---

Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I am very interested and glad to hear the noble Baroness mention the briefing prepared for us by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. It makes extremely clearly on behalf of the sector the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. Welcoming, as we all do, that the Bill has the potential to enable the professional third sector to play a much more significant role in delivering services to offenders—and hear, hear to that—ACEVO states: "““There is significant work to be done to ensure that the market is designed in a way which will allow third sector organisations the opportunity to play to their strengths””." One way of doing that is to: "““Provide long term contracts which guarantee full cost recovery, share risk fairly and do not involve over-burdensome reporting and regulation””." We owe it to them to enable them to do their work on the Bill.