I beg to move amendment No. 2, in clause 1, page 2, line 21, leave out ‘or (b)’.

The amendment provides us with an opportunity to talk further about the regime of youth rehabilitation orders, particularly those that cover fostering. Clause 1(3) allows a youth rehabilitation order to include

“a youth rehabilitation order with intensive supervision and surveillance”,

and secondly,

“a youth rehabilitation order with fostering.”

It is governed by paragraph 4 of schedule 1, which lists a number of things that the court must consider. It must be satisfied

“that the behaviour which constituted an offence was due to a significant extent to the circumstances in which the offender was living,” and

“that the imposition of a fostering requirement would assist in the offender’s rehabilitation”.

However,

“a court may not impose a fostering requirement unless—

(a) it has consulted the offender’s parents or guardians (unless it is impracticable to do so), and

(b) it has consulted the local authority which is to place the offender with a local authority foster parent”.

I am not sure what “consulting” really means. I know what the English word means, but I would be interested to hear from the Minister what consulting the offender’s parents or guardians and the local authority is intended to mean as a matter of the construction of the Bill, so that a court knows what is in the Government’s mind when it comes to consider a youth rehabilitation order.

I say that in the context of the evidence that we heard on Thursday 18 October. Mr. Simon Hickson, the policy advisor for the Children’s Society, said:

“About £280 million a year is spent on sending children into custody. A custodial sentence of a year, even if only six months is spent in custody, can cost nearly £100,000. From our perspective, there is a crucial need to look at the criteria for custody and the Bill presents an opportunity to do so. There is an opportunity to move to something of a virtuous circle, by tightening the criteria for custody and using the intensive supervision and surveillance programme or ISS order, as we would like to see it, and the higher intensity measures as community options.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c. 92, Q200.]

I take it that he included within that the fostering requirement because, clearly, if we could deal with a disaffected young person through fostering and improve his behaviour, stop his criminality and reduce reoffending through fostering or an ISS order, that would save a huge amount of money.

However, Ellie Roy, the chief executive of the Youth Justice Board also gave evidence on that occasion. In response to a question from me:

“Where is this money coming from that is going to make this work?”,

she said:

“The starting point for this is that a lot of money is being spent on these young people anyway, through various parts of the system, whether it is on care, social work or various services. This looks as if it is a more effective way of spending some of that resource to get much better results. If we manage to reduce the numbers in custody, the Youth Justice Board would be able to invest more of the money that we currently spend on custody. Simon Hickson quoted the amount for custody. In some sectors it is much higher than that. Some of the beds that we pay for cost up to £200,000 a year. A lot of money is being spent anyway, particularly on the secure children’s homes. There are issues about how local authorities identify the children who are most in need and who are already costing a lot of money, and how they spend the money that is already being invested in them. There is also for us a challenge in terms of getting kids out of custody so that we can spend the money spent on custody in other ways.”

Then, Bob Reitemeier, who is the chief executive of the Children’s Society added:

“I should like to encourage the Committee to take a long-term view in addressing this question of finances. Reoffending rates hover between 75 and 80 per cent. for offenders who go to custody. It is not just, as Simon Hickson pointed out, £100,000 a year, because you multiply that every time the young person comes back into the system. So what some of the interventions, such as intensive fostering or intensive engagement with young people, are trying to combat is the reoffending rate. It is working in a way that prevents these young people from coming back into the system. So when you look at finances and the long term, it sounds crude, but it is pay now or pay later, or pay now or continue to pay. We need to take a long-term view of that.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c. 92-93, Q202.]

I have set that out possibly at too great a length, but it is important to understand the context in which people such as Bob Reitemeier, Simon Hickson and Ellie Roy are looking at finances and looking at the resources that it is necessary to deploy if these sorts of responses to young criminal behaviour are to work.

As I said in the evidence sessions, I have concerns about the nationalisation of children, as I rather dramatically put it. There are already arrangements in the family courts for children to be put into the care of a local authority outside the criminal justice system. Those arrangements have good and bad results, as we know—I come back to the figure that 27 per cent. of the people in custody have been through care. Undoubtedly, however, there will be cases where sadly, both for the child and for the parents, it is the only answer if the child is to move into adulthood with any form of safety. If that is what is required, we must harden our hearts and hope that taking the child away from its natural parents and placing it in care is the lesser of two evils.

The problem that I see arising from intensive fostering requirement is again highlighted by Bob Reitemeier’s evidence. I asked:

“So who will be responsible for co-ordinating this, or does that just fall through the grating?”

That is to say, would the co-ordinating of the resources and providing the right answer for these youngsters fall through the grating? Ellie Roy replied:

“It should be the youth offending team at the local level. If they have behind them the leverage of saying that what they are doing is a requirement of the court, that will facilitate and encourage discussions with local partnerships about to which  people priority should be given. If you get that right, you will get the pay-offs that Simon Hickson described earlier. You can change behaviour and that will save victims, communities and money in the future. That is the ideal that we are heading for and I think that the YRO is a strong lever for us in achieving it.”

Mr. Reitemeier agreed with her about

“the critical need for joining up these services”,

but he continued:

“A point was made earlier about resources in a different context, but the other reality experienced on the ground is that this is viewed as a criminal justice problem, not a broader problem relating to children and young people.”

He reminded us:

“The reality for children’s services is that once a crime enters into the life of a young person” children’s services can move them off their book and place them in the criminal justice resource system. I intervened on him and said,

“And out of their budget.”

He replied:

“It is not really part of the Bill, but I was going to make the point that, because the Youth Justice Board commissions and pays for custody, it is not a local authority problem. The Committee may want to consider that.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c. 102-03, Q221.]

I am getting to the church by way of the moon, but the question that I want the Minister to answer is as follows: if the court consults the local authority, if the local authority has very few resources to spare, it will say, “Criminal justice disposal? Yes please.” The criminal justice system, whether it be the youth offending team or the youth justice system, will then take over the burden of spending public money on that child, as opposed to the county council or other local authority departments. There will be an incentive for local authorities, if consulted in a meaningful way, to respond that the criminal justice procedure is the best way to deal with it. Paragraph 4(3) of schedule 1 states:

“But a court may not impose a fostering requirement unless ... it has consulted the local authority which is to place the offender with a local authority foster parent.”

The local authority treasurer’s eyes will light up and he will say, “You pay for it, youth justice system.” The fostering system will still be provided, but it will come out of somebody else’s budget.

I have never served on a local authority in any guise, as many hon. Members have—