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Offender Management Bill

No, we certainly do not wish to scrap that scheme. It is interesting, however, that the Minister does not rise to talk about the Human Rights Act, which I mentioned, or the need for additional steps to be taken by his Department to ensure that officials interpret it correctly rather than put the public under threat. Launching the Bill, the Minister said in a Home Office press release of 23 November 2006:"““This Bill is about the delivery of services necessary to stop offenders committing further crimes””," yet it is completely silent on the much-vaunted National Offender Management Service, which is supposed to be co-ordinating the end-to-end management of offenders and helping to facilitate the changes necessary to protect the public and reduce rates of reoffending. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) highlighted the lack of certainty about the role of NOMS, in spite of all the questions that he put to the Home Office. The lack of proper answers and the lack of a proper statutory footing pose many questions, which have certainly not been answered in this evening’s debate. There has been a lot of debate this evening about the issue of contestability or the role of the private sector and the third sector in the provision of probation services. Conservative Members have no fundamental objection to giving contracts to non-state organisations for the running of facilities and services, provided they are within a clear and robust framework, a model to deliver sustained improvements and a structure that best meets local needs. However, the top-down centralised structure proposed by the Government would appear actively to militate against a system capable of reflecting the needs and requirements of specific localities and against ensuring the provision of services to small charities. It is also difficult to see how the Government’s proposed system would promote and strengthen much-needed multi-agency partnership working to ensure that outcomes improve. It was interesting to hear the Home Secretary emphasise his desire to break up monopolies, as he seems to want to entrench an almost monopolistic power for himself. In any contractual framework, it is essential to have consistency and continuity, as was argued by the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth). It is also vital for faith groups, small charities, employers and others to have a stable local partner to which they can anchor, but given that there is no assurance that probation trusts will even remain in existence, it is unclear how they can provide such continuity. It would be absurd to think that regional offender managers could fulfil that role. We have already mentioned the problem of the lack of a business plan and the lack of evidence needed to support the Government’s provisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) raised that point and also rightly emphasised the need for partnership working in the community and the essential work that he has seen from the involvement of various charitable sectors in his field. That point was also taken up by the hon. Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) in her contribution. She drew on the experience of local groups, and it certainly sounded as though they were undertaking very valuable and important work in her community. The debate leads us to conclude that the structure is short on detail and lacking in planning and clarity and that opaqueness is increasing in the system. Who will be responsible? The Bill is more about blurring the lines of accountability. There is perhaps the suggestion that the intention is to blur the lines when trying to find out who is to blame when things go wrong. Rather than sharing responsibility, as we would wish, the Bill gives the impression of creating more deniability than contestability. We have focused very closely on that aspect of the Bill, but there are other important provisions that deal with the management of offenders while in custody. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) highlighted some of his concerns about the handling of young offenders and the operation of early release arrangements. Those points were powerfully put, and I am sure that we will return to some of those important issues later in the Bill’s progress. My hon. Friend also made some important points on the need for vocational training and basic skills in the prison environment, particularly in the context of short sentences—a point that was further developed by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley). The Bill provides the opportunity to draw together and harness the strengths and skills of the public, voluntary and private sectors in the delivery of a strong and cohesive probation service—a service that has the protection of the public at its heart, that promotes the partnership working needed to deliver long-term reductions in reoffending and that can play its part in the end-to-end management of criminals in the justice system, which we would all like to be achieved. However, we believe that the Bill in its current form fails to meet those objectives properly, and we will use the debates in Committee and on Report to put those priorities at the forefront, to ensure that the needs and aspirations of public are addressed by clear, robust and deliverable proposals. We give the Bill our conditional support, but that support is predicated on the basis that the Government listen to the serious and considered criticisms that have been made of their proposals and act to address the abundant problems that have been exposed already. If changes are not made, if sketchy details are not fleshed out and if macho posturing gets in the way of serious reflection on the weaknesses and failures inherent in their plans, the proper needs and demands of the public will have been ignored. In those circumstances, we will have no hesitation in rejecting the Bill.