We recommend that the Ministry review the age of criminal responsibility, considering the data available from Scotland and from broadly comparable European and other jurisdictions in which the age is higher than 10 at which it stands in England and Wales. We recommend that the Ministry report on the implications of raising the age in England and Wales to 12 and to 14, including the likely effect on reducing the number of children in custody and alternative methods of disposing of children beneath those ages who have committed serious offences. We recommend that if it concludes that 10 should remain the age of criminal responsibility, the Ministry set out the evidence and reasoning to justify an approach the Minister of State recognises as one that differs from the average. (Paragraph 65) Racial Disproportionality