Children in Custody (Hansard, 23 November 1983)

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order paper.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, on 30th September there were 26 sentenced 15-year-old offenders held in prisons and remand centres. This figure does show an increase over earlier years. It may reflect recent changes in sentencing patterns, but it is too early to draw any firm conclusions following the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, and noble Lords will be aware that it is for the courts to decide how each individual case should be dealt with. Initial indications. however, are that fewer detention centre orders are being imposed on boys under 17 than formerly. As to community homes, community homes with education are not reserved for offenders and the courts have no powers to require a child to be sent to one. In recent years the demand for residential care has decreased and the Government are concerned to extend and strengthen the range of community based disposals for young offenders.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that full reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that, when we get boys sent to us in youth custody centres, they have very often completed maybe half of their sentence in an adult prison? Would he not agree with me that for a 15 or 16 year-old boy to be locked up 23 hours a day while in the middle of his puberty could be very damaging?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, of course it is our aim to have as little recourse to imprisonment for this class of offender as possible. but I think that in the cases to which the noble Baroness refers the period in custody will have been short. The allocation procedure is normally completed in between four and 10 days and transfer allocation to another establishment is normally then done with despatch, and at any rate within a week. It is on occasion the case that so little of a short sentence remains that it is not in the interests of the prisoner to be put to the upset of removal to yet another strange place for the remaining period.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, does not the noble Lord agree that to hold 15-year-old children in a prison with hardened criminals is an appalling state of affairs, and as the numbers are so small—the noble Lord quoted the figure of 26—could not some alternative arrangements be made throughout the country?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, it is a question of administration—and that is not meant to be a pettifogging reply, but we do have to provide the means of allocation which is a specialised job. The young people concerned are not kept in contact with adult offenders; they are in separate parts of the establishment. The allocation process is carried out as swiftly as possible and we find that it does not militate against the interests of the prisoners to the extent that I think the noble Lord fears.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, may I ask the Minister how many community homes with education have been closed and whether it is likely that more will be closed?—because the one with which I am involved as a governor has now 19 people at it, when it has places for 54, and the facilities and teaching are excellent. Even though the courts cannot send the young people directly there, the courts can put the young people into the care of the local authority which can then send them to the community homes with education.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, we are aware of this problem. But I have to remind the noble Baroness that the closure or maintenance in operation of a community home with education is the responsibility of a local authority, and even before the implementation of the 1982 Act a surplus of accommodation in such homes had already developed. Where this has led to establishments becoming uneconomic, local authorities have had no alternative but to close them.

Lord Hunt
My Lords, following the previous question, is the Minister satisfied that the staffing of community homes, while necessarily high in relation to the number of resident children, is not excessive in present circumstances of under-use, as pointed out by the noble Baroness in her original question? Is it not a fact that in some of these homes, with one of which I happen to be personally involved, the number of staff considerably exceeds the number of resident children?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, the noble Lord has put his finger on what I was trying to point out. Sometimes these homes are uneconomic. We are trying to see how these facilities can be made more cost effective. New provisions in the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudications Act 1983, which comes into force shortly, will widen the use that community homes with education may be put to, and should stimulate this development.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, may I refer to the noble Lord's reply to my supplementary question? I appreciate the point about administration, but surely it is not beyond our wit and ingenuity to ensure that 26 children are not held in jail. We can organise all kinds of things. We organised a war 8,000 miles away at the drop of a hat. Surely we can organise matters so that 26 children are not held in jail. Why cannot that be done?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, the Falklands episode is used as a yardstick for a great many things. I am not sure that this is the most appropriate. Leaving that aside, we are talking about 26 individuals at any one time spread across the country in a number of institutions. The offences occur all over the country, not in specific places. If we are to reduce the number of places in which they are to be held for allocation and very rarely for anything else, we automatically make it a much greater distance for the family to travel in order to visit and support, as well as a more expensive process for the system. We have to balance the interests of all prisoners one against the other. In the light of what the noble Lord has said, I shall of course look at the matter again, but I am broadly satisfied that what we are doing meets the criteria both of cost effectiveness and of humanitarianism, as it should.

§ Lord Mishcon
My Lords, did the noble Lord the Minister catch the anxiety in the House following upon what the noble Lord has just said in his supplementary question? Would he regard cost effectiveness as being the least priority in this matter instead of one of the main priorities? Will the noble Lord kindly answer this question? In regard to youth custody orders, is it not correct that in the passage of the Criminal Justice Bill the hope was expressed by the Government that youth custody orders would be on the decrease? Has that hope so far been fulfilled?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I did catch the anxiety. I thought that I responded to it in the terms in which I replied to the noble Lord. As to cost effectiveness, I cannot agree with the noble Lord, but perhaps he does not quite take the point that I am making. We have a finite budget and a finite amount of money to spend on the service. Within that service, the more cost effective we are in dealing with one prisoner, the better we can treat another. I am therefore seeking the best way to use the money so that all prisoners benefit to the maximum amount. I do not think that I can give disproportionate amounts of money to individual classes of prisoner beyond what may be required by their tender age and the fact that they may be first offenders.
As to the noble Lord' s last supplementary question, I well remember the heat of the debate on Section 1, as it now is, of the Criminal Justice Act in which the noble Lord and I partook. and which makes it an obligation on the courts to consider every other form of disposal of a prisoner before custody is considered. That is still what we intend. As I said in my original and equally long substantive Answer, it is yet too early to see how the pattern of sentencing will settle down.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, does my noble friend, the Minister, agree that one of the problems is the inability to suspend a youth custody order under existing law? If he agrees, will Her Majesty's Government give favourable consideration to introducing an amendment to cure that defect?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I think that my noble friend is wishing to remind me of the remarks made by the noble and learned Lord Chief Justice on the question of the suspension of such sentences. As my honourable friend made clear recently in another place, we do not at the moment foresee an opportunity for early legislation.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, is there not a problem in that some magistrates are not aware that detention centres are not being fully used? They are under the impression that the centres are very full. Is he aware that I have discussed this with some magistrates?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I am aware that the noble Baroness has discussed it with some magistrates. She was kind enought to tell me yesterday that she had done so. I trust that in future discussions she will enlighten her friends in that quarter and that our exchanges in the House will serve to enlighten the rest.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, is the Minister aware that not only are more young people receiving youth custody sentences but also many more are in secure accommodation since the implementation of the Criminal Justice Act? I made local enquiries. I found that, in five months before implementation of the Act, no boys were in secure accommodation in my county. In the five months since the implementation of the Act, 209 boy-days have been spent in secure accommodation. This is very unfortunate in every way, and also from the point of view of cost. It costs £500 a week to keep a boy in such accommodation.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I repeat that I think it is a little early to form a judgment on the working of the Act. I shall look at the working of the Act in the light of what the noble Baroness has said.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, on a practical point, is the noble Lord saying that exchanges in the House are sufficient to inform magistrates of the point that the noble Baroness was making? Will the noble Lord give an assurance to the House that he will discuss the matter with his noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor to see whether the magistrates can be specifically informed of the point at issue?

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for drawing attention to what was intended to be a verbal felicity but not to limit the scope of my action.