Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-11-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we support this amendment, but, as I have already said, we have our doubts about the whole regime. For the benefit of noble Lords who missed the midnight debate on Monday, I bring you the edited highlights, which are relevant to this group I quoted from the House of Commons briefing paper 9165. On the Government’s proposals on diversionary and community cautions, it says: "the available evidence suggests the system: … may result in a further decline in … OOCDs; … is likely to cost more … is unlikely to have a major impact on the reoffending rates of offenders; and … may improve victim satisfaction but is unlikely to have a major impact." I have to say that the high point for me on Monday night—or was it Tuesday morning?—was the Minister’s answer to my question about how effective conditional cautions, which are the existing system of cautions with conditions attached, were, compared with simple cautions that do not have conditions attached. The noble Lord announced with glee, if I may say that in a very respectful way, that: "As the Committee will know from previous exchanges, I am quite a fan of data."—[Official Report, 8/11/10; col. 1577.] The Minister then looked at his phone and a message from his WhatsApp group—it is good to see members of the WhatsApp group in the Box today—saying that, in effect, there was no data. The Government not only keep no record of how many conditional versus simple cautions are administered, just the total number of all cautions, but have no record of what kind of conditions are attached to conditional cautions. On the basis of that data void, they plan to implement a system where all police cautions will need to have conditions attached I also quoted from a 2018 paper by Dr Peter Neyroud, former chief constable of Thames Valley Police and now a distinguished academic, published by the University of Cambridge and commissioned by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, entitled Out of Court Disposals Managed by the Police: A Review of the Evidence. On the police attaching conditions to cautions, he said: "The result … was a significant degree of inconsistency and a substantial number of inappropriate and un-evidenced conditions." The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham gave us an example of, presumably, a youth who was banned from public transport, which meant he could not get to school. I continue to quote from Dr Peter Neyroud: "Whilst the provision of further training and more guidance improved the situation somewhat, the cost of such an investment within a more general implementation of OOCD’s with conditions"— exactly what the Government are proposing— "would be prohibitive and, in any case, did not completely resolve the problems." Never mind—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, came up with a better idea: the inspectorates of the constabulary and of the CPS could ensure consistency, so that somebody in a similar situation, committing a similar offence, would have the same conditions attached, no matter where they were in the country. I am afraid not, said the Minister: "Those two inspectorates are not regulators; they do not have power to enforce compliance."—[Official Report, 8/11/21; col. 1576.] Inconsistent, inappropriate and unevidenced conditions will be attached to cautions all over the country, bringing no benefit to offenders, little benefit to victims and increased costs to the criminal justice system. That is what this part of the Bill does We support this amendment, which should also apply to diversionary cautions, but the omens are not good that the police will know what they are doing when it comes to applying conditions to support the offender to desist from offending. There is serious doubt that, even when they do, the conditions will have any effect on reducing reoffending.