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Offender Management Bill

I certainly agree with some of what the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway) said, particularly in respect of mental illness, but I do not agree with what he said about the level of serious concern about the Bill. Among Liberal Democrat Members, there are some very serious concerns about it. I did not agree with him about the crime figures, either. He is right that some categories of violent crime are rising, but others are falling and it is important to take a balanced view of the overall situation. The point of criminal justice reform must surely be to reduce the harm suffered from crime. I listened to the Secretary of State’s opening remarks and to subsequent ministerial interventions, but I am still far from clear how the Bill will effectively reduce the harm suffered by people as a result of crime. Indeed, until the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) spoke—unfortunately, she is not in her place at the moment—we did not hear a single reason for believing that the Bill would do anything to reduce the harm of crime. What the hon. Lady said was interesting, although I did not agree fully with it. She said that, if the voluntary sector is brought into the rehabilitation of offenders and associated functions, it would help in two ways: first, offenders would not see the people helping them as part of the establishment, which would help to encourage them to change their ways; and, secondly, it would allow a more flexible approach. I can see how that might occur on a limited scale with small-scale local projects, but not with a regional and national system of large contracts with big organisations. I feel that they themselves would become part of the establishment. I would draw an analogy with housing associations, which started off as local voluntary organisations that were quite democratic and effective at involving people, and quite innovative. Following various reforms in housing finance, however, housing associations have become very large regional and national organisations, which I fear are now less flexible, less democratic and less innovative than local councils. Rather like the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), I fear that the Bill will change the nature of the voluntary sector for the worse. Small-scale involvement is already happening, with about 3, 6 or 10 per cent. of total expenditure being devoted to voluntary projects. That is the right way to go. I am not against the involvement of the voluntary sector in the right way, but I fear that the Government’s method will undermine not only their own goals, but those of the voluntary sector itself. Throughout the debate, Ministers have said that what they propose supplements the services provided by the probation service, but that approach has been exposed—again, by the hon. Member for Selby. Contestability works only if there is a threat or possibility that the core service will move to a different sector. Otherwise, there is no contestability. It was both important and interesting when the hon. Member for Selby pointed out that his party’s briefing said that £250 million of services would be put out to other sectors. That cannot be just supplementary; it has to bite into the core service. It would not be a problem if the £250 million were new money—it would then be extra and supplementary as Ministers argue—but there is absolutely no sign of that in what Ministers have told the House tonight. In fact, the Home Secretary said that the problem could not be solved by throwing more money at it. That indicates that the money will certainly not be new. The problem with new money is precisely the old problem of where it goes. If it goes to 1,600 new bureaucrats, that is not the way to solve the problem with extra resource when, at the same time, there are still 1,000 vacancies for front-line probation officers. The other problem with contestability—it has come out only once or twice in the debate and it is worth reinforcing the point now—is that it has costs. It costs to make bids and it costs to defend oneself against a bid. Periodically, in a contested system, the whole service has to adjust to the problem of making a bid. It is rather like applying for a grant: one could end up spending all the time applying for the grant and not much time doing the job. It is important to take into account the costs of bidding and the costs of enforcing the contract. What happens if the contract is not properly fulfilled? The costs can be substantial, as we know from other areas of Government activity such as the health service, and I have heard no proper assessment of them. Another problem is that in running an area of Government service by contract, it is often quite unclear, particularly where personal services and subtle changes of attitude and approach to individual people are important, what should be in the contract. It becomes a very difficult contract to specify, and attempting to specify it can lead to a very rigid contract that cannot be adapted to individual circumstances. We can thus end up with a service that is not so good.