The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice ()
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I should like to make
a statement on the Government’s plans for the future of probation
services in England and Wales. I want to take this opportunity to
pay tribute to the commitment and hard work of staff in both the
national probation service and the community rehabilitation
companies who have jointly risen to the challenge of covid-19 in
swiftly adapting to the new restrictions, and who have continued
to deliver critical frontline services during this difficult
time.
Beyond the immediate changes to our ways of working, however,
covid-19 also presents an ongoing challenge to the implementation
of our ambitious programme of probation reform. Probation
services are currently split between the NPS, supervising
high-risk offenders, and private sector CRCs, supervising low and
medium-risk offenders. Those changes were made as a result of a
2010 manifesto commitment to end the situation where short-term
offenders received no support after their release from custody.
That commitment was the right one to make and, of course, it
still stands. The current CRC contracts will come to an end in
June next year, and last year my predecessor announced plans in
this House to replace the current CRC contracts by moving to a
unified model. This will see responsibility for the supervision
of all offenders transfer to the NPS, while each NPS region will
have a private sector partner—a probation delivery
partner—responsible for providing unpaid work placements and
behavioural change programmes.
Covid-19 does not change our ambition to cut crime, to keep the
public safe and to tackle reoffending so that fewer people become
victims of crime. Strong and reliable probation services are
essential in realising that ambition. However, given the
significant operational impact that covid-19 has already had and
the uncertainty it brings for the future, it is right that we
should reassess our plans. Protecting the public is my and the
Government’s absolute priority. For that reason, I believe it is
essential that we continue to deliver changes to how offenders
are supervised by June next year as planned. However, the
disruption caused by covid-19 makes delivery of other parts of
our plans considerably more complex, and looking ahead, it is
vital for public and judicial confidence that we have the
flexibility to deliver a national response to any future
challenges that covid-19 presents. For these reasons, I am today
setting out changes to streamline the reforms, giving priority to
unifying the management of offenders under a single organisation
by June next year as planned, while giving us greater flexibility
to respond to an uncertain picture across the criminal justice
system and beyond.
Under those revised plans, we will end the competitive process
for probation delivery partners. The delivery of unpaid work and
behavioural change programmes will instead be brought under the
control of the NPS alongside offender supervision when the
current CRC contracts end in June next year. This will give us a
critical measure of control, resilience and flexibility with the
services that we would not have had were they delivered under 12
contracts with a number of organisations. We can reassure the
judiciary and the public that, whatever lies ahead, offenders
serving community sentences will be punished and make their
reparation to society, and that programmes to address their
behaviour will be delivered.
In making these changes, we cannot forget the role of specialist
and voluntary organisations, which are vital in providing
rehabilitation and resettlement support to more vulnerable
individuals, such as women being released from prison or serving
community sentences. They have also shown great innovation in
continuing to deliver critical services during this challenging
time, for which I commend them and express my deep gratitude. I
am determined to preserve a role for these types of
organisations, as well as the private sector, in the delivery of
probation services. In the future system, we will, therefore,
retain a dynamic framework for specialist rehabilitative
services, but we must take account of the pressures that the
market is currently facing. We will therefore prioritise the
delivery of those specialist resettlement and rehabilitative
services that are most needed in order to build a solid
foundation that can be delivered within this timeframe and later
built upon. We will be opening the dynamic framework for eligible
organisations to register their interest in the coming days, and
I encourage all organisations with an interest in providing
rehabilitative services to register.
The unified model for probation delivery will ensure that we make
the best use of the talents and skills in the public, private and
voluntary sectors. For staff currently employed by the CRCs, the
arrangements will mean that they will be in scope to transfer
into the national probation service or to dynamic framework
providers once CRC contracts expire in June 2021, depending on
the work that they do. As we adopt a whole-system approach to
criminal justice reform, it is vital that we continue to work
together in partnership.
