Peers query secure college plan
Laura McCardle
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Peers have questioned a government proposal to open an £80m secure college for young offenders, citing a lack of evidence to support the plan.
During a recent House of Lords debate, peers said the government’s plan to open a secure college for up to 320 young offenders in Leicestershire is too vague and leaves many questions unanswered.
The proposal for the so-called “fortified school” for 12- to 17-year-olds was put forward in January as part of government plans to drive down reoffending rates.
Lord Ramsbotham said a secure college could help to reduce rates of reoffending but questioned whether it would be a suitable approach.
He said: “I submit that the secure college proposal is so underdeveloped that it is both unreasonable and irresponsible of the government to expect parliament to rubber-stamp it until it knows more.
“Neither as a soldier not as chairman of an NHS hospital trust would I have been happy to launch any initiative on such flimsy evidence.
“I say that not only because construction is not due to start until the next government are in power but because of the proposal’s impact on countless young people.”
Lord Beecham also said there is too little detail about the plans for the secure college, which is expected to open in 2017.
“There are very many unanswered questions here," he said.
"None of us wants to see the government’s objectives of supplying education undermined in any way. However, we do not think that there is sufficient detail here of sufficient indication of how the government will commission the provision of such an institution.
“We think that there is too much reliance on someone out there, one of the four selected potential contractors, to come up with a scheme of their own devising over which parliament would have no oversight whatever.”
Baroness Howarth warned that the secure college would be a short-lived “fashion” with little effect.
A report by members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, published in June, revealed that the government “intends secure colleges to accommodate both boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 17” but the Youth Justice Board is yet to make a final decision on the plan.
