Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 2:00 pm ar 25 Hydref 2007.
I have a few brief but, I hope, appropriate comments. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough has already made a plea about the implementation dates. The youth court is perhaps a victim of the criminal justice system in being subject to a sentencing regime that covers the span of many pieces of legislation and implementation dates that are dealt with in a less than logical fashion.
That allows me to refer again to the reading material from the Prison Reform Trust recommended earlier, in which the sentencers said that they were all grappling with the new legislation. They referred to the new provisions, not necessarily in temperate language, as “idiotic” and the introduction of so many complex changes as “lunatic”. They made particular reference to the piecemeal introduction of the new provisions. The plea with regard to the clause, when the logic is obviously to abolish certain youth orders and related amendments, is that the implementation of the new regime in relation to youth rehabilitation orders and associated matters should be done in a logical and comprehensive fashion. That should be made clear at a very early stage to all practitioners to ensure that, at the point of delivery, the youth court is not trying to work out what is, or is not, implemented and can deliver justice in a consistent manner.