The Government remain fully committed to a mixed market in
delivering custodial services, including our private sector
partners, who run a high number of high-performing prisons in our
estate. We are currently running a competition to operate the new
prison that we are building at Wellingborough, which is due to
end shortly, followed by a further competition to operate another
new prison at Glen Parva. Our private sector prison partners will
thus continue to play an important role in the custodial services
sector, including as we deliver our ambitious programme of prison
reforms, investing up to £2.5 billion to transform our prison
estate and to create an additional 10,000 prison places.
I am confident that the changes I have set out represent the most
sustainable approach for probation to deliver justice and to cut
crime in the face of an unprecedented crisis. This approach will
allow us to gain a critical measure of control over their
recovery from covid-19 and to ensure that we are best placed to
respond to any future disruption. I believe that these changes
will also support our proposals to reform the sentencing
framework, as I set out to the House last October. We have
already made significant progress as a Government in delivering
that agenda, including longer prison sentences for serious,
violent and sexual offenders, but there is much more work to do
if we are even better to protect the public and restore fuller
confidence in the justice system. As part of this package of
reforms, I want to deliver robust community penalties that offer
an appropriate level of punishment while tackling the underlying
drivers of offending.
These changes to the probation structures will help us to realise
that ambition by giving us greater control over the levers
necessary to strengthen community sentences. My officials will
work closely with current providers, stakeholders and staff to
ensure a smooth transition during this challenging time, ready
for the new unified model to come into effect in June next year.
I commend the statement to the House.
12.12 pm
(Tottenham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his
statement. I, too, want to give my thanks to the National
Probation Service and for the work of our CRCs, particularly at
this challenging time. The Opposition welcome the U-turn that the
Government are announcing. It is a U-turn that we have called for
for many years. Anyone who looks at Hansard for debates in this
Chamber and indeed looks at successive Select Committees will be
aware that the Secretary of State has made an important
announcement.
The playwright Alan Bennett wrote that the probation service is
about the
“remedying of misfortune…which…has no more to do with profit than
the remedying of disease”.
The probation service may seem abstract to many who have had
lives of privilege. Unlike the health service, most of us will
never come into direct contact with it, but every Member of
Parliament knows that a properly run probation system is
essential. At its best, it can be the national service of second
chances: offenders rehabilitate, former criminals become good
citizens and people are allowed to make up for their past
mistakes.
Just as our national health service must be publicly run, so,
too, must probation services, but the Conservative Government’s
part-privatisation of the probation service was the deepest
privatisation that the criminal justice system has ever
experienced. The reforms led by the right hon. Member for Epsom
and Ewell ()—it is such a shame he has
not made it to the Chamber—transferred 70% of the work done by
the public probation service to private and voluntary sector
providers.
Coming in 2015, in the middle of a decade of austerity, these
were, in essence, cost-cutting measures. The Government were
warned, but, as we have seen with so many of their attempts to
cut corners through underinvestment, ultimately these measures
have cost much more in the long run. Since the reforms,
reoffending rates have climbed up to 32%. Members of the public
and victims of crime across the country would not have been
subject to the trauma they were put through had this
privatisation not been introduced in the first place. One service
provider, Working Links, was found to be wrongly classifying
offenders as low risk to meet Government targets. Profit was put
before public safety, ethics were compromised and lives were
lost. It does not matter what language the Secretary of State
uses in this House, he should apologise for that mistake made by
his party.
The Government cannot say that they were not warned about the
devastation that their part-privatisation of the probation
service would cause. Trade unions, including Napo and Unison,
have been campaigning for probation services to be fully publicly
run for seven years. The Labour party, too, has warned this House
of the dangers of these reforms again and again. The chief
inspector warned that the use of private firms to monitor
offenders serving community sentences is irredeemably flawed.
, the former chief
inspector of prisons, even produced an interim report on how the
Government can best return the services to public hands.
The Opposition welcome the Government’s U-turn today, but the
obvious question is why the Government tried to make profit out
of probation in the first place, and why it took so long for them
to realise their mistake. More than a year ago, the Justice
Secretary’s predecessor announced that the system was not
working. He outlined that offender management would be
renationalised, so why did the Government fail to renationalise
the second pillar of the private probation service then? Why were
unpaid work programmes and accredited programmes still put out
for private tender? When the Government knew that their model was
broken, why did they only go part of the way in fixing it?
