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Offender Management Bill

My hon. and learned Friend brings up yet another section of the 2003 Act. We could spend the whole evening going through sections of legislation that have not been introduced. What a brilliant intervention. To be frank, I had missed that section in my excitement over the others. Intermittent custody, set out in section 183—what on earth has happened to it? It was a terrific idea at the time, but is now not available in practice where I sit. The problems are overstretch and shortage of money. The Minister must in his reply deal with the overstretch in the probation service, the funding position and the number of probation officers. I would like from him today an absolute commitment on when those various provisions, so heralded as the answer to everything three or more years ago, will come into force. He will, I hope, give us a day or a month when that will happen, because the judiciary and the courts, not to mention defendants, would like to know. I have a final tip for the Minister, which I hope he will take on board. There is one way in which the burdens on the probation service can be lessened. He will know that in the community penalty provision in the 2003 Act there is a very important measure, namely, a community order with a drug rehabilitation requirement—the DRR. There will be other opportunities, so I shall not spend time this evening going into the tragic backgrounds of so many defendants in our courts who are addicted to heroin or crack, having started on the gateway drug, cannabis. By the time they are 17 or 18, they steal—they cannot help doing so—to feed their habit. By the time they are 25 or 26, they are ruined specimens: they look twice or three times their age, they shake and they can barely speak, and it is heroin that has done it. What is to be done with them? The DRR introduced by the 2003 Act is beginning to operate, not least in a couple of the drugs courts that we have in this country. I shall talk about those on another occasion. Under a DRR order, the defendant is required to submit to testing and sometimes to enter an institution for treatment. I feel very strongly that the DRR order is a tougher version of the drug treatment and testing order, which was introduced and then abandoned because it failed. Some Opposition members, myself included, feel that the DRR may make some progress. It is an order that the defendant stay off drugs and submit himself to treatment, counselling, advice and all the rest of it. My message to the Minister is that it is time that we got involved to a far greater extent the drug charities, which are committed and expert and which provide excellent drug programmes. Examples include the crack day programme, the Blenheim project, Druglink and Drugline. They are private charitable bodies that, by definition, have nothing to do with the state, they are terrific, and they are available to the courts. The judge could say, ““Stand up, Smith. You are given a DRR. You will go to Druglink on a day course. You will do this. You will do that.”” I do not think that all the staff of the probation service are properly qualified to supervise a drug addict. Some are, but some are not. Some expertise is required. I believe that it is time that we all realised that drugs are such a terrible thing in our country, especially for young people, that the more expert the advice and supervision that can be given to defendants given a DRR, the better. Why not gradually phase the probation service out of drug supervision and give that function to those wonderful private charities that are so well placed to supervise addicts. We would win both ways: there would be fewer burdens on the probation service and a much better chance of the defendant receiving the benefit of expertise. I have spoken too long offering a few passing thoughts, which I summarise in one sentence. Bills are one thing, but what happens out there in the real world is terribly important. Great though the probation service is, the shortage of money, its staff’s morale and the burdens on them are matters that the Minister will have to watch as closely as he can.