Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, this amendment returns to the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Linklater throughout the passage of the Bill. As I said on Report, my noble friend Lady Linklater has considerable experience of bringing together magistrates and those working in probation and of building trust in alternatives to custodial sentences. That is the key area here. That is exceedingly important. We agree with my noble friend about the merits of what she is trying to achieve. However, we do not feel that there is need for legislation to reach that goal. It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, talks about guidance. As I said on Report, we will look to promote best practice on liaison and information sharing and to make clear that there are already arrangements available for magistrates to claim expenses from probation trusts to encourage such close liaison. We have already begun that process. The national sentencer probation forum has agreed to look at this issue. That forum brings sentencers, including magistrates, together with probation trusts and Ministry of Justice officials to discuss national issues of common interests, including liaison arrangements. We want to gather from sentencers and probation trusts any issues of which they are aware in relation to local liaison arrangements, along with examples of good practice in information sharing. I am pleased to say that the forum has agreed to consider these issues at a forthcoming meeting. I hope that my noble friend is reassured by that. It may be that as a result of that examination of the issues, it emerges that there is indeed a need for guidance in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, indicated, or some other clarification of existing procedures. However, I stress again that there is no need for new primary legislation to enable that to happen. I will now address the points on which my noble friend Lady Linklater sought clarification. I mentioned on Report that magistrates can claim expenses from Her Majesty's Courts Service or probation trusts. The rules and guidance on expenses are quite complex. Given the lateness of the hour, I am very happy to write to my noble friend and spell those out in greater detail. In general terms, the Courts Service pays expenses for costs that arise from the formal duties of a magistrate; for example, attending justice issues group meetings or formal training courses. For other activities involving probation, it is open to the magistrates to claim expenses from local probation trusts. I should clarify that when I said before that it was appropriate to claim expenses from the probation trusts, this was indeed for such things as the informal local liaison meetings. My noble friend raised the issue of best practice. On Report I emphasised that the Government wanted to encourage best practice in regard to local liaison and information-sharing in the way that she has outlined. This can come from probation or the magistrates, and we want to look at examples of effective local liaison, where there are regular, well attended local liaison meetings and where magistrates are aware of the work of probation in their area. That is what we want the national sentencer probation forum to consider. My noble friend also asked for clarification of what I meant by meetings with magistrates. As I have said, there are two main elements. First, there are the local liaison meetings, where probation trusts and magistrates can come together and discuss issues of mutual concern in the local area; for example, the current availability of programmes run by probation or issues raised by magistrates, such as the availability or type of work being done as part of community payback schemes. We want to look at how these meetings operate now and promote the type of approaches where local liaison works best. Secondly, I also mean the familiarisation visits that magistrates may make to probation, such as visits to see community payback schemes in operation. Again, we want to learn from where this is happening well. Therefore, I hope that I can reassure my noble friend that we are looking at best practice regarding liaison and information-sharing, and we have already started on that. We will consider any practical solutions necessary to address existing problems under the current legislation. With that clarification and reassurance that work is indeed under way, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.