Welcome to the Committee, Mr. O’Hara. You and I share some areas of mutual interest—normally in relation to Cyprus. I hope that the Committee can likewise reach some consensus on the need for alcohol treatment.

I speak in support of amendments Nos. 105, 106 and 108, which were tabled in my name and those of other Opposition Members, and which would require an  alcohol treatment option as part of the generic youth rehabilitation order. I endorse the comments that have been made about the need to widen the restricted list of requirements in the Bill to cover alcohol treatment explicitly, and to address the misuse of substances that cause many offences. I refer particularly to the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering in relation to volatile substances and their connection with crime.

The amendments relate first to the points of principle on how to differentiate the treatment of adults and the treatment of youths. Previous debates have recognised the need for different treatment of young offenders, for proper coverage of their needs and for sentencing options that are tailored so that young offenders who come before the courts are diverted from reoffending, as all of us in the Committee would wish. My experience is that in all too many cases, young offenders become trapped in the “revolving door”, getting locked into the system as they graduate through different levels of crime. The aim of youth rehabilitation orders and of the treatment requirements is primarily to meet their needs.

The Opposition are concerned about the fact that there is a different set of requirements from that which is available for adults. Let us consider the history of the legislation. In July 2001, the Halliday report set out the need to deal with community orders holistically and generically, and to move away from the proliferation of different orders of which I, as a practitioner, had been much aware. Even at that stage, efforts were being made to try to straddle the many different elements of orders and legislation to bring some sense from the madness. The proposal at that time was to scrap the distinct orders and present them as requirements within a single, generic, community sentence.

That was the genesis of the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which overhauled the range of community orders for adults and substituted community sentences. Significantly, the range of requirements for generic orders available for adults included unpaid work, curfews, drug treatment and alcohol treatment. The first question, therefore, is why that menu of options is available for adults but is not reproduced in the Bill for young people.

In September 2003, the Green Paper “Youth Justice—The Next Steps” was published. At that stage, the proposed action plan orders were to include a number of different menus of options, including options relating to drug and alcohol awareness measures, drug treatment and testing, and alcohol treatment. The question is why we have, in many senses, moved backwards from that stage by not including an alcohol treatment requirement in the Bill.

During the evidence-taking sessions, we heard from Brendan Finegan from the Youth Justice Board, who informed the Committee:

“The Bill in its current shape probably does not allow us to have that alcohol treatment order. We would support the addition of an alcohol treatment element.”

Referring to his colleague, Graham Robb, Mr. Finegan added:

“Graham’s view was that the board’s approach to substance misuse and the misuse of substances, whether licit or illicit, is that we would wrap them up in a general concept of substance misuse, so that misuse of tobacco as much as misuse of proscribed drugs can be wrapped together. In terms of the Bill  itself, we accept that an amendment for alcohol would allow that problem to be tackled.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 18 October 2007; c. 97, Q211.]

We welcome that comment from the Youth Justice Board in favour of such an amendment.

The principle should be shared. The Minister of State acknowledged a couple of days before that evidence-taking session, during the preliminary discussions and questions that:

“There is potentially a gap in respect of alcohol.”——[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Immigration Public Bill Committee, 16 October 2007; c. 11, Q2.]

I am sure that we all agree that it is important to tackle the problem of alcohol when dealing with young people. All the evidence suggests that more alcohol is going down fewer throats. On the issue of alcohol-fuelled disorder, it is clear that teenagers and children are drinking to dangerous levels, with over 45 per cent. of 14 to 15-year-olds estimated to have drunk alcohol in the past week. One survey showed that 54 per cent. of 15 to 16-year-olds had consumed more than five drinks on a single occasion in the preceding 30 days, and 27 per cent. of them reported doing that three or more times within the preceding 30 days.

Looking at crime itself, the British crime survey—we do not always want to rely on that—states that alcohol is a factor in 47 per cent. of violent crime. That breaks down to alcohol being a factor in 45 per cent. of incidents of domestic violence, 19 per cent. of muggings, 58 per cent. of incidents of stranger violence, and 51 per cent. of incidents of acquaintance violence. That is the case whether adults or young people are involved.

The primary aim of the order for which the Bill provides is to intervene as early as possible, which sadly sometimes has to be at the court order stage. One wants to get to the heart of the problem of young people’s offending, which affects the offender, their relationships at home, which are often broken, and their relationships out on the streets. The amendment is designed to put in place the provision that is already available for adults. Basically, what is good for the adults should be good for the youths. It also seeks to understand that this is a primary problem for young people.

It is also important to see whether treatment can be delivered in practice. The Minister will probably say that there is nothing within the generic order to stop voluntary activities of alcohol treatment being dealt with, but the real question, which has to be answered whether or not we have an alcohol treatment requirement, is whether the resources needed to deliver a step change improvement in alcohol treatment are available. When one looks at funding across the board, one sees that, compared with drug treatment, alcohol is very much the Cinderella service, if indeed Cinderella is even thought of. A recent survey following a freedom of information request showed that alcohol treatment funding made up only 6 per cent. of the funding that drug treatment services receive.

The opportunities available for an adolescent to seek treatment voluntarily are limited. It is estimated that around 17,000 adolescents at present are in treatment, but that can cover many different forms of treatment. Often that does not include any sense of whether they are receiving day treatment or residential rehabilitation. The reality is that there is only one dedicated residential  service in this country: Middlegate Lodge, which has three beds available. That is shocking given the statistics that I have outlined.

All hon. Members know the impact of alcohol on young people in their constituencies. Whether we have the treatment requirement or not, the resources to deliver treatment are very limited indeed. One cannot rely on treatment taking place voluntarily. It is important, when cases come to court which merit a treatment order, that that provision is available. If the Bill is to contain a treatment requirement for alcohol, as we suggest—the same argument can be made in relation to drug treatment—it should be there not just for the headlines, but for delivery. People have a right to expect that if an order is in the Bill, it can be delivered. The £600,000 or so that will be put in place to deliver training is plainly not adequate as a dedicated resource to deliver proper treatment.

The situation in this country contrasts remarkably with that in other countries. Very briefly, I would like to illustrate what is needed to deliver an alcohol treatment requirement with an example from Sweden, where there is more of a focus on adolescent services. This country focuses more on adult rehabilitation. Treatment centres such as the Maria youth clinic are fully state funded. It has 110 staff who see 2,000 families a year. Early treatment for addiction is crucial. In the Maria youth clinic, treatment is available immediately. The clinic sits in its own dedicated unit within a police facility and immediately the offender is arrested and charged, they go straight to the clinic for treatment, once it has been identified that drugs or alcohol are a relevant factor.

The Maria youth clinic

“aims to achieve permanent sobriety in the young patient and straight away he has individual counselling and his parents and the school are brought in”.

The parents and school being engaged at an early stage are crucial factors in terms of any effective treatment.

“Quite often our youngster will stay in the clinic for a number of days but will be required to undergo counselling for up to 10 weeks. The emphasis in the counselling is the rebuilding of self esteem and the tackling of depression—something that is often at the heart of drug addiction in teenagers. Time after time the head of the clinic stressed to me the importance of youngsters receiving treatment immediately—waiting lists are not acceptable.”

That is just one example in Sweden. We cannot just replicate that provision, but it gives an indication of how far we have lapsed in terms of providing effective treatment for addiction in this country.

My amendment is designed to plug a gap, one that would properly be filled only by the commitment of dedicated resources to produce an effective step change in the treatment of addictions. Nevertheless, it is a gap that needs to be plugged, given the position in which adults currently find themselves. It is a gap that we see all too clearly in our constituencies and in the courts.