THE House of Lords has blocked government plans to introduce controversial so-called secure colleges for young offenders.

Peers voted by 186 to 185 on Wednesday night to back a Labour proposal to prevent the “colleges” from housing girls or children under the age of 15.

The government plans to open the first secure college to house 320 young offenders aged between 12 and 17 in Leicestershire in 2017.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling claims that the pilot scheme will cut reoffending rates and improve the quality of education given to offenders.

But the plans, enshrined in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, have been attacked by peers and penal reformers, including former chief inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham.

The independent cross-bencher accused Mr Grayling of rushing through the scheme without good evidence that it will prove a success.

He said: “Yet again Parliament is being asked by the Secretary of State for Justice to rubber-stamp a rushed and unthought-through discreet proposal whose intent I and many others support but whose details remain shrouded in mystery.”

Shadow justice minister Lord Beecham told the Lords: “The prospect of having 12- to 15-year-old boys in the same institution as 15- to 17-year-olds is a matter of grave concern.”

His concerns were shared by Liberal Democrat Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, a leading QC, who said it could not be right to “experiment with the lives of girls and young boys in custody in this way.”

Justice minister Lord Faulks assured peers that if girls or under-15s were housed in the Leicestershire college they would be kept in separate units away from older boys.

But peers voted in favour of Lord Beecham’s amendment.

Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan described the vote as “a humiliating defeat” for the government.

“The House of Lords have shown they have no confidence the government’s plans won’t lead to a teenage titan-prison that is violent and dangerous. It’s high time they listened to the overwhelming opposition and scrapped these dangerous plans.”

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, described the defeat as a “victory for common sense.”

She said: “It’s not too late to reconsider this ill-judged college of crime altogether and invest instead in smaller, local and more effective ways to get children out of trouble.”