As we move towards the return of the probation services into
public hands, this Opposition will scrutinise every detail
seriously. Probation services are too important to be messed
around with again, so what is the timescale for reintegration of
all probation services into the state? Can we be assured that
this will not be used as an excuse for any more cuts? Will all
the savings from not renewing private probation contracts go
towards an improved, better staffed, trained and managed National
Probation Service? Keeping expertise is vital. How will the
Government ensure that private probation staff will be encouraged
to continue their work? Local probation services must be able to
draw on the voluntary sector and create connections with local
employers, adult education colleges, health authority and
jobcentres. How will the Government ensure that the National
Probation Service is organised so that there are those strong
local links?
Many prisoners are released without suitable accommodation, so
the connection to local authorities is absolutely vital.
Ex-offenders need to be helped to find a home from which they can
start a better life. The Government want to frame these reforms
as purely down to the coronavirus, but we all know the truth: the
problems are much deeper than that. Let this momentous U-turn be
the end of the assumption that the private sector always knows
best. The Government outsourced school dinners and we ended up
with obesity and turkey twizzlers. The Government outsourced the
cleaning of hospital beds and we ended up with the highest rates
of the superbug. The Government outsourced probation and we ended
up with higher reoffending rates. The private sector is not the
answer for everything.
However, probation is founded on the idea of second chances. It
is in this spirit that we are open minded to the Government as
they try to atone for their past sins. Will the Government commit
to making these changes part of a broad, coherent strategy for
investment in rehabilitation and greater safety for the public?
The Government should not just try to put the clock back. They
should work with the Opposition, work with our unions and work
with our non-governmental organisations and other experts to
build a better probation service than we have had before. This is
how they can make up for their past mistakes.
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He talked about
turning the clock back, and in some of his remarks I felt as if
the years had fallen away and we were back in the 1980s in some
sort of ideological death struggle—public good, private bad. Let
me reassure him that I take no ideological view as to what works.
I will follow the evidence, and when the facts change I will
change my mind. I make no apology for doing that today. He will
of course acknowledge that the course was set last year, when the
announcement was made by my predecessor and I, as the Minister of
State, very much supported that decision. This is a necessary
adjustment in the way in which we are going to deliver the new
service.
I am not going to dwell for too long on the rhetoric; I will deal
with the substance of what the right hon. Gentleman asked, and he
asked a number of questions. [Interruption.] Well, rhetoric has
its place, but we are talking here about the lives of people we
are under a duty to protect and to support. I can tell the
Opposition that I spent the best part of 30 years working with
probation officers and with the probation service, reading
hundreds of pre-sentence reports and respecting the
professionalism of probation officers in court, both as counsel
and as a part-time judge, so I do not need noises off to tell me
what I know or do not know about the probation service, with the
greatest of respect.
This is a service, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that is
unsung. Its work is vitally important, but often goes unnoticed,
unheard and unobserved. That is something that I am doing my very
best to put right, and I can reassure him that those dedicated
public servants who are working in the CRCs will have the
opportunity to transfer, as I said in my statement, to the NPS,
when the time comes in June next year. That is the timescale that
we have kept to.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the need to focus
on the reduction in reoffending. He will be glad to note that in
last year’s spending review I secured an extra £155 million for
probation services—one of the biggest rises and cash injections
that the service has seen in many a year—and it is my aim to keep
annual expenditure well over £100 million for each of the next
several years. That is our ambition, and it is matched with
investment and with a bold agenda on embracing technology. This
is a service that will not only be able to keep pace with change,
but be very much in the vanguard of it.
I am proud to be at the helm of a Department that has such a set
of dedicated public servants. This is the right decision at the
right time. I make no apology for it whatsoever, and I look
forward to a non-ideological future in which the right hon.
Gentleman and I can genuinely work together in support of the
probation service that he says he values.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I am going to try to get everybody in. However, I need to finish
the statement at 12.50 pm. That will require short answers and
short questions.
