---

Offender Management Bill

I support the amendment, to which my name is attached. I appreciated hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said in response to a previous amendment about contestability bringing in lots of people such as family doctors. I speak as someone involved in an inquiry under the Joint Committee on Human Rights into the protection of the human rights of elderly people in health and social care. There may be another way of looking at this. We have discovered a widespread situation in homes for elderly people run by the private sector. Staff who are paid the minimum wage go off at 5 o’clock to do another job, coming back on duty eight hours later, because the salary that people who run such homes can offer is very low. I warmly support the amendment; if we do not have quality and value for money written into the Bill, it will be very difficult to avoid lowering standards when cheapness becomes the prevailing value.