Probation Service

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State back to the Chamber. It is a pity that he could not be here to listen to the heartfelt and sincere expressions of concern from Labour Members. We could have filled the time three times over, such is our anxiety about these proposals.

We have heard excellent contributions from Members on both sides of the House. This has been a welcome, if overdue, opportunity for us to debate the Government’s upheaval and sell-off of probation services. It is a pity that the Government themselves do not welcome the House’s scrutiny of their proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) described that as shameful.

My hon. Friends the Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin), for Islwyn (Chris Evans), for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) presented clear arguments, and expressed deep concern about the Government’s proposals. The lack of evidence and the abundance of haste mean that this initiative has “blunder” written all over it. These plans will see the majority of probation provision handed out to large companies with no experience of probation. They will see offender supervision divided artificially by risk category, in spite of the fact that risk regularly shifts, and the introduction of an entirely untested payment-by-results model. We are told it will be effective, but they cannot tell us how effective, and we are promised it will make us savings, but they cannot tell us, even roughly, how much will be saved. They cannot tell us the cost, and they cannot tell us any of the efficiency savings they hope to make.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) summed it up extremely well. He pointed out the complete absence of costings and called the plans flawed. Few Members are held in as high esteem as the right hon. Gentleman on these issues.

So far, the public have been offered a personal testimony from the Justice Secretary that he thinks the policy will work, but that assurance comes without evidence as the Government have not seen fit to test its effectiveness. Probation is a front-line service that deals with public safety, and it is not good enough for the Secretary of State just to “believe” his proposals are right. We are not arguing for the status quo and, where we can, we have been very clear about our support for the Government on these issues, but untested, uncosted and dangerous upheaval is not the same thing as effective reform, and this motion calls for the model to be piloted and evaluated so that only the good practice gets rolled out.

Pilots that were in place and ready to begin in two trust areas were instead cancelled by the Secretary of State. That scrapped any opportunity to test or improve the model, learn from mistakes on a small scale, and get it right. Instead, inevitable teething problems, inexperienced providers, failures in communication and glitches in the untested IT systems will have to be contended with all at once on a national scale. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) urged caution. He said risks had not been thought through, and he is absolutely right.

The Government keep referring to the Doncaster and Peterborough pilots. They are prison pilots and are therefore not comparable; nor are they intended to pilot changes for probation—plus, although both pilots showed some reasons for cautious optimism, they missed their targets, which is why it is helpful that they are pilots. The people working on those pilots say they have learned from their mistakes along the way, and of course they have; that is what pilots are for.

In the same week that universal credit is having to be rolled out far more slowly than planned due to serious management and IT difficulties, the Secretary of State for Justice is refusing to learn from the experience of his colleagues. Not only that, but he is failing to learn from the mistakes of his own Department. After the “inglorious saga”, as it was christened by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), of the Ministry of Justice’s language services contract, the National Audit Office recommended that the Ministry should

“implement future contracts so as to minimise transitional problems, for example through piloting and rolling-out new systems gradually”.

That is good advice.

By failing to test, evaluate or improve the model, Ministers are failing to manage effectively the risks that come with their plans. They will not even admit to them and publish the risk register. Our most serious concern is risk management and the fragmentation of the supervision of dangerous offenders. As we have heard from Members—on both sides of the House, to be fair—risk is not static. One in four offenders change their risk category during their order, and they do not always go from low to medium to high; they shift around far more dynamically than that. As the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) observed in his excellent speech, the nub of the matter is that the Government are introducing a dangerous layer of bureaucracy where an offender, while at their most volatile, will be passed between organisations. There is a serious risk—if this is not inevitable—of information being lost and vital warning signs being missed through this unnecessary divide, yet the Government have failed to pilot it, and check what sort of delays might be caused and how quickly information can be reliably passed on.

The Government have failed to provide any evidence for the benefits of this upheaval, have failed to admit to the inherent risks and publish the risk register, and have failed to provide a realistic or responsible timetable in which to operate. The chairs of three probation trusts have written to the Secretary State this week to ask him to delay his rushed timetable, which is risky, unreasonable and, they say, “unrealistic”. Apparently, those managing the changes do not “just believe” that everything is going to turn out all right. By forcing through a timetable that his own Department has deemed “aggressive”, the Secretary of State, who is having a friendly chat with his colleagues rather than listening, appears to be showing more concern for being a champion of change—any change, it seems—than for safe service delivery.

