Offender Management Bill

May I begin by expressing the Government’s appreciation of the very careful scrutiny that the Bill received in another place? Much good work has been done and many improvements have been made, and I thank my noble Friend, Baroness Scotland and colleagues in another place and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who is now Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, for the work that they undertook in guiding the Bill through Committee and another place. As Members will know, I took up my post eight weeks ago, but the Bill has been existence for a considerable period, so I pay tribute to my colleagues for the work that they have done. The concerns that hon. Members expressed on Report and Third Reading have now been addressed in another place and we have a better Bill as a result. It may be helpful to remind the House and colleagues what the Bill will achieve and why it is so important. The statutory duty to deliver probation services lies with 42 individual probation boards, which are working to centrally-set targets and whose chief officers are directly line-managed by the director of probation in Whitehall. The arrangement was introduced after the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 was passed, and it has delivered a great deal. Some 97 per cent. of pre-sentence reports to magistrates courts are delivered within the deadline specified by the court, and there has been considerable increase in the number of unpaid work completions—55,000 last year, against a target of 50,000, which represents an increase of over 4,000 compared with 2005-06. We can be proud of the fact that probation workers are dedicated, are working strongly and have put into effect a number of key measures, including on unpaid work. However, the House would want me to understand the need to consolidate those gains. The task of tackling the issue of reoffending is a complex one, and we need to do the best that we can to ensure that the best available providers are engaged. To date, about 96 per cent. of services have been provided in-house by probation boards. We need to do more to involve other providers in support of the public sector, particularly, may I tell my hon. Friends, to support the work that it undertakes. We need, too, to move towards more outcome-focused arrangements that free providers from all sectors to innovate. The Bill as drafted lifts from probation boards the statutory duty for making arrangements for probation services, and places it firmly on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. It creates new public sector bodies, probation trusts, with whom the Secretary of State may contract. That does not mean that my right hon. Friend will run services directly from Whitehall. What we are proposing, and what I hope the House will accept, is a coherent structure that enables services to be commissioned at an appropriate level with clear lines of accountability. Commissioning of services under the new arrangements—I hope that this will reassure all hon. Members—will take place at national, regional and local levels. That has been of concern to several of my hon. Friends, and I hope that the discussions that we have had during the passage of the Bill have helped them to understand where we are with the particular service that I am seeking to introduce.