Lord Oates (LD)

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for taking part in this debate. So many brought their unique perspectives to the discussion. I reiterate my thanks to the Minister and his colleague for having met with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. I admit to being a little disappointed by his response from the Dispatch Box, because I had hoped that the Government would have taken on more of the arguments that were made at that meeting and which have been made by almost everybody in the Chamber. I take on board the Minister’s point about custody and the complexities of the system. He talked about more complexity, as many of us did. Many noble Lords talked about the need to improve the system and I do not think any of us said that it should just stay the same. The noble Baroness, Lady Sater, certainly mentioned this and the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, talked about bringing new skills to the Youth Justice Board. Our principal thought is that, if those powers are taken back to the Ministry of Justice, youth justice will be forgotten just as it was before. Noble Lords in that department have so much on their plate already that youth justice will suffer. The youth justice reforms of 1998 were a jewel in the crown of the then Labour Government. It is a huge mistake to tear them up. Of course, we can improve them—everybody in the House would agree with that—but not by going back to the system that we had before. That is what is being suggested by shifting oversight. I am sorry that the Conservative Front Bench does not support us, although I am not terribly surprised. I slightly caution the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, against claiming some partisan success on this. Actually, although custody reduced during the Labour Government, the Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition and the Conservative Government, most of the credit has to go to the youth justice reforms of that Government. The one thing that people must recall is that it takes a long time for reforms to work through the system and deliver the sort of success that they did. That is why I am so worried about tearing up those reforms just at the point that they are having an effect. However, I thank everybody for taking part in this debate.