Serious concerns have been expressed, and not only in the Chamber today, about the Ministry of Justice’s capacity ably to procure and contract quality services. The language services procurement process was described as “shambolic” by the Select Committee on Justice, and the Public Accounts Committee reported that the Department was not an “intelligent customer”. The Justice Committee also found that the Ministry’s naivety in contracting was matched by its “indulgence towards underperformance” after the contracts came into operation. In the past two years, we have had Jajo the rabbit signed up to be a court interpreter; charges for tagging dead inmates; and a new contracted prison in which it is easier to get drugs than soap. When is the Secretary of State going to recognise the need to hit the brakes, build skills and capacity in his Department, and improve on past failures?

My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood) summed it up brilliantly. He said, and was backed up by interventions by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), that the Government should trust the skills, experience and expertise of high-performing trusts, which are hungry to take responsibility for short-term prisoners. What a shame that the Secretary of State puts more faith in his inner belief than in evidence and experience.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken and apologise to some for the fact that I will not be able to deal in detail with what they have said. In particular, I should apologise to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), because she kindly donated two minutes of her time but some of her Labour colleagues have stolen it back. I am sorry about that, but I will do my best to answer what has been said.

There is no contradiction between two things that have been said in this debate. The first is that good work is being done up and down the country by probation officers. The second is that there is a need for change. I accept that a good deal of good work is being done by probation officers, but they, too, would say that we are simply not doing well enough on reoffending rates, which are far too high; half of those released from custody are reoffending within 12 months, despite our spending 70% more on probation over the past 10 years.

There are two key advantages in what the Government propose to do. The first is that we bring innovation and good new ideas into the management of offenders. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have mentioned good voluntary sector organisations that do exactly that sort of work. We want to see them do more, and it is important to bring them more into rehabilitation work—our reforms will do that. That point was made by, among others, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard).

The second huge advantage to what we are proposing is that we bring into the ambit of rehabilitation those offenders who at the moment have very little or no rehabilitation—those who receive sentences of 12 months or less. I detected very little disagreement across the House about that. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) summed up the case for doing that passionately and well; we have overlooked those people and we should not do so because it is not in our interests to do so, as those are the offenders with the highest rates of reoffending and it is very important that we deal with them. It is also important that we deal effectively with support through the gate, so that people do not reach the cliff edge that he so well described.

The question, surely, for Labour Members, not least those on the Front Bench, is this: if they do not like our way of doing those things, which they agree are worth while, what is their way? I heard not a word of an alternative solution to the problems they accurately describe, except of course that the probation trusts should do it all themselves.

Interestingly, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) suggested that we should simply ask the probation trusts to do the work. I was rather surprised to hear that from an ex-Treasury Minister, because it would have an additional cost. I suspect that had I gone to him as a Treasury Minister—he was a very good one in his day—and said that I wanted the probation trusts to do more and wanted the money to pay for it, it is likely that he would have told me to ask the probation system to do better with the money it already received. That is exactly what we are proposing. We must make taxpayers’ money work better; that is hugely important.

Some concerns have been expressed and we take them seriously. I want to pick up on as many as I can. The first concerns the principle of payment by results, which, it seems to me, is perfectly sensible. We want the taxpayer to pay for those things that work and not for those that do not. That is at the root of payment by results. I am confused, however, about the Opposition’s view: is it that we should not have payment by results or that we should have more? Both views seem to have been expressed.

[Jenny Chapman]

On the issue of payment by results, how much of the contract will be paid regardless of the results? Any more than 90% is not payment by results—it is just leaving a tip.

[Jeremy Wright]

As I have said to the hon. Lady before, this is a process that we are going through with those who will be involved in the system—

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

No. I have the Act in front of me, and section 3(2) states:

“The Secretary of State may make contractual or other arrangements with any other person for the making of the probation provision.”

The Act means what it says. If the hon. Gentleman believes that the last Government passed legislation that they did not intend to pass, no doubt he will want to take that up with the former Ministers in his own party who were responsible.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State said in the House, referring to this very issue,

“Sometimes we just have to believe something is right and do it”.—[Official Report, 9 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 318.]

However, leaping in and hoping for the best is a sure-fire way of getting it wrong.