(Reigate) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will do my level best, but I was the
probation Minister between 2010 and 2012. One of the proudest
moments of my time was attending a dinner where the Princess
Royal presented the British Quality Foundation’s gold award to
the National Probation Service. The reforms that subsequently
were done to probation service would not have been done by me.
They were visited upon the Department to a degree by some whizz
kids—bright people—some of whom are now very senior in the
Government.
There were two faults. The first was that the companies were too
large and did not equate with the geographical area of the police
force. I would have given them, had I done it, to the police and
crime commissioners, saying that they were responsible for the
input and the output. A very good point was made by the shadow
Lord Chancellor about engaging local authorities in all the
services we have to bring to an offender for there to be a decent
chance of getting them rehabilitated.
Secondly, I say to my right hon. and learned Friend that,
attractive as going back to the position of 2012 might seem to
me, we were trying to find the opportunities to make sure that we
can get the charities, the private sector and everyone else
engaged in the great work of rehabilitation of offenders. We are
in many ways back to square one, but there is a huge opportunity
to be grasped.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the work
he did as a Minister in the Department. I can reassure him that
this is not a return—a “back to the future”—but a new departure.
He is right that I will focus relentlessly on the need to harness
the smaller organisations; we are going to do that. At force
level, we will do it by working with PCCs. I have already engaged
with them on several occasions about the need for
co-commissioning. Where we have PCCs working together in reducing
reoffending boards, I see that as another vehicle for the
commissioning of truly localised services. I hear my hon. Friend,
and we are going to act on it.
(Luton South) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Government are recognising what Labour
Members and many others have known—that privatised probation is a
flawed system that enables companies to put profit before people.
I would like to thank my trade union, the Public and Commercial
Services Union, as well as Napo and Unison, and their members,
for highlighting the failures of privatisation. How will the
Secretary of State improve morale in the profession, particularly
after many experienced and highly skilled probation staff were
lost as probation services were part-privatised?
I am sure that the hon. Lady would seek to qualify her remarks by
paying tribute to the ethos that I have seen among the CRCs and
their teams in terms of their dedication to the public service
approach to probation that we all believe in. I do not want to
ignore that for one moment, and I pay tribute to them for their
work. With regard to morale, she will be encouraged to know that
it is my aim, as a result of the increased funding we are
providing, to reduce the workload of individual probation
officers by about 20%, and to mix that workload so that they are
able to manage it in an even more effective way. That will, I
believe, help to increase morale and a sense of value. I hope
very much that we can attract new talent, and indeed bring back
talent that has left the service. That is something that I am
very, very focused on.
(Sevenoaks)
(Con)
In Kent we have an excellent community rehabilitation company. I
am pleased that the Lord Chancellor has confirmed that the staff
can transfer across, but can he also reassure me that their
expertise overall will not be lost, and that there will be no
disruption to the offenders they manage?
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has long taken a keen
interest in these issues. She is absolutely right to highlight
the good work of that particular organisation—in particular, its
specialised work with regard to stalking and the victims of
stalking, which is very much on my mind. I want to harness the
best of that in the future with the dynamic model, and dedicated
staff would indeed be able to transfer across.
(North East Fife)
(LD)
One of the biggest causes of reoffending has been the failure to
ensure properly effective through-the-gate services. We know that
suitable housing, stable employment and strong family
relationships all help to reduce the risks, so will the
Government now ensure that the last few months of the custodial
sentence are devoted to creating that foundation, and involve
third sector organisations in that work?
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. She will be glad to know
that last year we invested a further £22 million in
through-the-gate services in England and Wales. I have seen for
myself how probation officers working in prison on offender
management in custody really creates a cohesive approach where
the prison officers, together with the probation service, are
working weeks or even months in advance of release. That is very
much part of our ethos. We are going to increase our emphasis on
that and use tools such as release on temporary licence in order
to make the transition as smooth and as safe as possible, not
just for the offender but for the public.
(Kenilworth
and Southam) (Con)
I very much welcome what my right hon. and learned Friend has
said about the involvement of voluntary sector organisations in
the delivery of rehabilitation. As he has recognised, private
sector organisations have played a role in the criminal justice
system and its central challenge of reducing reoffending over
many years, under Conservative Governments and Labour
Governments. Does he agree that it is important now not to
denigrate the efforts of anyone who has worked hard to reduce
reoffending, whatever the correct shape of probation services in
future, just because they have a private sector employer?
