My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his remarks and questions, and I shall deal with them as far as I can.
I understand that all prisoners on HDC are on some form of electronic monitoring, and some have a kind of location monitoring in addition to help them, so that one knows more precisely where they are exactly and what they are up to, if I may put it like that.
I am reluctant to speculate today on exactly how far this scheme will develop, and I am sure that the Government will be very interested in drawing on the experience of the noble Lord himself and others on how it works out. He referred to the “use and abuse” of the systems. Of course, every time one invents new technology, someone tries to find some way around it or some way of defeating it, so we will need to work that through. However, the general direction of travel is that the technology is improving all the time and we will learn by experience how to use it in an appropriate way to achieve the mutual objectives of helping prisoners back into the community.
On the “no more likely” point of the general efficacy of home detention curfews, the Government’s position is that they work and that they help people to make the transition from prison to the community. It is certainly the Government’s position that the improvements in technology that I have mentioned—the location and alcohol monitoring—will reinforce it, so that is how it will evolve. We have committed to make an internal evaluation in 2024, and we probably have to wait a little bit of time until we see how it goes, so that we can properly evaluate the new extension we are talking about. We will certainly make that evaluation, which will be further information on which policy decisions can be taken.
On the noble Lord’s question about suitability criteria, if I did not mention stalking, I should have done so—it is at the top of the list. The scheme offers a very important protection for the public and for people particularly concerned with stalking and the stalking risk, as it were.
I have endeavoured to answer the questions of the noble Lord as best I can, and I therefore commend the instrument to the Grand Committee.