Let us look at the Secretary of State’s record. Only 2% of offenders on the Work programme have found jobs; dangerous offenders are not being properly risk-assessed before release; in a brand-new prison, obtaining drugs is easier than obtaining soap; and mismanaged contracts with G4S and Serco are under investigation for fraud. I could go on. Does all that not represent the triumph of the Secretary of State’s wishful thinking over public safety?

[Jeremy Wright]

I barely know where to start, but let us start here: it is a good idea to read the facts and not the newspaper headlines. What the hon. Lady has described is a travesty of what we are proposing to do. If she is talking about the involvement of the private sector in the monitoring of contracts, she needs to be extremely careful, because she ought to know that those contracts were negotiated by the last Labour Government. She is sitting in a very large glass house and throwing stones in every direction.

I think it important for us all to understand exactly what we are proposing to do, which is to bring new people with new ideas into the provision of rehabilitation for offenders of all kinds. It is important for us to recognise that the status quo should not be what we seek to defend. Reoffending rates are too high, and we need to bring them down. If the hon. Lady wants to defend the status quo, that is up to her, but we intend to improve the situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Highly respected former chief inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham has called on the Justice Secretary to withdraw his plans for probation as they are too complex to be achieved safely. Concerns about public safety meant that not a single Cross Bencher voted with the Government on his amendment in the Lords. The timetable is unrealistic, the IT is not ready and the Department’s risk assessment states that the proposal is unlikely to work. Is it not time for the Government to take stock and rethink before they waste any more resources on this rapidly unravelling plan?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with her. This is an important and urgent reform. She must recognise that every single year 600,000 offences are committed by people who have previously committed an offence. Until we start to address reoffending effectively, that number will not come down and we will not avoid the creation of tens of thousands of new victims every year. That is why this is urgent. As far as I understand the position of the hon. Lady’s party, she agrees that reoffending rates are too high, that something must be done about that and that there is a problem with the group with sentences under 12 months, yet we hear nothing from her about what she would do about that if it was not what we propose to do. If she has an alternative, let us hear it.

Protecting Children Online

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to today’s debate.

It is clear that neither the Minister nor anyone else can solve this problem on their own, but the Government can take action to help protect children online. My particular concern centres on the unmonitored use of the internet by those whom we already know to have a history of sex offending. The Government’s consultation on parental internet control stated that it was looking into the best way of shielding children from harmful and adult content, including sites that exposed children to online sexual grooming. Most of the debate and consultation in this area have focused on restricting access to adult, pornographic and child abuse material, but in looking at the most serious threat—of grooming and sexual abuse—we need to be serious not just about the online content, but about online users and those with whom children come into contact online.

In my maiden speech, I began with a few words about Ashleigh Hall, a young woman who lived in my constituency. When she was 17, she was murdered by a registered sex offender she met on Facebook. The 33-year-old offender used a fake identity, and for his profile took a picture of a younger man in order to start talking to and grooming Ashleigh. After she agreed to meet him, the offender posed as his internet personality’s father in order to pick her up, after which he abducted, raped and murdered her.

This man had a history of violent sexual offences, including multiple charges of sexual assault, rape and kidnapping. He was known to be dangerous and was a registered sex offender, but although he and his home were registered and expected to be monitored, his internet use was not. He was under no obligation to register his online identities, and I have learned that any refusal to do so would have been met with no action whatever. The authorities had no idea what images he was looking at or who he was communicating with.

We know that one quarter of 12 to 15-year-olds report using social networking sites to communicate with people they do not already know. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre receives more than 600 reports of grooming each month, yet as the situation stands, people we recognise as a serious threat to public safety are monitored in the community but not online, where they have as much access, if not perhaps more, to building relationships with young people and may pretend to be someone they are not.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the Labour party’s proposals refers to making extra resources available to the police to ensure that these things can be monitored. Could that have prevented that case from happening?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

It is very difficult to say what might have prevented this tragedy, but the Government need to look with some urgency at the power to monitor the internet use of people whom we know to be a threat to children.

It is not acceptable for a known offender to have unmonitored online access in order to socialise with young people. I have raised this issue in the House before and asked the Government to make progress towards requiring sex offenders to register their online identities. Child protection and online safety will be significantly aided if that is a notification requirement for registered sex offenders as a matter of course, and if failure to do so is regarded with just as much seriousness as an offender failing to register the fact that they were living with young children. In 2011, the Government consulted on the prescribed information that offenders are expected to disclose, including increased notification requirements for foreign travel and living arrangements, and even changes to ensure that an offender could not avoid the register by changing their name, but the issue of online identification was not addressed.

