My Lords, I am not sure I shall be able to help the noble Lord, Lord Rosser; he asks lots of questions, most of which do not have a great deal to do with the Bill but have a lot to do with the Government’s declared intention to reform the probation service. We have certainly made no secret of that; indeed, he will be familiar with our consultation paper, Punishment and Reform: Effective Probation Services. He will be aware that this was the first step in determining our approach to how reform is delivered. Further consideration is under way to determine how best to meet the requirements of a probation service that delivers rehabilitation outcomes. We are in the process of carefully considering the way forward and will announce further details of our plans shortly. As I indicated previously, we will be keen to engage with probation staff, representative groups and all those who can make a contribution to the success of this important area of work.
It is interesting—I think I have explained this before to the noble Lord—that the reason why the powers to do all this are not in this or any future Bill is because they are within the powers of the Offender Management Act 2007. During the passage of that Act, there was a debate on the merits of parliamentary scrutiny when
establishing, amending and dissolving probation trusts. In the Bill as originally published, no parliamentary procedure applied to the power in Clause 5(1) to establish, alter the name or purpose of, or dissolve a probation trust. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee noted that precedents existed for that, but felt that it lacked sufficient information about how trusts were to be established to make a recommendation about its appropriateness in this context. The committee therefore drew the matter to the attention of the House. In light of the debates on this subject, the previous Administration accepted on the floor of the House that this important power should be subject to parliamentary procedure. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, asserted that the affirmative procedure would be excessive but tabled a government amendment introducing a negative procedure, which was accepted by this House. On that basis, the Government believe that the parliamentary scrutiny set out in the Offender Management Act 2007 is adequate and we share the view taken by the previous Administration that the affirmative procedure would be excessive. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to withdraw his amendment.