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Prisons and Probation

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her approval of what I have said. It is important that the public are better informed and involved in community payback. That is why we have introduced the high visibility jackets, which have gone down very well throughout the country, as a senior officer in the Lancashire probation service told me in Blackburn on Saturday. Even in areas where there is a bit of resistance, the public now see the point. We want the public to make proposals for the use of community payback schemes. At a residents' meeting—again in the blessed borough of Blackburn—on Friday, exactly that proposal came up, so the point is getting through.