Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I support the main thrust of the Bill in the belief that this is one of the most pressing issues to come before your Lordships’ House, primarily because democracy prospers only if the vast majority of the population respects the laws of the land and believes that the prevention of crime, the care of victims and the treatment of offenders are all being properly addressed. I have only one major reservation about the Bill, to which I will refer later. The Bill seems to have had a rather long period of gestation, especially since the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, in 2003. It has certainly been the subject of a detailed consultation. Yet in the intervening years since the noble Lord reported, we can detect two contradictory trends that have been the focus of a great deal of national concern. The first is that the crime rate has actually gone down, but, in stark contrast, over the same period the number of people in prison has increased substantially and now stands at a record level. At present there seems to be every reason to expect that the size of the prison population will continue to increase and it is clear that serious overcrowding in prisons is always likely to put in jeopardy the positive elements that we should look forward to, such as education, skill training and remedial and therapeutic work, all of which are squeezed out as resources become severely restricted. Whatever concerns I and others have about adults in prison, they are magnified many times over with regard to what is happening to young people in custody, whose numbers are also at a record level. This was vividly illustrated for me by the report of an Answer given by the Minister in another place, Mr Gerry Sutcliffe. I have to apologise; I have not been able to get to hand the Hansard reference to his reply, but maybe the Minister will be able to confirm this quotation: ““The number of young adult offenders who self-harmed in custody rose by 64 per cent between 2002 and 2006?. If I have said that correctly, we really must do something about the state of young people, and indeed adults, in prison. The huge increase in the use of custodial sentences has not produced results that are the least bit encouraging. On the contrary, the reconviction rates, as has already been said today, are positively discouraging. As I understand it, some 67 per cent reoffend within the first two years after release. The vast expense spent on custodial sentences is producing both poor outcomes and poor value for money. There is an urgent need to address these issues and to deal not only with prevention, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, but also with the aftercare arrangements for discharged prisoners. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Filkin: the status quo is not an acceptable proposition for us to consider. Like other Members of your Lordships’ House, I take the impact of criminal behaviour seriously. If I may be personal for a moment, when I trained as a probation officer in the 1960s—not quite as far back as the court missionaries—we were left in no doubt about three important factors of the criminal justice system, about which I remain convinced. First, every crime is a real threat to the fabric of our society. It is not just the suffering of the victim; more than that, it is the impact that crime has upon the wider community. Criminal acts change the usual behaviour of individuals and their families and undermine the general sense of social well-being. Citizens take extra precautions. Some areas are avoided. Families begin to feel considerably less safe. Some elderly people cease to go out after dark. We really must take seriously the impact of criminal behaviour upon the wider community. Secondly, while the incidence of crime is greater in areas of social and economic deprivation, it is important to recognise that most people living in those areas are law-abiding, reliable and extremely resilient. Low income is not the sole reason for crime. Moreover, many people who have to cope with low incomes are also those who contribute most to the social good of society. I often recall, not only from my own childhood but also from my years in social services, that one finds among the less well-off the largest number of volunteers, foster parents, home helps, youth workers and good neighbours who contribute so much to society. The key challenge to Parliament is to ensure that those good people who are the most vulnerable to crime—more so than many of us—are able to go on believing that society works for them. For that reason I encourage the Minister, as best I can, to continue to encourage the Government to do all they can to tackle not just crime but its causes, especially for those who are most exposed to it in the reality of their daily lives. The third matter relates to the importance of the independence of the judiciary. Although this is not strictly relevant to the Bill, my experience of the public services has led me to conclude that for the most part, organisational structures are considerably less important than matters of values, vision and robust leadership. However, I welcome the development of a Supreme Court and the attendant changes. While I have no fixed view on the distribution of work currently with the Home Office, there is one matter about the management of offenders which I believe to be a point of principle. In my view, the judiciary should not be placed alongside the management of the prison or probation services. Put simply, the judiciary should be seen as beyond the influences of other departmental concerns. I support the Bill, largely because I believe that over the years we have put a much greater investment of time, finance and hopes into custodial sentences than into developing positive alternatives. There is now a need to revitalise non-custodial sentences and to win the confidence of the courts and the public that there are robust alternatives to custody for many people who are currently in custody. In that connection, I sometimes wonder whether those in the Probation Service have any idea of the extent of the changes that have in recent years taken place in other public services. I understand their concerns about change, but when I moved from the Probation Service to the social care services, the authority that I worked in was responsible for services for almost 1 million people—it was a near-monopoly provider. Today, that same authority assesses needs and commissions services but is much less involved in the direct provision of services. The main lesson that has been learnt from this shift is about the way in which services can be made much more efficient and their quality extended in so many different ways. Most of all, users of services understandably care more about the impact those services have on their life than about which organisation provides them. As the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, said, it is the outcome that matters rather than the organisational arrangements. So the involvement of voluntary and private agencies brings with it an energy and imagination which has resulted in greater innovation, greater flexibility in the use of resources and a sharper focus in the delivery of services. I am convinced that this ought not to be seen as a threat to the Probation Service but instead as an opportunity to address these needs more effectively in the future. I hope that the Bill will achieve a much wider range of non-custodial sentences, much more sharply focused, and will have the support of the wider community. My only reservation has been touched on already. Experience has taught me that political parties in opposition become enthusiastic to promote decentralisation, localism and the removal of the shackles of Whitehall. Yet once they move into power as a Government, those same parties decide that centralisation is essential.