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Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 22 to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 22A. Clause 4 of the Bill makes it clear that the assistance that the Probation Service gives to courts may be commissioned only from a probation trust or other public body. This clause was added to support the assurances that Ministers had already given that there were no immediate plans to open up this particularly sensitive area of work to non-public sector providers. Clause 12 provides a power to repeal this restriction, either in whole or in part, by means of secondary legislation. The affirmative resolution procedure applies to this power. The Lords amendment seeks to upgrade this to the super-affirmative procedure. I accept that the use of the super-affirmative procedure is not entirely without precedent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, pointed out when we last debated this, the Government themselves considered the use of this procedure in the context of the power in the Identity Cards Bill to make ID cards compulsory. But that would have been a decision of huge national significance and of an entirely different order from the power that we are discussing today. For this power, I continue to submit that the affirmative procedure is absolutely appropriate and sufficiently robust. I assure the House that, in bringing forward any order to repeal Clause 4, the Government would, of course, set out in detail what was proposed and the reasons for it, including how they proposed to deal with any conflicts of interest. Parliament would have a clear basis on which to decide whether to support the Government’s position. This issue would be amenable to the effective use of affirmative procedure in taking the matter forward. It is a sensible compromise, which retains the tried and tested parliamentary procedures, but ensures that the right information is available to enable Parliament to make its decision. The Commons agreed; I invite your Lordships to do the same. Although the noble Baroness has changed her position to that of Chief Whip on the Benches opposite, I understand her prowess in that regard, and I am sure that she would whip very hard indeed if the Government did not comply with the assurances made by us from this Dispatch Box. I make these comments conscious that she, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, will hold me to account, as I am sure will a number of those who sit on the Cross Benches. Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 22 to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 22A.—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.)