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Offender Management Bill

Although I understand the thinking of the supporters of the amendment, the amendment is effectively an attempt—when you get down to it, whatever the transitional arrangements—to institutionalise in legislation a further set of restrictions on the ability to have non-public service providers provide these services. That is how the amendment is actually framed. The Government are rightly arguing that we need a variety of public service providers. No one disputes that we are moving towards having an enabling state where the Government guarantee coverage of services and the funding of those services but also accept that there should be a mixed range of providers. These amendments would, whatever the transitional arrangements, prevent such activity taking place in another range of services in the probation service. I remind the Committee that for 60 years we have had in personal services through primary care a load of small business men and women—we call them general practitioners—who have provided public services under contract from the private sector. In return they have also produced profit and loss accounts each year. These people are outside the public service in the public services they provide, but civilisation has not ended. They have been the envy of the world in the primary care provided. I see no reason why we should assume that some of these advances cannot be made also in a wider range of probation services activities.