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Offender Management Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), who will have our support if he presses amendment (a) to a vote. I agreed with almost every word that he said, but there were two things that I did not quite agree with. First, he said that the Bill as it stands will produce myriad providers, but the risk is quite the reverse. It will produce a consolidated, small number of companies and very large charitable organisations that will make such provision, in replacement of the current probation service. Many of the smaller, non-profit organisations that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (David Lepper) mentioned will be squeezed out by these central procurement arrangements. Secondly, the hon. Member for Walthamstow was mistaken in his generosity to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), whose construction of amendment (a) was incorrect. The hon. Member for Walthamstow was right to say that it would prevent the Secretary of State from effectively short-circuiting any local consideration in the provision of such services and ensure that such matters go through the probation trust. Such short-circuiting is surely what many of us who are concerned about the Bill’s centralising aspects want to prevent, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not in any way be put off his own amendment by a criticism that is not based on a proper reading of its consequences.