Offender Management Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, knows an enormous amount about the subject, as does the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. We all appreciate their hard work in trying to make sure that what happens under the Bill is against a background of high quality. I speak as somebody who was responsible for training in a big voluntary organisation for many years. It is important for us to remember that voluntary and not-for-profit organisations can produce high quality work and that they do it in their own way. They derive their expertise from different sources and cultures in their area of work. It is important that the legislation does not pin them down. I fear that if the approach of the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord were adopted, voluntary organisations would be pinned down into doing things in a common way, which would spoil their work. There have been many examples of that through the years in different areas of voluntary work. It almost always happens because of the intervention of the statutory into the voluntary. I think that the Government are following the right line here. We shall hear from the noble and learned Baroness—how beautifully that phrase rolls off the tongue, and so appropriately—why she feels that the Government’s approach is preferable. However, my own inclination is that the Government are absolutely right here, although that is not to denigrate in any way the aspirations of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, because they are absolutely right to say that standards for voluntary organisations, for those who come in, are essential.