Secure Accommodation (Hansard, 21 January 1991)

§ 1. Mr. Flynn
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next plans to meet the directors and chairpersons of social services departments in Wales to discuss secure accommodation.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Bennett)
Although my right hon. Friend currently has no such plans, a review of secure care policy is being undertaken by my Department.

§ Mr. Flynn
I welcome the Minister to his new duties, and wish him well.
On a day when the fragility of human life is very much in our minds, I need not emphasise to the House or the Minister—who has lost a constituent who was on remand in Swansea gaol—the supreme importance of this issue. Wales has no secure accommodation in which to put greatly troubled children. I understand that a Welsh Office working party met to consider the question of severely disturbed children in 1981 and 1982 and has yet to report. Will the Minister give us an assurance that he will give urgent priority to the need to provide secure accommodation for such young people, who have suffered greatly?

§ Mr. Bennett
As the hon. Gentleman said, we have been considering the matter. The review that I mentioned was introduced in August last year. We hope that it will be able to report in the next couple of months, but it is contingent on the Home Office review of young people in prisons. I take the hon. Gentleman's point, however, and I thank him personally for his kind remarks about my appointment.

§ Mr. Gwilym Jones
South Wales police have told me that 25 per cent. of all crime is auto-related, much of it committed by juveniles who are often on remand awaiting 3 sentence for an earlier crime. In the type of accommodation provided in south Wales, juveniles can go in through the front door and no one stops them going out the back door. That is clearly not good enough; it is quite inadequate. May I press my hon. Friend to take steps as early possible to provide the necessary secure accommodation and thus make a major contribution to reducing the crime rate?

§ Mr. Bennett
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. It is true that the peak offending age in this country is between fourteen and a half and fifteen, and that auto crimes constitute an important proportion of those offences. This is one of the points that we are examining in the review of secure accommodation.

§ Mr. Wigley
May I, too, welcome the Minister to his new responsibilities? He may be aware that I lost a constituent in Risley; he may also be aware that a 15-year-old from Bangor was sent there just before Christmas because of the absence of secure units in north Wales. Can he given an assurance that the needs of north Wales will be taken into account in his review?

§ Mr. Bennett
Yes, I can give that assurance. All of Wales, north and south, is being considered so that we can decide whether that sort of secure accommodation will be necessary. As I said, however, we must await the review from the Home Office and the associated review from the Department of Health.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments about my appointment.

§ Mr. Allason
Does my hon. Friend agree that, in a civilised society, it is entirely unacceptable for juveniles to be put in adult prison accommodation or for them to have to travel long distances to reach secure accommodation? Is he aware that a large proportion of juvenile crime is committed by the very same hardened young criminals who are in deep need of such accommodation?

§ Mr. Bennett
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is clearly not acceptable for youngsters of 14, 15 and 16 to be committed to prison and we want the practice to end as soon as possible. Clearly, however, we must ensure that we have the right sort of accommodation to deal with some of the very hardened cases. I have been particularly concerned about this issue, because one of my constituents hanged himself in Swansea prison only last year. We are pressing forward as quickly as possible.

§ Mr. Michael
May I join in welcoming the Under-Secretary of State to his new duties? I took an interest in this issue for many years before I became a Member of Parliament. In the light of previous Government replies, does the Minister accept that, because of the present financial burdens on local authorities, it is not enough simply to pass the buck to them and tell them to find the money? Is he aware of the evidence given by the all-party group on penal affairs to the Wolff inquiry which highlighted the need for secure accommodation for young people on remand in Wales? Does he also accept the panel's view that secure accommodation will help only if the Welsh Office faces up to its responsibility to initiate and finance comprehensive action throughout Wales to divert young people from crime and to root out the causes of juvenile crime? Will he take those points into account in his review?

§ Mr. Bennett
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall certainly look at what causes young people to be involved in crime. A range of measures is used at the moment—for instance, intermediate treatment—that do not involve youngsters being put into secure accommodation. We want those measures to be extended as far as possible. As for the hon. Gentleman's question about finance, if we recommend that new secure accommodation should be provided, we intend to look into how it should be paid for.