It is often repeated that parents must take the lead in protecting their children in online activity, and so they must. However, parents such as Ashleigh’s mum deserve to know that dangerous people who are already known to the police and authorities are not left with the unchecked freedom to groom further victims. We know who these people are, but false, manipulative online identities mean that young people such as Ashleigh do not know whom they are speaking to. Access to inappropriate material for young children is very concerning, but I expect that controlling it will be a constant battle, with technology inevitably outpacing the law. My suggestion is to make a simple change, which follows the accepted principles of existing requirements on registered offenders, but it could make all the difference to a family’s safety. I am glad that we are debating measures to protect young people online. I would simply ask that, as well as considering the broad safeguards that we seek to introduce, we also focus on the internet use of those whom we already know have a history of sexual offending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is simply not right. The Select Committee found recently that only 25% of the time probation staff spent at work was spent working with offenders—the Committee’s Chairman is here today and he will recall this—yet the biggest block of offenders who are likely to reoffend get no support at all. That is why change is necessary.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

We very much support the Government’s moves to extend supervision, but they also want private security firms to take responsibility for supervising medium-risk offenders in the community. That would include people who have committed violent and sexual offences. How do the Government plan to ensure that those private security firms have the appropriate skills and training to protect the public?

[Chris Grayling]

It is a pleasure to see the hon. Lady in her place today. I have begun to forget what the shadow Secretary of State looks like. His team regularly attends these events, but there are some faces missing.

The whole point of what we are trying to do is to address the glaring gap in the system that is leading to reoffending rates that are simply unacceptable. The mechanisms that we are putting in place to manage risk will provide a simple means of transferring offenders from a medium-risk category to a high-risk category if their situation changes and if a risk assessment carried out by the public probation service requires such a transfer. The public probation service will always remain responsible for dealing with the highest-risk offenders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. He will know that I do not have direct responsibility for the prisons in Northern Ireland, but he makes a good point. There will be examples of good practice across other Administrations from which we can learn, and we will certainly seek to do so.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, there is scant evidence of rehabilitation in the recent inspection report on Serco and HMP Thameside. Instead we hear of bad management, gang-related violence, and prisoners sleeping away the day spending up to 23 hours locked in their cells. We also now have irregularities in the tagging contracts and the sudden resignation of the G4S chief executive. Does the Minister not agree that this is more evidence of why we should be wary of rushing headlong into handing over our probation service to these same companies? A failure repeated outside the relative safety of prison walls would see dangerous offenders walking our streets completely unsupervised.

[Jeremy Wright]

I think that what there is good evidence of is the need for reform. We need to make sure more work on rehabilitation is going on within prisons, as well as more work through the gate and out into the community. As the hon. Lady well knows, the truth is that there are good and bad reports on private prisons, just as there are good and bad reports on public prisons. We will want to make sure that we do everything we can to engage in rehabilitation while people are in prison. More work in prison will certainly help: 800,000 more hours were worked in prisons last year than the year before. Progress is being made, but there is certainly more to do, hence our reforms, which I hope the hon. Lady will support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, that is a realistic concern and one that we will address. It is important that we maintain those crucial local partnerships, and we will expect anyone taking on this work to do that. We will also want to ensure that not only the design of the contracts but the management of those contracts and the relationships with smaller and local organisations, particularly in the voluntary sector, are maintained and nurtured. We will look carefully at all bids to ensure that they do that.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I hope that Ministers are listening to the concern that is coming from Members on both sides of the Chamber about the proposals. Last year, 17,000 offenders were recalled to prison by their probation officer, so that is 17,000 crimes that were prevented and victims spared because of decisions made by probation officers. Am I right in saying that in the future private providers of probation services will lose payments for supervising an offender if that offender is recalled to prison?

