The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 18 May.
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the youth justice system in England and Wales. I am today publishing a White Paper, with a once-in-a-generation set of reforms to build a youth justice system that intervenes early, responds more effectively and does more to turn young lives around, so that we can better protect the public. I am very grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my honourable friend the Member for Rother Valley, Jake Richards, and, before him, my honourable friend the Member for Scunthorpe, Sir Nicholas Dakin, for all their hard work in getting us to this point.
Over the past two decades, the number of children entering the youth justice system and being detained in custody has fallen dramatically. This progress is the result of real cross-party consensus, with a modern youth justice system that began under Tony Blair’s Government and was continued, during his time as Prime Minister, by Lord Cameron—he famously said he would ‘hug a hoodie’—who, with Lord Gove, asked me to carry out the Lammy review.
But this success has brought a new challenge. Our youth justice system is now working with significantly fewer young people, but they are significantly more vulnerable and at significantly higher risk. Most begin their journey into crime long before they come to the attention of the police, their lives shaped by instability, by trauma and often by neglect—the kind of childhood that most of us in this House could barely imagine. Some grow up surrounded by violence, addiction and abuse, while others are moved endlessly around children’s homes or foster care placements, never staying in one place long enough to have the stability needed to feel safe, let alone the love and care that would enable them to really thrive. All those factors make them more likely to end up in the justice system. When we fail to intervene early enough, the consequences can be devastating—for those children, of course, but also for victims and entire communities, because around 80% of prolific adult offenders first enter the justice system as children.
The risks that children face have also changed. Today’s children are navigating online harms, criminal grooming through social media and exposure to extremist content. Too often the system has struggled to keep pace: opportunities to intervene are missed, warning signs go unnoticed and agencies do not consistently share information. This means that children can slip through the cracks between services, which risks escalation, and responsibility between agencies becomes blurred. The lessons emerging from the Southport inquiry, following the tragic murders of three young children by Axel Rudakubana, a violent 17 year-old who was known to authorities, are a terrible reminder of what can happen when systems are not sufficiently co-ordinated and not sufficiently decisive in the face of escalating concerns.
We must learn those lessons but also strike the right balance. The system must recognise that they are still developing and that most have huge capacity to change. We should not over-criminalise but, at the same time, avoiding criminalisation must never mean overlooking risk or failing to act. Benign neglect, however well intentioned, is still neglect. Where behaviour causes harm, timely, proportionate and effective intervention is essential to protect the public and to support children to change course.
That principle is reflected throughout this White Paper. First, we will intervene earlier, investing an additional £46 million over the next three years in our turnaround programme, which is already showing promising results in diverting children from crime, and by strengthening the join-up with other programmes that support children on the cusp of offending. We will also strengthen and expand the use of parenting orders, which can compel parents to address their child’s behaviour, including attending counselling or guidance sessions. If they do not act, they will face penalties. We will deliver on our manifesto commitment to introduce an offence of child criminal exploitation, building on the work carried out by others, including Baroness May, and placing the focus where it belongs: on the adults who groom, the adults who coerce and the adults who profit from exploiting children. Through new youth diversion orders, we will tackle the increasing number of young people who commit terrorism offences, allowing agencies to intervene before that risk escalates.
Where offending does happen, we will ensure that children get the right response at the right time. Diversion must be firm, fair and effective. We will fundamentally reform the youth out-of-court resolution framework, to improve consistency and public confidence so that children receive interventions that genuinely address their behaviour and cut crime. We will also pilot problem-solving youth intervention courts, laser-focused on rehabilitation and prevention. They bring together judges, youth workers and specialist support to tackle the root causes of offending, whether mental ill-health, school absence, addiction or exploitation, while still demanding accountability from young offenders.
The White Paper is also about fairness. Not all children in our justice system are equal. Those in care are still far more likely to be drawn into the system. Black children remain vastly overrepresented—22% of the youth custodial population, compared with 6% of 10 to 17 year-olds overall. Black children are also overrepresented among victims, being around six times more likely to be victims of homicide. I warned about this disproportionality when David Cameron asked me to do the Lammy review, nearly a decade ago, and the fact that it persists today should shame us all. These reforms will begin to address that, building a system that is fairer and more consistent.
Custody will always be necessary for the most dangerous offences, but for many children even a short spell inside can deepen their problems, exposing them to more violence and criminal influence. So we are setting an ambition to cut the number of children remanded in custody by 25% over this Parliament, alongside an intention to reduce the use of short custodial sentences, which so often are ineffective, with more than two-thirds of children going on to reoffend. Instead, we will invest £5 million in intensive community placements and stronger bail support, protecting the public while giving children a genuine chance to change course.
We will also reform the childhood criminal records regime, because mistakes made at 13 should not become a life sentence of closed doors and lost chances, not least where this prevents young people from getting a job, which is a crucial factor in helping offenders turn their lives around. We will carefully consider the age of criminal responsibility in this country, which currently sits at just 10 years old, to ensure that it still reflects a modern understanding of childhood, vulnerability and development. We will also strengthen local youth justice services so that they are better equipped to meet the needs of today’s children.
We will soon set out detailed proposals for a new approach to youth justice service oversight and funding arrangements so that children receive consistently high-quality support wherever they live. That includes reforming the Youth Justice Board, sharpening its focus on continuous improvement of local services and transferring some of its key functions to the Ministry of Justice, so that Ministers are fully accountable for how the system performs.
I have been clear that custody will, where appropriate, be necessary for public safety. However, we will take further action to improve safety and education across the youth estate, while setting a clear long-term direction of travel away from large, outdated institutions and towards smaller settings that can better rehabilitate children.
