Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answer. He will not expect me to agree with everything that he said and accept it, any more than he necessarily agreed with what I said. I am especially grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester for twice intervening with his habitual wisdom and understanding of the problem, and other noble Lords who have spoken, especially the noble Lord, Lord Judd. I am not talking about how things are done but what things are done. That seems to be missing in all this. I am not after something that is legislative and bureaucratic; I am after a clear direction of what has to be done. All right, it is given to a health commissioner. Somebody must tell the health commissioner. They must be given guidelines and a framework. The Minister mentioned 143 schemes. How many courts are there in which there is no scheme? How many police stations are there where there is no one available on call to come to help? All that links with provision. Is there provision? Is there provision for children? Is there provision for women? What are the arrangements for that? This has been a crying need for goodness knows how many years, and it has failed through lack of overall direction. In a lot of the Bill, the Government have been keen to bring in direction on the grounds that provision has not worked, yet here they are refusing to introduce direction to something that has not worked. That is inconsistent. Part of the problem is that ministries other than the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health are involved. The Home Office is involved, because it controls the police. The sense of urgency that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester rightly mentioned is needed in this area, because the problem is not going away; it is getting worse. When I went to Winson Green prison, I discovered that they had a diversion officer in the prison to pick up those who had slipped through the diversionary net to make certain that, if possible, they did not get further than the first night, for which there were special arrangements. That shows that prisons are recognising that the system is not working. I am glad that the Government are thinking about it, but I wish and hope that the new Secretary of State for Justice will consider the matter with the urgency that it deserves. I anticipate that he will; I know that he understands the problem because I spoke to him about it when he was in his previous post. I am happy to withdraw the amendment, which is not to say that I will not return with it on Third Reading. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.