Glottal or not, that is an extraordinary piece of chutzpah. He knows full well that the powers that we are taking to reorganise the probation service were embedded in his Government’s 2007 Act. It is interesting to recall that during the passage of that Bill through the House of Lords, the issue of parliamentary scrutiny of orders creating, abolishing or amending probation trusts was highly controversial. Originally the Bill did not include any parliamentary scrutiny but the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee identified it as an issue for further investigation. My noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns tabled an amendment successfully introducing the affirmative resolution procedure to this clause in the Lords. The then Government overturned the amendment during ping-pong by tabling their own concessionary amendment providing for the negative resolution procedure on the basis that that would provide sufficient scrutiny without unduly taking up parliamentary time.
That is the background. Nothing was done behind the curtain or anywhere else. No one has ever heard me, from this Dispatch Box or anywhere else, attack the record of the probation service. The probation service does an excellent job, and I hope it has a very clear future ahead of it a national role. However, we have to ask whether these things could be done better and more efficiently. As well as the successes of the probation service, we have had as a background to this debate the very disturbing levels of reoffending. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham; the private sector will be very much on trial during this period. We in government who have been preparing the contracts and guidelines for this new partnership will have to work very hard to make sure that they are watertight in terms of delivering value for the taxpayer.
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However, as I said earlier in this debate, I have never hidden the nature of the deal that was on the table to enable us to achieve the reforms—the rehabilitation revolution— that we want, which we said we wanted from the very first days we came into government. The Rehabilitation Revolution was the first Green Paper we published. It was abundantly clear that we could not move forward on this front unless we found the elbow room, in a budget that was already under the cosh, by looking for savings and bringing in the expertise and experience of both the private and voluntary
sectors. We have made it very clear that whichever groups, confederations or partnerships win this work, anybody with any idea of winning it will have to demonstrate good working relationships and partnerships with the voluntary and community sectors. We have invested some £500,000 in grants to support the voluntary sector organisations, enabling them to participate actively in the rehabilitation reforms.
That is the background. Amendment 20 would require that any reorganisation of the structure of the probation service would have to be approved by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament. As noble Lords will know, on 9 May the Government published their strategy for reforming the service to deliver offenders in the community. As part of that strategy we will create the new public sector National Probation Service. I have said before that I very much hope that the probation service will grasp the opportunity to build, at national level, an influential and respected organisation that will have massive responsibilities within this new structure and whose fundamental role will be to protect the public from the most dangerous offenders in our communities. Alongside this will be open delivery of services for offenders in the community by a diverse range of new rehabilitation providers.
The Government’s strategy for reform sets out concrete plans to extend and enhance rehabilitation in the community. The Bill corrects what is probably the biggest gap in the current system—that those with the highest rates of reoffending currently get no help with rehabilitation. The creation of the National Probation Service is crucial to delivering this extended provision. Alongside the use of competition and the introduction of voluntary and private sector providers, the creation of a national service will allow us to deliver the retained public sector functions in an effective, affordable manner, deriving efficiencies from the economies of scale and streamlined management structures. Without those efficiencies, we would not be able to take forward our new approach, or to extend rehabilitation to short-sentence offenders.
I remind noble Lords that the issue of parliamentary scrutiny for the establishment, amendment and dissolution of probation trusts was thoroughly debated in both Houses during the passage of the Offender Management Act 2007. At that stage, the then Labour Government were content that the negative resolution procedure provided an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny for any changes. Bearing that in mind, and the consultation that we have already undertaken on in this issue, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.