The White Paper is also about fairness. Not all children in our justice system are equal. Those in care are still far more likely to be drawn into the system. Black children remain vastly overrepresented—22% of the youth custodial population, compared with 6% of 10 to 17 year-olds overall. Black children are also overrepresented among victims, being around six times more likely to be victims of homicide. I warned about this disproportionality when David Cameron asked me to do the Lammy review, nearly a decade ago, and the fact that it persists today should shame us all. These reforms will begin to address that, building a system that is fairer and more consistent.
It is not a choice between punishment and rehabilitation. It is about what works: protecting the public, cutting reoffending, and stopping vulnerable children—so often victims themselves—becoming tomorrow’s dangerous adult offenders. This Government will do whatever it takes to give more children the chance of a better future, and to keep the British public safe. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, we on these Benches welcome any measures that genuinely and effectively prevent young people falling into a life of crime. Every young person diverted away from violence and offending is welcome. The continued reduction in the number of children held in custody is welcome. The fall from around 2,800 children in custody in 2003 to approximately 1,400 today reflects significant progress across successive Governments. We also recognise that the nature of offending has changed. Cases involving county lines, online exploitation, organised gangs and serious violence are often more complex than those faced by the justice system a generation ago.
However, while some of the Government’s individual proposals in this White Paper may sound reasonable in isolation, a deeper concern runs through the paper. Once again, the Government are at risk of confusing rehabilitation with the dilution of accountability. The White Paper is right to identify young people not in education, employment or training as being at heightened risk of offending. But, if the Government are serious about prevention, they must confront the economic conditions affecting young people across the country. The most effective intervention for many young people is not another review, another pilot scheme or another bureaucratic framework; it is to deliver an economy that can provide them and their families with stability.
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There is a reference in the White Paper to reshaping the justice system. The paper records the Government’s proposal to undertake what they describe as a “fundamental look” at the role and purpose of the criminal courts for child defendants. This work will consider whether entirely different court processes should apply not only to children but potentially also to vulnerable adults and young adults. This raises material concerns. If the Government wish to reform sentencing policy to reduce reoffending, that is one debate, but gradually reshaping the philosophical foundations of our criminal justice system itself is quite another.
The Government appear to be intent on treating long-standing justice structures not as constitutional safeguards but as obstacles to be removed or redesigned. We have already seen proposals to weaken jury trial and other proposals designed to keep offenders out of prison. Now Ministers appear to be questioning whether traditional criminal courts themselves remain appropriate for wider categories of offenders. But where does such a process end? Accountability and punishment are being steadily downgraded within a system increasingly defined through the lens of vulnerability.
At this point, I turn to the issue of victims and public confidence. The Government proposed further consultation on the victims’ code, including consideration of a separate code for children. Once again, this Government are drawn towards creating new frameworks and pursuing new consultations rather than improving the operation of an existing system. If there are gaps in protections for child victims, strengthen the existing code. If the Minister believes the current code is unfit for purpose, why was that not addressed during the passage of the Victims and Courts Act just a matter of weeks ago? We must break from a constant cycle of consultation and restructuring. Improving outcomes is not synonymous with endless consultation and the expansion of bureaucracy.
The Government’s underlying philosophy of justice is perhaps laid bare in the sentencing proposals in this paper. For example, they explicitly reject vehicle theft as deserving of a custodial sentence, no matter how many vehicles an individual may have stolen. We do not argue that custody should follow in every case, but sentencing in all cases, youth and otherwise, must reflect individual circumstances. The issue before your Lordships is whether the Government still believe that custody serves any meaningful deterrent or punitive function. The message increasingly appears to be that more or less all young offenders should remain in the community. Once they remain in the community, the Government now stipulate in their White Paper that they
“do not intend on making electronic whereabouts monitoring mandatory”.
So offenders are not to be placed in custody, but nor are they to be monitored. The public are right to ask in these circumstances where the balance is between rehabilitation and public protection.
The White Paper also touches on the issue of remand in respect of young offenders. But the average number of children on remand in England and Wales at any time is now about 183, and some of those may be on remand for their own protection, so I wonder to what extent it is really a major or material issue for consultation at this stage.
The White Paper then turns to the age of criminal responsibility, and it is a concern to see that there is a specific section in the proposals on this issue and the idea that it should be a raised age. The Government state that they will consider a wide evidence base before making a decision on this important issue.
I wonder whether the intended consultation will consider the opinion of the Minister, who declared less than two months ago: “Raising the age risks removing an important safeguard in those exceptional cases where serious offending does occur”, and “setting the threshold too high may have unintended consequences, including the potential for older offenders to exploit younger children who fall below the age of responsibility”. We look forward to considering the scope of the consultation that is to follow.
The fact that this issue now appears in the White Paper inevitably raises questions about the Government’s intention. Ministers may try to present this as a neutral review of evidence, but many may recognise that this is the soft launch of yet another policy reversal. Once again, under the veil of consultation, the Government are moving further away from the important issue of accountability within the justice system.
In conclusion, of course we support the objective of reducing youth offending and preventing young people entering a life of crime—early intervention and diversion have important roles to play within any functioning justice system—but rehabilitation cannot come at the expense of accountability. This Government appear to view punishment, deterrence and public protection as outdated concepts to be eroded, rather than as essential pillars of a justice system. A system in which offenders are neither placed in custody nor monitored when out in the community, where courts themselves are the subject of constant redesign and where accountability is repeatedly softened under the language of reform is not a system in which the public will be able to retain confidence.