Lord Hacking (Lab)

My Lords, I shall speak on Amendment 469, and I have listened with great care to the persuasive argument presented by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, whom I think I can also refer to as a noble friend. I have also been briefed by Justice, a body that I have the highest respect for; indeed, I have been a member of Justice—I think I joined in 1964—for up to 60 years. I accept the widespread view in other countries that the age for findings of criminality should be 14 years, which is the proposition in Amendment 469. I accept also that Scotland has recently raised the age of criminality from eight years to 12 years. We should also take into account the alarming increase in crime committed by young children going down to the age of nine years, and even lower. I read, for example, from Home Office statistics, which record that 9,544 offences were committed by children aged nine or younger in 2024. That is a rise of 30% on the 7,370 under-10 crimes recorded in 2019, before the pandemic, and an 18% rise on the total for 2022 of 8,064. They range, alarmingly, over crimes concerning rape, arson, stalking, attacking police, making death threats and drug and racially motivated offences—that is for nine year-olds. In Cheshire recently, police faced an attempted murder suspect who was too young to go before the courts. I take full account of all that. However, I have a sense of unease in raising the age of criminality from 10 to 14 years. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, raised the case relating to two year-old James Bulger, of February 1993. I need not go into the full facts, but it suffices to say that in a shopping centre in Bootle in Merseyside, a little boy, two year-old James Bulger, was separated from his mother and was met by two other boys, 10 year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. They proceeded to take him away, eventually to a railway line, where they committed the most horrendous murder of that little boy. Following that, they were tried and convicted in November 1993 and in June 2001 were released from prison on licence. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has dealt with their anonymity following their release. The record is that—and I think this is very relevant—Robert Thompson is not known to have been a reoffender, but not so with Jon Venables. He has had multiple convictions, including for child pornography. He is currently in prison and recently, in 2023, bail was refused because he still posed a danger and a risk to the public. As I said, I have expressed my unease about this. The only further comment I make on the horrendous case relating to poor two year-old James Bulger is that it is not the only recorded crime of horrendous behaviour by young persons. I recall reading in the newspaper of the recent murder of a pensioner, and I am fairly sure that it was underage children who were responsible for that. I also recall reading in the newspapers of the murder of a homosexual in a public park. Again, if I recall correctly, underage children were involved, including a young girl. Juvenile crime, I suggest, should be kept on the record. It was highly relevant in the case of Jon Venables that it should be kept on the record. Perhaps we could make an exception for the very serious crime that I have outlined to your Lordships. But one way or another, that record of criminality should remain with the juvenile.