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Offender Management Bill

This is an important debate, so I hope that my cold will not mean that most of what I say is unintelligible. Despite the Home Secretary’s emollient words earlier in the debate, I am very concerned about many aspects of the Bill for two reasons: it will not cut reoffending; nor will it give the public greater protection—rather the reverse. John Colvill, the chair of my local probation board, said in a letter to me recently:"““Offender provision would be fragmented and risks to the public would only be increased by a web of contracts put together in the futile hope that they might together like the proverbial jigsaw. They might not. It is a dangerous risk to take.””" It is my view that the Bill will fracture the probation function in detriment to the public, offenders and the courts. It will centralise and privatise, against the wishes of the vast majority of those consulted by the Government. We have heard several references to the Home Office’s consultation of 2005, when 788 of the 798 respondents were against the plans. The Home Secretary said, ““Well, this is a lobby.”” Of course we can say that, but it was a consultation exercise and the result was an absolutely universal rejection of these proposals. There is no support for these proposals in the country, and the debate so far has shown—