HC Deb 02 February 1998 vol 305 cc714-5
13. Mr. Fitzpatrick

What measures he plans to implement to ensure that there is a framework for local action to tackle youth offending. [24624]

Mr. Straw

The Crime and Disorder Bill establishes new youth offending teams throughout the country, bringing the relevant local agencies together in partnership to work more effectively with young offenders. The Bill also establishes a youth justice board for England and Wales, which will provide a clear national framework for that local action to tackle youth offending.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I thank the Secretary of State for his response. I am sure that he knows that his proposals have been widely welcomed. However, it is also accepted that we need to be tough on the causes of offending. With that in mind, does he agree that, as part of the framework, we must have adequate resourcing of youth services, as well as promotion of education, training and employment opportunities for young people?

Mr. Straw

I pay tribute to the work of the youth service, which is a much neglected service. The issue in all these cases—this applies generally throughout the public sector—is not just the money that is spent on the service, but how effectively that money is used. As we saw from an Audit Commission report last week for the police, the police forces that have been most effective in reducing crime have not necessarily been those that have had an increase in resources.

Mr. Clappison

I congratulate the Home Secretary on his good fortune in being in the Prime Minister's good books. We hope that relations with No. 11 are equally good. May not the Prime Minister have less reason to feel pleased with the Home Secretary if he considers local authority secure accommodation? Is it not true that, in the previous Parliament, when a substantial amount of extra local authority secure accommodation was being provided, the Prime Minister, then the shadow Home Secretary, promised that he would provide more? Is it not true that it was said that sending 15 and 16-year-olds to adult prisons rather than secure accommodation was a scandal? Is it not true that, under this Home Secretary, the Government are not providing a single extra local authority secure accommodation place, are set to continue remands of 15 and 16-year-olds to adult prison accommodation long into the future and, on top of all that, have abandoned the promising experimental regime at Colchester? Is all that not proof that they have failed to deliver on a commitment?

Mr. Straw

Even by the standards of the Opposition Front-Bench team, that was a remarkably poorly researched question. The truth on secure accommodation is that, in 1991, the previous Administration promised a programme to increase the number of secure accommodation places by about 170 and it took them nearly seven years to achieve that. They also completely confused the legislation, with the result—until the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Bill—that some of those places were having to remain empty for 12 and 13-year-olds, while there were insufficient places for the remands of 15 and 16-year-olds. We will take no lectures on the issue of secure accommodation for young people. We have proposed a national youth justice board. One of its tasks will be to sort out the present incoherent and expensive system of custody for young people.