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Offender Management Bill

I agree entirely. I have discussed the issue with prison officers, educators and members of the probation service, and all of them are in a state of flux. They do not have a clue what is happening. I mentioned earlier the many written parliamentary questions that have been tabled on this issue, a lot of which have been tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). We still do not know the answers to core questions about how NOMS will shape up. Heavens above—if those who actually work there are not told the answers, what hope is there for any kind of morale in the service? As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) has just pointed out, it is absolutely vital and fundamental that rehabilitation be uppermost in one’s mind when someone is in custody. That is the only way to turn such people around. There is a vast amount of work to be done, but NOMS—which is something of a fig leaf—and this Bill are not the answer. I hope that at some point we can deal with the following issues. First, can we not have an audit of all those in prison who should not be there? What about those with mental health or drug problems? After all is said and done, a drug addiction is an illness. It is not that such a person is intrinsically bad; they are suffering from an awful illness, and one exemplar of that illness is the criminality that feeds that habit. That is a terrible situation to be in, and we need to address the problem in a different way. We need to concentrate far more on assisting those people, so that they do not simply come out of prison and start again, thereby getting into an awful spiral—or stuck in the revolving door, as it has been referred to. There are some beacons of good practice. Altcourse prison, in Liverpool, has a very good course for taking people off drugs, and so on. I hope that we can reach a sensible position, ignore the tabloids and the less progressive elements who are shouting at we Members of Parliament from the sidelines—[Interruption.] Actually, they are not on the sidelines; they are just behind me. I hope that we can have a mature, grown-up and sensible debate, because that is what this important issue needs. I would point out to any member of the public who is listening that I am very much in favour of proper community penalties, which are cost-effective. They are a form of redress whereby the transgressor gives back to the transgressed, and they do work in dealing with reoffending. The Home Secretary said earlier that 5,000 extra probation officers have been engaged in the past five to seven years. According to Lord Ramsbotham,"““there are 300 fewer officers and 1,500 more bureaucrats””." I think it was the hon. Member for Batley and Spen who said that nobody seems to know what the NOMS bureaucrats are doing. I doubt whether they even have desks yet, let alone any tasks. They are no doubt being paid very well, but what they actually do nobody seems to know. Worse still, we do not know what they will be doing in future. This is change for change’s sake. Lord Ramsbotham said the following about the Bill:"““What would I do? It is difficult to know where to start but my first move would be to drop any move towards what is euphemistically called a national offender management service.””" I agree with that. The Lord Chief Justice, who recently posed as someone doing community service, has entered the debate. Perhaps more importantly, in a paper entitled ““Alternatives to Custody—the Case for Community Sentencing””, which was issued by Oxford university’s centre for criminology, he said:"““First and foremost we need the appropriate resources””." Those very simple words actually mean that we need more fully trained probation officers on the ground. We need proper, structured, medium and long-term orders. They are not a soft option; they do work. When I was a young solicitor in the 1970s, there were three or four probation officers based in the local town. There is now one, based 40 miles away. That is a snapshot of where we are now. The hon. Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) said that people often bond with representatives of the voluntary sector more than with probation officers. Well, if one person has to cover such a vast area of north Wales, with all the hours of travelling that involves, I am not surprised that she is less available to advise and befriend those on probation. I recently attended a conference held by the Coalition on Social and Criminal Justice, which wholeheartedly endorsed more use of community penalties and, in particular, the local partnership approach, bringing in social services, the probation service, the health service and magistrates. That is a helpful contribution to the debate. Unfortunately, however, there will be no requirement to have magistrates on the new trusts. If the Bill has to become law—I would prefer it not to—I hope that the Government will consider how fundamentally important it is for sentences, in the magistrates and Crown courts, to be an integral part of the system. However, any movement in that area presupposes more investment in properly trained probation officers. I will not dwell on the Scottish model as it has already been mentioned, but it seems to be working. It involves a statutory duty for the services to work together and consult. I have no objection to that. As a young, idealistic lawyer in the 1970s, I came across young people who offended time after time. I also defended some who had offended once or twice and were at a crossroads in their lives. I saw firsthand dedicated probation officers working with them. I sometimes meet those ex-offenders, now respected members of the community and proud parents and grandparents who hold down good jobs and serve on town and community councils. I shudder to think what would have happened to them if they had offended now and not then. Would they have gone straight into a young offenders institution? Would they have taken the wrong turn at that crossroads in their lives? Sadly, I think that the answer is yes, but it gives me no pleasure to say so.