I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, who
served with distinction in the Department I now lead. He is right
to make that point that this is not about blind ideology, but
about people and the shared values we have across the sector.
That is very much within the CRC. I will make this point, and he
will remember this: it was this Government who finally created
licence and supervision periods for people on short-term prison
sentences. That was a singular omission from the system that the
previous Government failed to address.
(Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
Two years ago, the Justice Select Committee, on which I served,
produced its highly critical report, “Transforming
Rehabilitation” on the performance of the privatised probation
service. One of the criticisms was how those contracts were
measured on outputs, not outcomes. Will the Secretary of State
confirm that sufficient funding will be available to tackle the
issues of heavy caseload, poor IT systems and the need to work
with specialist services and the voluntary sector to ensure that
probation officers can deliver a decent service and help reduce
reoffending?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a long
interest in these issues, but I remind him of what I said a few
moments ago about the £155 million uplift in this current
financial year that we secured as part of the highest increase in
the Ministry of Justice revenue budget in more than a decade. We
will continue to match that in the years ahead with more
investment, and he can be confident that that will translate not
only into reduced workloads, but increased sophistication and
development when it comes to the harnessing of new technologies
and better ways of working. We have learned a lot from the
current crisis about how we can do things even better.
(Ashford) (Con)
I regret to say that I am worried by the statement that my right
hon. and learned Friend has made this morning, for the simple
reason that I have seen probation services for my constituents
improve over the past few years, with more people given the
second chance that the shadow Secretary of State referred to. He
has just praised the work of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC, as
he has done in the past from the Dispatch Box, so can he give me
some reassurance that with this statement today he is not in
danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I can give him that
reassurance because, as he reminds us, we are talking not just
about a service, but the people who deliver that service. Those
dedicated public servants will be able to transfer across to the
NPS, and I want to retain the ethos that they have and the
specialisms that they bring, so that we can enhance the probation
service and make it even better in the future.
(Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
This has been a sorry episode, and it is a sobering reminder of
what happens when we let ideology push ahead of the evidence in
public policy making. That is something I hope those on the
Government Benches will reflect on, but frankly it is something
for all of us to reflect on. Secretary of State, you have a real
opportunity as you build your unified model. There is so much
talent in the NPS and those CRCs, so will you commit to getting
staff around the table, finding the best of their experiences and
building on them?
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he really should not be
referring to the Secretary of State as “you”.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know takes a keen
interest in these issues. Perhaps I will emphasise the second
part of his question. I thoroughly agree about the need to
harness that experience and talent. That is what we are going to
do. We will work with the unions and all the representative
bodies to make sure that as we emerge from June of next year, we
will be in an even better position to reduce reoffending.
(Aylesbury) (Con)
Having been a non-executive director of HMPPS before my election
to the House, I was privy to some of the challenges that have
perhaps contributed to the decision today. With that perspective
in mind, the timetable for reintegration seems tight, and I
wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend has considered
further extending the CRC contracts, as is permitted, by six
months, to enable that to happen smoothly. When that transition
does happen, can we make sure that we keep the ethos of
innovation, flexible staff and empowered staff so that we bring
the very best back into the public sector?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He knows that I value the work
that he did prior to his election to this House very greatly
indeed. He is right to outline some of the options that were
before me. I looked very carefully at that option among others. I
could not see that bringing real value in time or space in order
to make the necessary changes. The Government rightly committed
to June or to the spring or summer of 2021 as the time by which
we had to make these reforms. I thought that we needed simplicity
and clarity, which is why I have elected to take this course.
(Vauxhall)
(Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement this morning—it is
an important discussion area. Brixton prison sits in the
neighbouring constituency to mine and I used to be the ward
councillor for that prison. I will always remember the first time
I visited and my conversation with the governor and his staff
members. They said to me that short sentences do not work because
the reoffending rates are so high. Will the Secretary of State
consider the fact that to get those reoffending rates down, there
needs to be a link with the local community? Will he look at
ensuring that local links are formed with colleges, other
education provision and local employers to make sure that we work
to get those reoffenders back on track?
