Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I have followed with much interest the public service reform of the past 20 years. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, confirm that the new Labour Party has taken up a Conservative programme of public service reform, which indeed it did. I am old enough to remember when local authorities had enough autonomy to provide innovation—the West Riding County Council was one of the best experimenters and innovators at the local level. Part of the thrust of government policy through successive Governments over the past 30 years has been to remove autonomy and the power to innovate from local authorities and give it to the centre. I hope that we may be shifting away from that centralist drive to a period in which local interests and diversity are allowed. If we are to move to a wide diversity of supply—to quote, I hope accurately, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin—we need the diversity of supply which comes from partnerships with local voluntary organisations, and I stress the word ““local””. This is a very important amendment, and we on these Benches support it strongly.