European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Warner

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner]

The noble Baroness’s amendment is very flexible. It refers to a period of at least three months. There is nothing in the amendment to stop the Government serving their own interests by being more forthcoming more frequently. I am sure that the noble Baroness would not mind having reports made on a more frequent basis.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Government share the sentiments expressed from the Front Bench opposite—indeed, from both Front Benches opposite. The proposal would be entirely in the interests of the smooth development of policy in this difficult area, which I am sure we all understand is extremely difficult. The more help the Government can get, the better, and I think that they are sufficiently humble to know that.

If there were any slackness on the part of the Government, we would have plenty of means in this Parliament for getting them to respond, but I do not agree with putting that into an Act of Parliament, and the reason for that is simple. If something is put into a general Act of Parliament, the idea is that the courts are the enforcers, but one thing that the courts cannot do, in view of the Bill of Rights, is to interfere in proceedings in Parliament. Therefore, this is useless as a formal amendment, but the spirit of it is first-class. I feel almost certain that my noble and learned friend will be able to accept that, because the Minister in the Commons said just as much in a passage that I may refer to later.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Warner

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I too support Amendments 14 and 28A, but I want to speak mainly in support of Amendment 9 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. I do so from the background of having been the architect of youth offending teams and as a former chairman of the Youth Justice Board. One of the most depressing things about the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, is that we continue to find that the same number of children, if not more, who have been looked after and have left care are in the criminal justice system. My responsibilities as chairman of the Youth Justice Board related to the under-18s. If noble Lords go to Feltham, as I did recently, or look at young offender institutions for 18 to 21 year-olds, they will still see very disproportionately represented young people who have been in care. It is worth giving this special consideration, without distorting and overcomplicating Clause 1 too much; the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in Amendment 9.

These children are a special case. Many of us have tried to ensure that they get a better deal so that they do not go into the criminal justice system. Progress has been made among the under-18s in diverting them away from it, but there is still a long way to go. That is particularly the case among young people who have been in care and then are taken into custody. It is the case that when they leave custody, a depressing number of these young people quickly get on to the escalator of reoffending and they are back where they started. Many of the sentences are short. I should say that I am not advocating longer sentences for people in these circumstances, but they are usually not long enough to enable those running the custodial institution to change the behaviour of these young people and provide them with support. Typically, when they come out of custody, whether they are under 18 years of age or aged 18 to 21, for many there is no one in their lives to support them, they have accommodation problems and they do not have any employment. They then go back into the kind of environment which led them to get into the criminal justice system in the first place. Many of them offend outside the area where they were in care, so we have some problems about whether those local authorities always pick up the background of these children.

It is very difficult in today’s world for a youth offending team working with a young offender in one area to get the host local authority, if I might put it that way, to take responsibility for that young person who had been in their care. We have to look very seriously at Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It gives focus to the importance of trying to do our best to stop these young people who have been in care, or who have left care, going through the revolving door of the criminal justice system—particularly those who end up in custody and then fail again when they leave custody.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, first, I very much support the amendments that wish to provide legal assistance to children who are in need. It is extremely important that they should have such help. I suggest for consideration setting up an advice centre because the problems that unaccompanied minors who come from abroad face include the intricate law in relation to immigration. If you go to a high street solicitor, it is difficult to get the kind of advice that you might wish for in that situation. It would be important to have a small team of specialists set up by the Government, or by anyone whom the Government could persuade to set it up, which would be available to provide that kind of help to children in that situation. That would be children who are in care or unaccompanied minors who come into our system otherwise than by the ordinary ways of care. It may be a good idea to bolster this type of amendment with a suggestion as to how it might be carried out efficiently and at reasonable cost.

My second point is in relation to Amendment 9. I understand the problem broadly in terms of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and other reports—for example, the chief officers’ consideration of it. To ask people to do this is a great aim, in a sense, but I feel that if we are to do this we should offer them some assistance on how they go about it. Is the main way of approaching it to try to prevent the children in care committing criminal offences, small or large, or is it saying that if the children commit small offences we should persuade the police to do nothing about it? In other words, we should not commit these people to the organisation that deals with complaints generally. As has been said, ordinary children may find themselves in a disciplinary situation in their own families which does not involve the police and it may be that something of that kind is required. I am not at all certain how this problem can be dealt with but I am very much aware of it, and of the point of view that it should be dealt with. I would like to give more help to the people who we are asking to deal with it in how they go about it.