Like the hon. Lady, I have visited Brixton prison. I know the
current governor well and I know a lot about the importance of
having those establishments within a community. The hon. Lady
makes a powerful point about the need to link community education
facilities and structures that provide a support network for
released prisoners or people on community orders. My ambition is
to ensure that community sentences are so robust and effective
that, when it comes to decision making by judges and magistrates,
they will be the default choice as opposed to very short
sentences that can frankly do more harm than good.
(Bracknell) (Con)
I commend everyone at the Ministry of Justice and in our Prison
and Probation Service for their hard work at this challenging
time. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the debate
about the creation of new, modern prison places should focus on
the need to create better educational, training and
rehabilitation outcomes?
My hon. Friend has put his finger on it, as usual. He is
absolutely right to talk about the focus and purpose of the
prison and probation environments. We must relentlessly think
about the future: what will be the outcomes? How do we reduce
offending? I always say that there are three things: a home, a
job and a friend. If we can get those three right, we will do
right by the community.
(Kingston upon Hull North)
(Lab)
I am very pleased that the Secretary of State has had the good
grace today to admit that the ideological experiment has failed.
What can he say to residents in my constituency who feel that the
regime that his Government brought in lacked accountability in
places such as the Beverley Road spine in Hull, a large area
where many ex-offenders lived? What accountability will be put in
place by the Secretary of State’s measures?
I know that the hon. Lady will be familiar with this: the
structure will be regional, within the national framework of the
national probation service. The accountability will then of
course be through Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and
ultimately me. Locally, it is important to get that link with
police and crime commissioners—the “and crime” bit of
commissioners should come into play. That is why I want to focus
on more localised commissioning. I want to get a sense of
responsiveness and more than that, get ahead of trends in local
areas such as Hull. The hon. Lady makes a good point, which we
understand very well.
(Ceredigion) (PC)
Education, health and social policies are key to supporting the
work of the probation system. What does the Secretary of State
make of the findings of the Thomas Commission on Justice in
Wales? In particular, does he agree that the devolution of
responsibility for the probation service would allow for better
integration with Welsh health and education policies, thereby
improving rehabilitation outcomes?
The hon. Gentleman makes a thought-provoking point and links the
Thomas commission to it. Of course, the Welsh Government must
respond to that, but we are ahead of the hon. Gentleman. As he
knows, in Wales, the probation service was unified from the end
of last year and is already supporting the people of Wales. The
unified service, headed by Amy Rees, an outstanding civil
servant, is delivering that integrated service that the hon.
Gentleman so badly wants. We do not need further devolution or a
separate jurisdiction.
(Arundel and South Downs)
(Con)
I would like to think that private enterprise has no greater
friend than me on this side of the House, but I welcome my right
hon. and learned Friend’s announcement because we should follow
the facts, and there are a great many benefits in the statement
in terms of unified leadership, clear accountability and
mobilising resources.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. These decisions are never made
lightly or easily, and I can assure him that they are made on the
evidence and not as a result of ideology, which, I am afraid,
still seems to infect some of the comments of my friends in the
Labour party.
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
I welcome this announcement, because probation privatisation has
failed, and a cohesive outcomes-led rehabilitation strategy is
key. The Secretary of State spoke about links with the police and
crime commissioner, but how will he ensure that accountability is
improved in probation services? Is there an enhanced role for
devolved English authorities such as the Greater Manchester
Combined Authority, where the Mayor has PCC powers?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He knows that there is
already an agreement between my Department and Greater Manchester
to devolve more powers and to work on a commissioning basis, to
allow the authority to commission the sort of services that he
and his residents want to see. I am extremely driven towards that
model, and I am working with PCCs across the country to help
deliver that flexibility.
(Chipping
Barnet) (Con)
It is deeply worrying that young men from the black community are
disproportionately likely to end up in the criminal justice
system. Will the Secretary of State encourage the probation
service to engage intensively with that cohort so that we can
ensure that all offenders have the chance to move on from their
past mistakes and make a success of their lives, whatever their
background?
