Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 86, which is tucked modestly in with this group. Almost everything has been said, so I shall find a tiny niche into which to slip some words. I sympathise with the principles that underlie the other amendments in this group because we are all trying to achieve excellence in the delivery of services. I do not think there is anything between us and the Government in this respect. One of the few times I have had to diverge from the view held by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, was when she said that the Government were taking the view that anybody can do the job. I have not heard that from the Minister; I have heard her talk repeatedly about excellence, the necessity of the ability to do the job and the importance of training. So I hope that we are going to be able to develop in a partnership way our approach to these amendments. I say that particularly because, when he started this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, was absolutely right to emphasise the importance of the qualifications and calibre of those who do the job. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, if those are right, we get the protection of the public right, and that is what noble Lords all around the Committee wish to achieve. It is a case of asking how we do that. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was also right to point out that the Bill makes no reference to training; that is very strange. Amendment No. 86 would ensure that the Secretary of State provided through regulations a benchmark for the minimum required qualifications of those who will carry out the day-to-day work of the Probation Service. When I saw Amendment No. 87, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, to my Amendment No. 86, I felt no pique. I looked at it and came to realise that he is absolutely right. If I had been minded to move my amendment tonight, which I assure the Minister I am not, I certainly would have accepted his amendment first. As it is, I want to make it clear at this point that I support government Amendment No. 69, to be considered in the next group, and that all my amendments both before us and in the ensuing group are probing. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, has now departed. He was very smartly dressed, I suspect for a dinner engagement, which may assure those who have other places to go that they might do so with a clearer conscience. I shall restrict most of my remarks to standards in order to address the specific requirements of my amendments.