[Jeremy Wright]

The clue is in the title. If, under payment by results, a provider gets the right result, they will get a payment; if they do not, they will not get a payment. Let me make it clear to the hon. Lady that under the proposed system, the decisions on recall will be made by public sector probation officers and not by providers, so the responsibility for that decision remains in the public sector where we believe it belongs.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

We support new clauses 15 and 16 and we welcome their inclusion in the Bill, although the Government have dragged their heels on this matter, which should more appropriately have been dealt with in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

I am pleased to have the opportunity, alongside colleagues, to speak in favour of new clauses 12 and 14 on support for vulnerable witnesses. It is welcome to see such important proposals brought forward with support from Members in all parts of the House. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) for their work on this. The new clauses would provide for a number of positive support mechanisms for very vulnerable witnesses such as a victim in a case of sexual abuse of a child. These are exceptionally distressing cases, and court proceedings are complex and stressful even for the most able adult. Justice is done when, and only when, victims feel able to come forward and report abuse and to cope with court proceedings.

New clause 12 deals specifically with registered intermediaries and calls for the provision of that support to every child who is in court as a victim of sexual abuse. An intermediary offers support to a vulnerable witness in communicating comfortably with the court throughout the trial. They are also able to assess the victim and advise the court on how best to meet their needs and provide effective but manageable questioning.

New clause 14 would provide for a wider array of improvements to court arrangements, making provision for a specialist court to handle cases involving a very vulnerable witness. The provisions include training for judges; assigning to the witness a single, consistent and familiar court usher; and taking into account the effect of time delays on the witness. It is difficult to overstate the importance of having such sensitive measures in place. It is our duty to ensure that a trial is as accessible and bearable for a victim as it could possibly be. We will support new clauses 12 and 14 should they be put to a vote.

I should also like to speak in support of amendment 1. I commend my right hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) for bringing these matters before the House and I thank Lord Touhig for raising it earlier in another place. The amendment would make no change to the premise of the Government’s proposals on liability for enforcement costs, nor would it introduce any new premise into the law. It would simply replicate a system of basic means-testing that is already in use and that the Government already accept as a reasonable and proportionate method for setting fines. It is right that an offender feels the financial hardship of their given fine and that they are expected to pay on time. The means-testing system is in place as a low-level safety net to ensure that penalties imposed do not jeopardise a basic level of subsistence for vulnerable debtors. The amendment would extend this safeguard, which is already subscribed to in law, to the stage where the Government have added the costs of recovery into the final system. I commend it to the House.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 14, which stands in my name, supported by the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and many colleagues. I also express my support for new clause 12.

New clause 14 is designed to introduce specialist courts for very vulnerable victims. It is no secret that I have been deeply affected by a child sexual exploitation case in my constituency, but in addition the Home Affairs Committee inquiry has been hearing about the realities of child sexual exploitation across the country. I am repeatedly told that these girls do not appear to be victims—that they are just bad girls making bad choices and voting with their feet. The process of grooming makes them believe they are complicit in their abuse. Even if they manage to get away, heartbreakingly they too often go back to their abusers, feeling that that is their best option. They simply see no way out. But there are ways out. There is now more support available for victims of sexual abuse, conviction rates are on the up, and prosecutions in Rochdale and Keighley and excellent work in Lancashire show that we are getting our act together.

That is not, however, always the case and it is certainly not the perception. Keir Starmer made it clear just days ago that traditional tests by the Crown Prosecution Service to evaluate witnesses have the potential to leave this category of vulnerable witnesses unprotected. He used the example of the Rochdale witnesses, stating that if they were tested

“solely by asking questions such as whether they reported their abuse swiftly, whether they returned to the perpetrators, whether they had ever told untruths in the past, and whether their accounts were unaffected by drink or drugs, the answers would almost always result in a decision not to prosecute.”

Last year ChildLine received more than 15,000 calls relating to child sexual abuse, yet the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children thinks that more than 60% of child sexual abuse goes unreported, which is unsurprising when witnesses are being told that they are not credible owing to the very behaviours that arise from their abuse. I am delighted that the Director of Public Prosecutions has made it clear that he intends to act on this, but it will be effective only if it is fully supported by the whole system.

Victims, charities, senior police officers and lawyers all confirm that a barrier to victims coming forward is not only the fear of not being believed, but a potentially traumatic court process. A lot has been done, including the introduction of special measures, but certain very vulnerable witnesses face higher credibility barriers and questioning on much more distressing evidence and are inclined to react negatively or aggressively to intimidating situations. These witnesses respond differently and unpredictably in court situations and it is for these victims that new clause 14 is designed.

