervention and help. If we do that, we will save them from having miserable lives on a downward path and we will save ourselves a lot of money. Violence in the home has a lot to answer for. What sort of example is that? Children learn from their parents—unemployment, offending examples and violent, disrespectful behavior. We need to intervene in these families for the sake of the children.

There is evidence that early intervention works. Parenting programmes and individual home-based programmes are very cost-effective, saving up to £160,000 per case by reducing reoffending. Family intervention programmes and youth inclusion programmes run by Catch22 and Barnardo’s are demonstrating notable and cost-effective impacts, which have been independently assessed, in reducing anti-social behaviour and criminal offending.

Many of these children should not be in custody at all. In 2007-08, 513 children aged 12 to 14 were sentenced to custody. Under the sentencing rules in place until 1998, only 48 of them could have been imprisoned— 48 out of 513. In any case, Barnardo’s has evidence that a lot of young people in custody had not met the threshold for the seriousness of the offence or for persistent offending. We must look at both the sentencing guidelines and the adherence to those guidelines.

We also need to use more non-custodial sentences. There are many effective alternatives. The new youth rehabilitation order is a generic order in which the sentencer can combine up to 18 separate requirements and tailor it to the needs and problems of the offender. It can include education, drug-testing and treatment, fostering, mental health treatment, and so on. However, there is evidence from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies that they are not always properly resourced, making them unavailable to sentencers. Therefore, the child goes into custody.

I very much welcome the recent statement by the Lord Chancellor that he wants to refocus the criminal justice system on what works. I suspect that his statement is not just a conversion to Liberal principles but a very pragmatic response to the straitened economic times in which we live, because the evidence is that high-quality and properly resourced non-custodial interventions are far cheaper and work far better than prison. Restorative justice programmes have been mentioned. They work better for the offender and give satisfaction to the victim. One of the problems with custody is what we do, or do not do, with the offenders while they are in custody. My noble friend Lord Addington mentioned that. Many education departments do their best, and some do a good job, but they do not have the young person for very long. In a survey of youth offending teams, only 6 per cent said that children had been able to continue education started in custodial units once they left prison. That must change. We must have joined-up thinking about the matter.

On top of that is the way in which the behaviour of young people in prison is managed. We have had the outrageous situation that children in private prisons have been subjected to painful restraint techniques, which breach their human rights and, in a few cases, have resulted in injury and even death. For years the organisation Children’s Rights Alliance for England has been trying to get hold of the instructor’s restraint manual in use in the country’s four privately run child prisons. Until recently, the Youth Justice Board resisted, claiming that full disclosure of the manual would threaten the safety of prisoners and custody officers. The parliamentary Human Rights Committee and the Court of Appeal have asked for that document to be released, but, until recently, the Youth Justice Board intended to appeal. It seems that it has now withdrawn its appeal and said that it will release the document. However, to my knowledge it has not yet done so, so I call on it to do so immediately. We have a right to know what is being done in our name, especially when there is strong evidence that it breaches the human rights of young people.

I turn to another matter. The Scottish Parliament has said that it will raise the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland from eight to 12, so the English age of 10 is now the lowest in the UK and one of the lowest in the western world. In the Scandinavian countries, the age is about 14 and all young people up to the age of 25 are treated differently from adult prisoners. Offending behaviour is treated rather than punished. Rehabilitation is the norm. That is the way we need to turn in this country. I call on the Justice Secretary to review the age of criminal responsibility as part of his review of the system.

I now mention a group of children who are extremely vulnerable to being drawn into contact with the criminal justice system. These are the UK’s street children. We have all heard of street children in India, Africa and Latin America, but it happens here, too. The charity Railway Children has just conducted a piece of research, Off the Radar, where the researcher carried out in-depth interviews with 103 children and young people who had been on the street for at least a month. One had been on the street for five years, from the age of 12 to the age of 17. Those children are referred to as “detached”. They have run away from home, a foster home or a children’s home.

The police reckon that about 100,000 children a year go missing, but most researchers believe that many more are never reported. Their families do not care enough, or they do not want the authorities involved. They are the most vulnerable. Four of them were asked about crimes that they had committed in order to survive. Home Office figures were used to calculate the cost to the public of those crimes; the answer was £500,000 each, which is £2 million from just four children.

All that could have been prevented by early intervention. The common factors in the research were stark. The problems of all the children could have been spotted and addressed early if well resourced and trained professionals had been there to help them and their families. Indeed, it became clear that part of the problem was that nobody listened to the child. The researcher, in thanking the girl whom I mentioned who had been on the streets since the age of 12, apologised that she did not know what to recommend to her, so severe were her problems. “No, don’t apologise”, said the girl. “You’re the only person who has ever listened to me in my whole life”. That is a terrible state of affairs. If we do not listen and respond to our children when their families are failing them, how can we expect them to live normal, law-abiding lives? They have no example, no guidance and no protection.

I will say a word about sport. I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Loughborough. She was telling me that specialist sports schools are the fastest-improving schools in our school system at the moment. Bear with me, as this is relevant to the subject that we are talking about today, and I will come to it very soon. For those of your Lordships who are not familiar with them, most secondary schools are now specialist schools. They have a specialism. They develop particular expertise in an area of the curriculum and are supposed to spread that among other local schools. Those who have taken sport as their specialism are using it as a platform for school improvement. If you think about it, that is not too surprising, because sport develops teamwork, good health, social skills, dedication, determination—all sorts of skills that are good for people in the world of employment. I used to teach teenage boys and I know that teenage boys do not like sitting still. I am sure that they do not like sitting still in prison. Will my noble friend consider using sport as a platform for prison reform, as well as for school improvement?