Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Committee

Justice Committee 27 April 2010

27 Apr 2010 · S3 · Justice Committee

Item of business

Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Robert Brown Watch on SPTV

I am particularly reassured by the minister’s final comment. We are, perhaps, all left a little bit perplexed about the difference between raising the age of criminal prosecution and raising the age of criminal responsibility. We seem to be heading towards a sort of mish-mash situation with three different levels: up to the age of eight, there is no criminal responsibility; from eight to 12, there is a kind of in-between situation; and over the age of 12, there is a slightly different ball game again. That seems to me to be a bit unsatisfactory, in principle, and I am unpersuaded about the reasons why the Government and the Law Commission have gone down that route. A number of people, including Richard Baker and the convener, touched on the fact that children can do terrible things—indeed, I touched on that myself. However, I was not entirely sure about the implications that we should take from that. We seem to be talking purely about the procedures that apply to the children in that context rather than what is done with them after that. The minister gave us some reassurance about the powers that exist in the children’s hearings system to deal with children, from relatively low down the offending level right to the top. If that is accepted, the argument comes down to whether, as the convener suggests, cases should go before the court in certain limited instances, or whether they should all be dealt with by the children’s hearings system. I did not hear any convincing arguments for the merits of putting children of nine, 10 or 11 years of age before the court. Three cases involving children have been prosecuted since the Scottish Parliament was established. One, involving a child of 11, was listed as a crime of dishonesty; one, again involving a child of 11, was listed under “miscellaneous offences”; and one, involving a child of nine, was listed under “motor vehicle offences”. In none of those cases can I see any obvious or overwhelming reason why there should have been a prosecution. I was attracted by Angela Constance’s suggestion that the matter could be considered afresh in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Bill, and the minister made the point that the grounds are being tweaked somewhat to allow wider welfare issues to be considered, along with minor offending issues. That is probably a useful context in which to consider the matter. I hope that the minister will consider that suggestion, regardless of the outcome of today’s debate, as I think that we have been left with a slightly mismatched position.Stewart Maxwell said that children over eight can understand the difference between right and wrong. That might be the case, but—with great respect—I found his arguments a little confusing. I was not sure where he took that argument, because he seemed to relate it to the responsibility of the parents, which is off to side wicket, as it were. None of that indicates that there should not be a raising of the age of criminal responsibility to 12. Let us do the thing properly.I will press amendment 379. I continue to oppose the convener’s amendments—I do not think that there is much support in the committee for them. I hope that Richard Baker will not move his amendment, in the context of the number of cases involved. Are we to have a report on an issue that has arisen three times in the past 10 years? Notwithstanding the reasons that he set out, that seems a bit of an overkill.My amendment 549 is designed to link the changes in the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Bill to the issue that we are discussing. Having made the point in that regard, I think that I will probably not move that amendment. Convener, thank you for allowing me quite a bit of time to respond.

Search Hansard contributions

Justice Committee 27 April 2010

In the same item of business