Much of this cannot be avoided in an adversarial system and I will be the first to defend the principle of innocent until proven guilty, but if a witness is deeply vulnerable because of previous abuse and therefore unable to give clear evidence, understand the questions asked or remember events, that undermines the quality of justice served and is not in the interests of the witness or the defendant.

New clause 14 seeks to assist by proposing that such cases be assigned to a specialist court where everyone, from the ushers to the judges, has specialist training in witness management and the special measures. Those mechanisms would ensure that the measures would be implemented consistently and to the highest standards for such cases, which need to be handled differently owing to the nature of the evidence and the vulnerability of the witnesses.

This is a partnership programme that does not require primary legislation, which is why this is a probing amendment. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the proposed new clause has attracted significant cross-party support, which is why I want him to make a clear commitment to take forward this proposal in a timely manner. I know that he will raise the issue of cost, but I would pre-emptively respond that preventing cases from collapsing is nothing if not a good investment.

In the wake of Savile, the Welsh care homes, Rochdale and ensuing cases of child sexual exploitation, there will be a significant increase in highly sensitive cases in the courts. I want victims to have the confidence to be able to go to court and give evidence. I want them to know that we did everything we could to support the most vulnerable witnesses in the most sensitive cases. It is in the interests of justice for all involved.

Budget and Structure of the Ministry of Justice

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). This might not be the most eagerly awaited debate the Chamber has ever seen, but the funding of the Ministry of Justice is an extremely important issue, and although I am a new member of the Justice Committee, in my short time I have seen how daunting is the MOJ’s task of balancing the books.

The MOJ aims at having less reoffending, more rehabilitation and a better court, prisons and probation service, and all with less money. I do not envy the Secretary of State’s position, but I know that in endeavouring to meet the task he will consider all areas for savings. One area being considered is funding work opportunities for inmates in custody. It is right that we provide employment opportunities in prisons. Taking part in work programmes helps offenders to retain or—where it is lacking—adopt a work ethic, increases work-based skills, makes inmates more employable on release and reduces reoffending rates. We must ensure that it does not undercut companies not working with offenders or take jobs away from the law-abiding, but giving prisoners work opportunities in custody could help not just inmates, but victims of crime. If the money earned by prisoners can be shared between rehabilitation and payments to victims, there is a dual gain to be made.

It is not only prison work schemes, however, that provide these opportunities. The National Offender Management Service has been identified as a department that could undergo further restructuring. Managing the rehabilitation of offenders is one of the most crucial aspects of the Ministry’s work, and the MOJ is right that someone is not best placed to help prevent reoffending just because they are employed by it. Very often, private companies or charities can assist with the rehabilitation of offenders, so it is worth considering—and, in suitable cases, adopting—the tendering of work currently carried out by the probation service. If payment by results actually gets results, it is worth pursuing, and giving a financial incentive to those who carry out rehabilitative work can only help to reduce reoffending rates. For the first time, we can say that if offending rates are not reduced, taxpayers’ money will not be spent. That seems right to me.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that companies with PBR contracts will not be paid if they do not achieve results. I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but that is not going to be the case.

[Gareth Johnson]

As I understand the system, there will be payment by results. If the results are not achieved, there will be a financial consequence for that company. We will be able to say, “If there are no results, the taxpayer will not have to shoulder the full burden.” To draw an analogy, we would not expect the Ministry of Defence to pay for guns that do not fire, so why should we expect the MOJ to pay when anti-reoffending programmes do not work? We should pay for what works, not for what does not work.

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[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in what has become a rather select gathering, considering the report from the Select Committee on Justice and the estimates for the Ministry of Justice.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). I agreed with a large amount of what he said, although I encourage him to look carefully at PBR. He will find that the reward element, which is the bit companies get should they achieve their targets—we are still not clear what the targets might look like—could be as little as 5% of the value of the contracts. He might find that quite poor or average performance could get 95% of the payment anyway, which is not quite what we are leading people to believe.

It is also a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who presented his report clearly and fairly, and very politely, given some of the criticisms that he made of the Department. I congratulate him and his Committee on their report on the budget and structure of the Ministry of Justice. I found it an interesting read, but I imagine that it was at times an uncomfortable read for Ministers.

