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Offender Management Bill

Although it was a long time ago, in 1990 I think we envisaged that, barring a disaster, confidence in private prisons would grow with the years and the restrictions on the activities that could be carried out by workers in private prisons without special authorisation would gradually disappear. This amendment is useful because it gives the Minister the opportunity to justify the plan to allow authorisation of activities that are at present restricted. My noble friend referred to the words of the Minister in the other place, who said: "““Although we accept that the current restrictions made sense when private prisons were first introduced, they appear to be increasingly unnecessary””.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/07; col. 1015.]" However, the Minister did not begin to explain why he thought that the restrictions were now unnecessary.Is it because private prisons are better run thanthey were 10 years ago? Is it because there is less indiscipline? That does not seem to square with the inspector’s report on Forest Bank. My noble friend quoted from that report and those on Rye Hill and Dovegate. We should be constructive and not just imagine difficulties to justify the maintenance of restrictions. I am certainly not here to make difficulties of that sort. We need some help from the Minister to be convinced that the time has come for a major step forward. There was not the beginning of an explanation in the other place so it would be appropriate if there was a full explanation now.