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. She will be glad
to know that a lot of work is being done to improve the training
of probation officers, particularly as regards the preparation of
pre-sentence reports, which are vital documents for judges and
magistrates to make decisions—in other words, to be more informed
about black and minority ethnic issues, the services that might
be available and the alternative ways of dealing with matters for
members of that community. I would also make the point that, when
it comes to the delivery of services, we are extremely privileged
to have higher than average BAME representation among the
probation workforce, which is a really good example to the rest
of our community. However, it is about more than just getting
people; it is about getting that ethos right and making sure
people understand the alternatives that are available.
(Slough) (Lab)
Probation services have without doubt suffered immensely because
of deep Government cuts and the increasing fragmentation and
privatisation of the service, as highlighted again and again by
Napo, PCS, Unison and the Labour party, so I wholeheartedly
welcome today’s momentous Government U-turn. However, will the
Secretary of State establish a strategy for the resettlement of
offenders, to link all the aspects of probation together—from
through-the-gate support, planning and assessment in prisons to
more frequent contacts and relationship building with offenders?
The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that that is precisely
the approach I take. I have a strategy—it is called reducing
reoffending. He will know that that means bringing together all
agencies—not just criminal justice. Frankly, they have more of a
role to play, whether that is public health, education—which has
been mentioned—housing or other vital local services. We cannot
do this on our own. The criminal justice system is often the
repository of failure caused by other factors. Unless everybody
puts their shoulder to the wheel and realises that all parts of
public service have a criminal justice dimension, we will not
achieve what we need to achieve for our communities.
Mr (South West Hertfordshire)
(Con)
I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s statement. Can he
confirm that a key element of the future probation service system
will be focusing on reducing the £18 billion cost to the taxpayer
of reoffending?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is right to highlight the
stark figure for the financial cost of reoffending—of course, it
does not deal with the emotional, physical and mental cost of
reoffending. Reducing reoffending means fewer victims of crime.
We have succeeded in reducing it in certain parts of the criminal
justice system, but I am afraid there is still a lot of work to
do, particularly with offenders on short-term sentences. The
focus will be very much on reducing reoffending levels among that
cohort in the years ahead.
(Hammersmith) (Lab)
I want to stand up for the Lord Chancellor, who is being attacked
from both sides of his own Benches today. Either it should not
have happened at all, or the renationalisation should not be
happening now. Why have we waited until now, when most of the
service was taken back in-house last year? Does he want to take
credit for that? As he is known—perhaps more than some of his
colleagues—for his candour and thoughtfulness, will he admit that
this privatisation has been an unmitigated disaster from start to
finish?
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is the champion of the leading
question, and I am not going to fall for that old trick. As he
knows, I do not take an ideological view of this. There are
aspects of the last few years that have brought much new learning
and experience that we will incorporate into the National
Probation Service. I am talking about the people who have
delivered for the CRCs on the ground. There are plenty of
examples of local best practice that we want to hold on to and
propagate and that we will expand through the dynamic framework.
(Warrington South) (Con)
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his statement. One
of the frustrations I see in magistrates courts in Cheshire and
Merseyside, particularly for victims, is when probation staff
cannot conduct stand-down reports on the day, which means that
justice is delayed. How will the steps he has announced today
improve efficiencies in magistrates courts?
My hon. Friend asks a very pertinent question. There is a
tension, as I think he would acknowledge, between the need for
swift justice and the value that properly crafted and prepared
pre-sentence reports can play in the sentencing process. Where
the ground has been prepared before the hearing and the options
are very clear to the court, there should be no obstacle to the
passing of a swift sentence. I will pray in aid the value of
pre-sentence reports. I want to see more of them used, but with
the eye to case management that delivers the swift justice that
he and his residents want to see.
(Bath) (LD)
Short prison sentences do not work, especially for women, because
the whole life of that woman and her dependants falls down. What
can the Ministry of Justice do to instil confidence in the whole
system that alternatives to prisons, such as women’s centres,
work?