I want to touch on several important subjects: a dysfunctional financial Department, inadequate leadership, evidence-free policy, no progress on improvements for women offenders or for victims of crime, and an overall lack of impact on outcomes in the past three years. In the first paragraph of the report, Members observe that

“this period has been marked by criticism of and, in cases such as the performance of the Legal Services Commission (LSC), failure by, the Department.”

Looking at finance in particular, the Department’s finance team has been performing particularly badly—not that anyone would know it from the Department’s own assessment of its performance, which states that it has

“put a renewed focus on improving financial management across the entire Department.”

The Department has, however, missed the Government’s deadline for submitting accounts for the third year running. If the Ministry were a charity, the Charity Commission would be considering removing its charitable status.

The Government have been reduced to ill-thought-through attempts at random savings through redundancies, and it is striking that the Department’s future budget targets depend on making significant numbers of staff redundant even though the Department does not yet have the necessary resources to fund the redundancy payments. That is chaotic, and one reason for the chaos is the £140 million hole in the Ministry of Justice budget following Ministers’ climb downs on plans to change sentences. I am reminded in particular of the proposed sentence discount for guilty pleas in rape cases, which was abandoned.

The Ministry has to make a massive budget saving, yet it is flailing around attempting to find people to sack. Unfortunately, it risks undermining its ability to do its job. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), said this morning:

“"We are concerned about safety and decency in some prisons…Assaults on staff, self-harm and escapes from contractor escorts have all increased.”

She went on to say:

“We were not reassured that the Agency has done enough to address the risks to safety, decency and standards in prisons and in community services arising from staffing cuts implemented to meet financial targets.”

On offender management in the community, probation trusts, the Probation Association, the National Association of Probation Officers and, significantly, all but a couple of the police and crime commissioners are opposed to the Government’s attempts to squeeze savings out of the Department through the sell-off of probation services by contracting out the supervision of medium and low-risk offenders in the community. I believe that the Ministry of Justice’s proposals in that area are as yet uncosted.

Ministers also have no idea of the extra cost of their plans to supervise offenders serving sentences of less than a year, or whether they will make any difference at all to outcomes. We know from experience that commissioning is not one of the Ministry of Justice’s strengths. The commissioning car crash involving the court interpreters Applied Language Solutions and Capita is something that I am sure officials and Ministers would rather forget, but it illustrates the point that commissioning is not one of the Department’s strengths.

The voluntary sector is likely to get frozen out of rehabilitation services. The Secretary of State has repeatedly said that he wants smaller, voluntary sector and other providers to take on more work relating to the rehabilitation of offenders. There is no argument there, except that the National Audit Office has observed in its response to the Government’s consultation that this desired level playing field is unlikely to materialise. It states:

“Large contracts within the criminal justice system are already held by a few large firms, who could exploit this synergy, compared to smaller or newer players. The Ministry needs to consider whether the size of the contract areas will create barriers to entry for some smaller providers, given the need for greater investment and exposure to risk that these will entail.”

Exactly what is the rationale behind the Government’s proposed 16 areas for probation services, because nobody I speak to seems to know?

The Department has to admit that it has a tendency to favour policy announcements at the expense of delivery. We have had announcements on prisoner working, improved services for victims, revolutionising rehabilitation, mentoring and drug-free prisons. These are all great announcements, and the Government have had no argument from any of us about them, but we are left feeling a little disappointed that the Minister’s hyperbole about a rehabilitation revolution is just that. So far, it is all rhetoric and, I am afraid, no reality. Prisoners are not working more; they are spending longer than ever locked in their cells; and the chief inspector of prisons says he can find no evidence of the rehabilitation revolution—[Interruption.] The Minister says that it is not true, but I have the figures in front of me. If he wants to contradict me in his remarks, I may well wish to intervene on him later.

The justice mandarins are simply not running things properly. The Select Committee says that Ministers need to alter the balance from policy creation to programme implementation, and it is right. Will Ministers tell us how many serving senior officials in the Department meet this criteria and how many of them have experience of managing these projects successfully at a sufficiently senior level? The Department says it wants cultural change through transforming justice, but it is not clear from its own report how many senior managers really have these skills. It believes it will save money by closing older prisons. The Secretary of State says he wants to build a new “supermax” prison, but does he have a budget for it, what is his timetable and where is it going to be?

Perhaps the most important unanswered question is this: at the end of the reforms, what will be happening on the ground that is so different from what happens now? What is the big idea? Where is the evidence to back any of this up? Among all the announcements and statements about restructuring, outsourcing, commissioning, paying by results and reforming, where is the real change that is going to make a difference?

