Offender Management Bill

My Lords, at the beginning of this debate the Minister reminded us that the original purpose of NOMS, when it was launched in 2004, was to reduce re-offending by 5 per cent by 2008 and by 10 per cent by 2010. She said we were on course to meet those objectives, which apparently, according to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, came from the Max Planck Institute. I did not know that, and I am grateful to him for the information, because the objectives seemed at first sight to have been plucked out of thin air. One is at least glad to know is a research finding is lying behind those objectives. The test of the proposals in front of us now is whether and to what extent they make a contribution towards meeting these targets. It is not clear to me, having listened to this debate and from all the briefings that have been sent out to us in advance, how an upheaval in the management of the probation system that separates the delivery of services from the locality in which they are operating, and excludes many of the experienced people who sit on probation boards, is likely to fulfil the aim of reducing reoffending in the absence of measures to deal effectively with the causes of the offending behaviour. I noticed that although the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, dwelt on the reasons why we need the ROMs as commissioning agents, they are not actually mentioned in the Bill. We heard nothing about that, apart from his defence of that particular structure. End-to-end management of those entering the criminal justice system is in fact middle-to-end management of a process that has already started in the community with mental ill health, substance misuse or communication disability, all of them factors in the aetiology of crime that may not have been previously addressed. We have heard about this subject many times before, including the valuable debate initiated by my noble friend Lady Linklater some time ago. I do not know whether the Government took any of that in, or whether they think now that end-to-end management within the criminal justice system is not the whole answer for the problems confronting us, and that no amount of tinkering with the system of commissioning can remedy the absence of services that were not and are not widely available or accessible to the law-abiding or offenders alike. If the object were only to involve a wide range of private and voluntary providers in the work of probation, it could well have been done without disturbing the vital links between the providers and the communities they serve by giving probation boards the contractual powers being taken by the Secretary of State in Clause 3 and requiring them to consider additional ranges of services which are not already being provided by the system. That would have led to a variety of models being adopted by different boards and the gradual development of best practice which would not have provoked the widespread uncertainty and demoralisation of a service that was already creaking under the strain of steadily increasing demands without commensurate increases in its resources. At the very least, as the LGA has suggested, the Bill should be amended to ensure that councils and local partnerships continue to play an important part in tackling reoffending. The Government have indicated that they maintain their commitment to local accountability, and we shall be looking for ways of nailing that down in the Bill. The noble Baroness assured us at the beginning of the debate that there would be a councillor on each trust—a welcome concession, but one that does not go far enough. I notice that she did not give any equivalent undertaking concerning the presence of magistrates on the probation trusts. Perhaps she will say something about that when she replies. Clause 31 allows the Secretary of State to convert a sentence of detention in a YOI into a prison sentence for those aged 18 to 21. The JCHR report draws attention to the Chief Inspector’s clear message in her report, Young Adult Male Prisoners, that, "““what will not work is simply to decant young adults into the mainstream adult prison population?." The Government say first that they have no intention of making use of the powers they already have in Section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 unless YOIs for adults are no longer provided, and that has yet to be decided. Secondly, they assert that this clause is merely a consequential measure to ensure consistency with Section 61 and that they will prepare guidance on the new power once the policy on those aged 18 to 21 has been decided. The JCHR says, and we agree, that guidance would be insufficient to ensure that highly vulnerable young adults are not seriously damaged by association with hardened criminals. We accuse the Government of doing stealthily exactly what they told the JCHR they would not do in advance of the policy review now under way. Brixton, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs have been told that from 1 May they are to receive young adult remands, who will be treated the same as over-21s, except for cell sharing. Why is the Prison Service deliberately ignoring the Chief Inspector’s recommendation in which she says: "““Where young adults are held in adult prisons they should be located in dedicated self-contained accommodation with staff who are trained and supported to work with them??" Why have the Government jumped the gun and made this decision in advance of the review of the treatment of young adult offenders which the noble Baroness mentioned in her introduction? Reconviction rates among this age group are higher than for any other, at 69 per cent. More than half of the offenders link their crimes to alcohol misuse, and as many as nine out of 10 showed evidence of personality disorder, psychosis, neurotic disorder, substance misuse or a combination of these characteristics. To this list of the Chief Inspector’s should be added the high proportion suffering from speech, language or communication difficulties, highlighted twice in recent debates by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. If these young people are to be helped to live normal lives, they need specialist care during their sentence and after release. Sticking them in adult prisons where they will experience an acute lack of purposeful activity and accredited training in offending behaviour programmes, as well as insufficient exercise and association, ineffective personal officer schemes, poor mental health provision and patchy resettlement help, is a disaster. It is the worst possible way to start end-to-end management of this particular group of offenders. Before the Easter Recess, noble Lords debated the UNICEF report on children in developed countries, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said: "““Young people are one of the three priority areas in the revised alcohol harm reduction strategy, which is due to be published this summer?.—[Official Report, 29/3/07; col. 1843.]" I was therefore surprised and dismayed to see that the Home Office young people substance misuse partnership grant was being cut this year by 10.5 per cent compared with 2006-07, in spite of the horrifying statistics on alcohol harm among young people that I cited in the debate. The Home Office letter notifying this reduction does not give the year-on-year figures side by side but, expecting criticism no doubt, says that, "““changes in the levels of funding against 2006/07 allocations?—" that is a circumlocution for cuts, "““need to be placed in the context of record levels of investment over the last eight years?." It does not mention the record levels of alcohol harm to young people, some of which were cited in the UNICEF debate. How will the commissioning of services by the Secretary of State ensure that the inexorable increase in crime associated with alcohol, such as the 46 per cent of alcohol-assisted sexual assaults, is properly addressed? Will there be any money available for tackling the problem, in contrast to the Prison Service's alcohol harm reduction strategy, for which there were no extra resources? The protection of the public, reduction of offending and rehabilitation of offenders are all probation purposes which could be furthered by end-to-end management of alcohol misusers, including but not confined to those who enter the criminal justice system. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how that is to be achieved under this Bill.