---

Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I am extremely sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has used the word ““anachronistic””, because that is far from what this amendment means. As I understand it, the Bill is all about the better management of offenders, and Part 1 in particular concentrates on the Probation Service. If you picked up this Bill, you could be forgiven for thinking that Part 1 is not really about the management of offenders, but the imposition of a different way of commissioning probation services. One element of making everything better is evolving the partnership of everyone involved. Many noble Lords have said that the probation system is not working as well as we should like. That is because co-operation has not been happening as much as people would like. Therefore, if we hope that the Bill will result in the better management of offenders, surely it is right to include in it all the words which we think will bring that about, including the element of co-operation which has not been as good as it should have been.