Contribution
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for bringing forward his Private Member’s Bill. I do not want to start on a downer or with a spoiler, but I suspect that the Bill may fail to receive the support of the Government. Either way, this Private Member’s Bill presents a timely opportunity for your Lordships’ House to consider the future of youth justice in our country.
The proposed government reforms are about having clearer accountability, a greater grip on the criminal justice system where young people are concerned and a more localised, more personalised approach and response, with a particular focus on that small group of young people who are most at risk. These are important aims. The question is: how do you realise them? Youth justice is not simply a question of administration; it reveals what the state believes about personal responsibility and, ultimately, humanity. What is our response to children who have experienced and caused real harm? How bright a future can we give to young people who have experienced a darker past than most of us can ever imagine?
Let us be clear: victims deserve protection, truth and justice, communities have a right to safety and no child’s offending should be excused or minimised, for their own sake, let alone that of society. But we cannot build an effective youth justice system on a fiction that children are simply small versions of adults. Many who enter this system have experienced neglect, exclusion, exploitation, severe mental health difficulties, special educational needs, family breakdown and a broken care system. None of this removes their personal responsibility, but it should inform our response and the response of wider society.
Our prison estate, as the noble Lord just mentioned, is under acute pressure and we have to be serious about reducing that systemic stress. To do that, we need to look upstream. Tomorrow’s prisoners are formed today in childhood and adolescence. That was the key insight of the Taylor review, and it led to the innovation of secure schools. Oasis Restore, which is the country’s first secure school, has a different model from most young offender institutes. It is smaller, more relational, educational and therapeutic, but it is still secure. It holds children accountable. It helps young people to understand themselves and their situation. It develops trust. It promotes learning and life skills. It enables young people to imagine a different kind of future.
I was struck by the testimony of one set of parents, whose child was in Oasis Restore. They said that, for the first time, they received adequate healthcare, encouragement into education, and an assessment leading to diagnoses of autism and ADHD. They had staff who really knew them and cared for them. They were able to start taking responsibility for themselves. This is not soft justice; it is demanding justice and transforming justice. However, as Steve Chalke, the founder of Oasis Restore, warns, it is in danger of creating a “therapeutic island” in a punitive sea of policy, compliance, assurance and accountability. We need safeguarding, inspection and accountability, but when assurance frameworks become unyielding, unco-ordinated and unresponsive, paperwork becomes the enemy of real work.
I was really encouraged earlier today by a conversation I had with Kate Green, the Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester, who is responsible for building stronger and safer communities. She gave me an insight to the work the Government are doing with the Greater Manchester local authorities. The honourable Jake Richards in the other place, a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, signed an MoU with Greater Manchester in May that will transform youth justice across the city region. It focuses on prevention and diversion from the criminal justice system. It is underpinned and informed by the voice and experience of young people.
Elements of that include: the Greater Manchester Combined Authority becoming the financial administrator of the Turnaround programme, better data sharing across services, and successful remand fostering programmes, which have radically reduced the number of young people returning into young offender situations. It has a youth justice practice hub, which spreads good learning and good practice. It will tackle the disproportionality in outcomes for children in the system. It is a potential blueprint which we could scale across many parts of the country, and the Government should be encouraged to do so.
In this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, is helping us to address critical questions: how do we protect the public and reduce the number of future victims? How do we hold children responsible without writing them off? How do we ensure that the most at-risk young people receive not just more punishment and control but better education, better assessment and better support? Although the Government may not support this Bill, it makes a vital contribution to the wider debate. I look forward to hearing from noble Lords as we progress this vital and timely conversation in your Lordships’ House.