Offender Management Bill

I rise to answer this useful debate, in part to give my noble friend Lady Scotland a little respite from the rigours of the Dispatch Box. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, for tabling the amendments. They have enabled us to have a little extra focus on some issues that have already been exorcised somewhat over the six and a half hours that we have been at it so far. Amendment No. 11 usefully seeks to explore and, in its drafting, add the assistance that probation gives to the Parole Board and the Secretary of State to the probation purpose, and which the noble Baroness describes as ““a list””. That is fair enough. That is exactly as it appears. Probation involvement in the parole process is already sanctioned by specific provisions in the Parole Board Rules 2004, and in the formal directions to the Parole Board made under Section 32(6) of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Examples of such provisions include the requirement to include a home circumstances report—which, among many other things, seeks to reflect the attitudes and concerns of the victim and their families—and the inclusion of non-standard licence conditions. The proposed revision of the Parole Board Rules will see them take the form of a statutory instrument rather than the previous administrative means by which they were framed, so they will be given extra authority. That involvement forms part of the primary functions of probation in supervising and rehabilitating people convicted of offences. Probation advice is given because of the expertise and knowledge that probation staff obtain in exercising those functions. That does not mean that the resulting assistance should itself become a primary probationary function and be referred to explicitly in the Bill. That is not to diminish the importance or significance of that work, but in our view it does not need to be set out in terms in the Bill in the way that the noble Baroness suggests. Amendment No. 25, as the noble Baroness said, touches on similar territory to Amendment No. 2, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, which has had an extensive discussion. I do not particularly wish to go over the ground that has already been covered, but the case is that the amendment seeks to replace ““punishment”” with ““enforcement of court orders””, and while that might act as a descriptive term, we do not believe it accurately reflects the position. As was said earlier, society has always expected that those who break the law should be punished, and we have enshrined that expectation in legislation. I well remember the form that debate took when we were discussing the Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill back in 2000. That Bill became an Act, and it currently governs the Probation Service. The same spirit is contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which sets out the purposes of sentencing. That punishment is an integral part of these purposes and enforcement is now a well established concept, and I am afraid that the amendment fails to recognise that fact. We have not heard from the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, whose Amendment No. 26 is also in this group. I am therefore reluctant to deal with the amendment he would ordinarily, I am sure, have spoken to. I hope that the noble Baroness, having heard what I have said and what was said earlier, particularly about the second of her amendments in this group, will feel able, having had some extensive discussion on that part at least, to withdraw her amendments today.