Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Listowel. As far as one can see, with end-to-end management, one would expect very little to be done without involving prison officers in the scheme. I noticed how few references there are to prison officers in the Bill, and yet they must be absolutely crucial to the whole set up. I see one on page 3, in Clause 3(5), which gives some indication that prison officers might be involved in carrying out and making arrangements for probation services. However, I could not agree more with what my noble friend has said. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, commented on his concern about new Section 8C(2)(a), which states: "““the level of seniority required for the supervision of another officer””." From an earlier discussion I had with my noble friend, I believe that that referred to the need for more support for probation officers and the same should apply within a prison. You need someone in whom to confide, to whom you can talk about your troubles. There has been far too little of that. I think I am right to follow up that point. Coming back to this end-to-end management, it is crucial that we see all the members as part of the process. Hence the idea of the overarching training, which could involve different levels, with people taking it at different times and maybe for different services—even social services could take some part—but also, of course, with different levels of people. Perhaps people would want to stop at some stage, but otherwise they could go on higher and higher, getting more responsibility for dealing with the really difficult cases, which we need to concentrate on. If and when the amendment is accepted—I hope that it will be—there will be a much greater role for prison officers in helping the young particularly. I want to get back to the possibility of concentrating rather more resources on some of the offenders, who we could get out of the cycle of deprivation and back into the world, where they would be more use to themselves and, indeed, to the rest of us. I hope that this can be taken rather more seriously to heart—even better to hear from the noble and learned Baroness the Attorney-General that it is already well under way and that we do not need to worry.