§ Mr. MillerTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what measures are being taken to prevent young offenders on bail offending further. [50572]
§ Beverley HughesI am today making an order which will bring into force section 130 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 across England and Wales. It will do so on 22 April 2002 in the 10 street-crime initiative areas—London, Manchester, West Midlands, Merseyside, Thames Valley, Lancashire, Avon and Somerset, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire—and on 16 September 2002 in the rest of the country.
This section will give new powers to the courts to remand a 12 to 16-year-old into secure detention where they are of the view that the child or young person has a recent history of repeatedly committing imprisonable offences while on bail or in local authority accommodation. In such a case the court must be satisfied that only a secure remand would protect the public from 873W serious harm from him or her, or that only a secure remand would be adequate to prevent the commission of further imprisonable offences by him or her.
I have also made an order which brings into force sections 131 and 132 of the same Act which allows courts to tag 12 to 16-year-olds while on bail or on remand to local authority accommodation. This will increase the number of options available to the courts for dealing with children and young people who repeatedly offend while on bail as an alternative to custody. It will come into force on 22 April 2002 in the 10 street-crime areas listed above plus Northumbria, and in the rest of the country on 1 June 2002.