Offender Management Bill

The amendments to which I have put my name have already been most admirably covered by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lady Howe. I am particularly glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, drew attention to parole, which was one of the issues that I was going to raise. There was a report in the newspapers last week about this, coupled with the problem in prisons of people not being able to get on the courses that they need in order to qualify for parole; so there is all that to be sorted out. Further to the point about the qualifications needed by professional probation staff, I have been involved with the University of Portsmouth, which runs the extremely successful diploma course for probation staff, which has been mentioned. It does not make sense to cut any of the curriculum for that course, because it is in-depth and has been run over time. I absolutely agree with the idea of 10 years. This makes absolute sense, because it encourages the university to invest in that training and to become involved with the people who develop the training and who may relate it to the developing practice in the field. It is terribly important that national standards are laid down for those in the voluntary and private sectors who carry out probation tasks. We cannot afford to cut that at all. I have observed with interest the different standards in the training of custody officers and prison officers in prisons, and we must not—particularly if we are dealing with people who are in the community, who are seen by the community, and who therefore affect the confidence of the community in the system—risk cutting any corners by employing people who are not qualified to do the work for which they have been employed.