Young Offenders (Hansard, 23 November 1993)

§ Mrs. Roche
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when his Department hopes to introduce specialist training for staff working with juveniles in youth offender institutions.

§ Mr. Peter Lloyd
Responsibility for this matter has been delegated to the director general of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Mr. Derek Lewis to Mrs. Barbara Roche, dated November 1993: The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question about specialist training at Young Offender Institutions. Some specialist training for staff working with young offenders has already taken place at Lancaster Farms Young Offender Institution, under the guidance of the Trust for the Study of Adolescence. Pilot training based on this, to develop a distance learning pack for use in other YOIs is to take place in January. We plan to have the distance learning pack available for general use later in the year.

§ Mrs. Roche
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects that 16 and 17-year-olds who are sentenced to adult penalties will no longer be held with adults serving similar penalties.

§ Mr. Peter Lloyd
The custodial penalties available for 16 and 17-year-olds are detention in a young offender institution—YOI—and detention under section 53 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Boys of this age sentenced to YOI are taken directly to a YOI with a juvenile unit, unless exceptionally they have to he held overnight at a remand centre or local prison because of travelling difficulties. Boys sentenced under section 53 may be held for a few weeks in a remand centre or local prison while a decision is taken as to where they should be allocated to serve their sentences. Girls of 16 and 17 may be held with other female young offenders in establishments which also hold adult women prisoners. This is considered to be the best option for holding them, in their own interests. There are no plans to alter these arrangements.

§ Mrs. Roche
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he plans to end remands of 15 and 16-year-olds to Prison Service establishments.

§ Mr. Maclean
The Government have enacted the necessary legislation to end the remand of 15 and 16-year-olds to Prison Service establishments and we have made additional capital provision available to local authorities so that they can provide an effective alternative. We will bring the new law into effect as soon as we are satisfied that local authorities have provided sufficient additional secure accommodation to meet the expected need.