Contribution
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Oates, for bringing this Bill before the House and compliment him on his unwavering defence of the YJB. I will focus my remarks on one particular issue at the heart of the Bill: the Government’s proposed changes to the Youth Justice Board. I share the concern we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Oates, that the proposed changes risk weakening what is demonstrably working. I say that with some personal experience, having seen our youth justice system from two perspectives—first, as a youth magistrate for over 20 years and, secondly, as a former member of the Youth Justice Board.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord McNally for his unrelenting and passionate work in youth justice. I was fortunate enough to serve on the board while he was chair, and I am sorry that he is unable to be here today. I hope he makes a speedy recovery.
The creation of the youth offending teams, supported by the YJB, changed the landscape of youth justice. The YOTs, now referred to as youth justice services, brought together a team locally, including police, probation, health, education, and social care. This gave us a valuable insight into the child, a much more holistic approach to youth justice and, ultimately, better rehabilitation. The evidence shows that this approach has worked. The noble Lord, Lord Oates, has already reminded us of the significant fall in youth offences and youth custody, which is an extraordinary achievement. The YJB has played a hugely important role in supporting that success, and one of its strengths has been bringing together national expertise and independence, with locally delivered multi-agency services alongside its visibility right across the system.
I have often suggested that the adult criminal justice system could learn a great deal from the youth justice approach, and that is not simply my view. Martin Jones, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation, told the Justice Committee earlier this year that in youth justice
“we have all the building blocks of success, and we need to ensure that we carry that across into the adult system”.
For me, that is an endorsement of the value of the youth justice model and, surely, a reason to ask what we can learn from what is working before we weaken the structures that help make it work.
My concern is not with the principle of reform itself: I recognise that organisations often need to evolve and build on their successes. Instead, my apprehension is centred on what we might lose by moving these responsibilities from an independent specialist body, the YJB, into the MoJ, which we know already has a lot on its plate. If the Government believe that reform is needed, surely one of the first questions should be: “What does the YJB need?”, not whether some of it should just be brought back into the MoJ. The question is: how can we expect to retain the YJB’s expertise and the value of its independent advice to Ministers, while at the same time removing some of its responsibilities?
Phil Bowen, the chair of the Youth Justice Board, has made an important point here:
“We have said to ministers that putting end-to-end oversight back into the department means that you do have a different tone—a minister could suggest an idea like reforms to the youth court, and we could provide advice as wise experts rather than as civil servants”.
That distinction is extremely important. I am uneasy about any reform which could be perceived as a move away from a child-first approach towards a justice-first approach.
The Government themselves recognise that children remaining in the youth justice system are often more vulnerable and have more complex needs. Surely that makes specialist expertise more important, not less. As the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has highlighted, these proposed reforms run counter to some of the findings of the government-commissioned review by Steve Crocker. This was an important review, which should be taken seriously into consideration.
Therefore, I ask the Minister: are the Government working on an impact assessment and, if not, will they commit today to doing so? It is imperative that any changes lead to better outcomes for children and young people in youth justice. The combination of local delivery, practical experience, national expertise and the independent advice that follows from that is worth protecting, so my plea to the Government is: reform where reform is needed, but please let us build on what works rather than risk weakening it.