The hon. Lady will be glad to know that, as part of the female
offender strategy that we agreed in 2018, we are making
investments in organisations that work in that specialist sector,
and we have also announced that we will fund a new centre in
Wales, which will be delivered by the end of next year. It is a
smaller unit that will cater for more localised sentencing and
will support women effectively, albeit in a secure setting, but
in a way that aids rehabilitation rather than the cycle of
reoffending.
(Dudley North) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is correct
for any Government to try different mechanisms for delivering the
best outcomes for service users and for the taxpayer? Leaving the
word “ideology” to one side, is it not right to follow in the
footsteps of former Prime Minister , who introduced independent
sector providers to the NHS?
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. We need very short questions without long preambles, and a
short answer.
My hon. Friend, who speaks for the residents of Dudley so
powerfully, is right to remind us about those ideological
experiments indulged in by a Government of which the right hon.
Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) was a member not so many years
ago. It pays us all to focus on the evidence, rather than the
ideology.
(City of Durham) (Lab)
I want to thank the Government for finally doing the right thing
and ending privatisation in the probation service. Let us hope
that this is a catalyst for bringing detention centres, prisons
and other criminal justice services back within public hands.
Most of all, I would like to thank the probation unions Napo and
Unison, and their members, who have waged a hard-fought
seven-year campaign against this wasteful and ideological
experiment. Will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute
to those unions and encourage all workers across the UK to join a
trade union?
I am always happy to encourage free association of workers. It is
part of who we are as a civilised society. The hon. Lady
represents the great city of Durham, so many of her constituents
will be public sector workers in Durham prison and Frankland
high-security prison, which is not too far away. We should value
that ethos of public service, wherever it comes from, and I am
sure she will join me in paying tribute to those CRC members of
staff—we hope they will make the transfer to the NPS—who have
been serving the public diligently, even though they have been in
the so-called “bad” private sector.
(City of Chester)
(Lab)
The Secretary of State may not wish to talk about ideology, but
will he reflect on morality? Does he think it is morally right to
make private profit out of incarceration and rehabilitation,
because I do not?
I think it is morally right to harness whatever we can to help us
deal with not only offenders, but the causes of offending. That
will often be Government-led and state-led, and that is right—we
have a duty under law to do that—but there will be plenty of
occasions when the genius and talent that might be in the
voluntary and private sectors should also be harnessed. So I do
not accept this suggestion that somehow there is a moral
difference between the mixed approach that I want to take and one
that rigidly sticks to an ideological position that I do not
really think the hon. Gentleman believes in.
(Bristol East) (Lab)
Places such as Eden House in Bristol provided an important
alternative to custody for vulnerable female offenders, but the
services were slashed under privatisation. Will the Minister
commit, based on the work of my predecessor in this place,
, to making sure that
services such as Eden House are returned to full capacity, so
that we can fulfil that agenda of trying to keep women out of
prison and providing a safe alternative for them?
I pay tribute to the work of , which has informed
policy over many years. I know that she would welcome the female
offenders strategy, which enjoyed cross-party support in 2018. We
are now putting that into implementation. I have announced a
centre in Wales, which will really help to provide that
small-scale residential but secure environment. I am keen to try
to replicate that wherever possible. I have to work within a
budget, but, as I have announced, it has seen an overall
increase, and I want to make sure we can drive that forward in a
way that I think the hon. Lady will applaud.
(Chatham and Aylesford)
(Con)
The Secretary of State has acknowledged today, as he did last
year, that the employee-owned CRC in Kent is an example of good
practice and innovation, and it has rightly received national and
international recognition. Given the ambitious timetable that he
has set out, will he confirm that he remains committed to a mixed
market, so that the likes of our employee-owned CRC can continue
to make a positive contribution to delivering services that
matter in terms of keeping my constituents safer and helping to
change lives?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has consistently raised
these issues in the past year to 18 months. She is right to hold
me to account on that need to maintain a mixed economy approach,
to harness the excellent work of the employees that she talks
about in the new structure and to make sure that that
initiative—that sense of personal ownership of the programmes—is
not lost as we make that transition. I am grateful to her.
