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Offender Management Bill

Apart from the first part of the speech of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), whom I shall not follow down some of the roads that he travelled, the debate has concentrated on only two or three clauses—the clauses dealing with probation. In the nearly three years since the Carter report was produced, this is the first time that we have debated the matter on the Floor of the House, although there have been a number of Adjournment debates. Throughout the debates and statements since Carter, the contentious issue has been contestability—although we have occasionally had discussions about other matters such as what on earth we were doing appointing on some inflated salary regional offender managers who did not, and still do not, have any regions to manage. Opposition Front Benchers have clearly stated that they are perfectly happy with privatisation, their only concern being who is providing the service and whether it is provided nationally or locally. I wish that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) had been as clear at the probation officers’ conference a few weeks ago, when he made every effort to fudge the issue and not to clarify where the Tories stand. We have been told time and again that this is not about privatisation, and we heard that again today. Nevertheless, however Ministers try to dress it up, there is no doubt that the Bill allows for the privatisation, at some point in the future, of any part of the probation service. Clause 3 states:"““The Secretary of State may make contractual or other arrangements with any other person for the making of the probation provision.””" It is not just about bringing in the voluntary sector or what is done about providing accommodation, drugs rehabilitation, education or all the other things that are part of dealing with reoffending. Those of us who oppose this are painted as dinosaurs who do not want anything to change. It has been falsely suggested that we object to the idea of the voluntary sector being involved in some rehabilitation work with offenders. We are not saying that there is no place for the voluntary sector, but we question the opening up of the core work of the probation service to privatisation. Nothing in the Bill would prevent any part of the work of the probation service from being privatised at some point. We are told that change is necessary because performance is not good enough, reoffending rates are too high, and not enough work is going to the voluntary sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) said, it does not help the debate when Ministers put the worst possible gloss on reoffending rates by taking the highest figure that can be found—the 66 per cent. that applies to people coming out of prison—and try to portray it as representing the performance of the whole service. Most people who have been supervised by the probation service have lower reoffending rates, particularly if one takes out offences that they committed before the probation order came into effect. Such juggling of the figures does not improve confidence in these proposals. It is easy to say that the reoffending rate is too high, but I have yet to hear from Ministers any suggestion of what they think might be achievable. The targets for the national probation service no longer include reoffending rates. The regulatory impact assessment says that"““a reduction in re-offending of 10 per cent. by 2010 is dependent on the Bill””." However, it does not say why the Bill will lead to a such a reduction, what is the evidence that the proposed structural changes are necessary to reduce reoffending, or what the alternatives are.