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

There is recognition on both sides of the House for the work that National Grid has done on reoffending. It has taken more than 2,000 offenders, given them work, mentored them and found bank accounts for them—the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) is a great proponent of that. That proves that someone does not have to be a senior official in the Ministry of Justice to be able to bring forward a good idea that massively reduces reoffending.

[Jenny Chapman]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We can all cite anecdotes and examples of very good practice, but anecdotes remain just that. There is no systemic sharing of good practice. These opportunities should be assessed, evaluated and made available for all the offenders who need them, but the truth is that they are not. According to the Public Accounts Committee, senior officials at the MOJ have a poor record of managing commissioning, so I am not sure about trying to transform the service through that method. At the moment, there is not enough evidence of a good track record to be able to put much confidence in their ability to do that. The problem with the reforms is that they are all of structure rather than of practice. The Government are rightly disappointed in reoffending rates of around 50%, but for nearly three years they have done nothing of any substance to improve the situation.

Let me deal now with payment by results. Instead of importing a failed policy from the Department for Work and Pensions to the MOJ, why not take a closer look at what works in preventing reoffending? For all the academic studies and Government data, the truth is that there is precious little understanding of what really makes a difference. Plenty of organisations are prepared to tell us that what they are doing works and are prepared to buy reports to prove it, but there is very little objective analysis of outcomes of programmes and interventions. As a result of scrapping probation service PBR pilots, the Government are failing to use evidence that they should have to help them to decide where to spend their money. When the Secretary of State cancelled the pilots, he said, “Sometimes you just have to go with your beliefs.” There we have it: Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Justice, our very own mystic Meg.

This simply is not good enough. Interventions in health, for example, are assessed. They are monitored and evaluated before public money is used to provide them, and the same should apply to interventions in criminal justice. The rate of reoffending is stubbornly high, so why are the Government not doing what can be done in health? Why are they not asking for interventions to be evaluated and funded only if they prove to be effective, and then insisting that only what works should be delivered in our prisons and in community sentences? There is too much okay practice, and too little sharing of the very best ideas.

We need to know which are the best interventions, which are the best providers of services, and which are the best prisons. We need a value-added measure for criminal justice. The Government should be investing in ways of assessing the performance of establishments, based on the profile of inmates entering prisons and their future reoffending. Establishments should be accountable for their performance: the best should be given greater freedom to innovate, and the worst should be closed down. Farming out the supervision of medium-risk offenders to private sector providers with no idea whether that will work any better than the current arrangements is reckless, ideologically driven and dangerous, and the Government should think again. They are not showing any interest in practice on the ground, but are preoccupied with structures in the organisations without any evidence that they will make any difference.

The Government’s performance in the management of this Department has been woeful. The Department has failed to submit its accounts on time three years running, it has been subject to withering criticism from the National Audit Office over its ability to commission, it has scrapped PBR pilots—thus losing any evidence that payment by results works—and it has failed to show that its mandarins can manage projects and implement policy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

Let me start by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Select Committee, for introducing this short but very high-quality and wide-ranging debate. I am also grateful to him for the way in which his Committee drew up the report, and for the scrutiny that it provides of the Department more broadly.

As the House knows, parliamentary scrutiny of Government Departments is crucial to ensuring that they deliver Government policy properly and offer value for money. We have talked about both those things this afternoon. A large number of subjects have been covered, and I shall try to deal with as many as possible. I shall also say a little about the Department’s priorities, which have also been mentioned today.

Last year’s comprehensive report by the Justice Committee on the budget and structure of the Department focused on many of the changes that it has made to bring it closer to the goal of delivering a justice system that is more effective, less costly and more responsive to the public. At a time of continued financial pressure—to which my right hon. Friend rightly referred—finding ways of improving services while delivering even more value for money is, of course, of paramount importance.

There has been a renewed focus on improving financial management throughout the Department, which means that it is set to reduce spending by about £2.5 billion each year over the spending review period. It will achieve that by means of a range of measures to drive down the costs to the taxpayer. On the efficiency side, that has included rationalisation of the Ministry of Justice head office, streamlining our structures and processes, and rationalisation of the court estate. We have also delivered savings through policy reforms, including the reforms of legal aid funding—which have been mentioned—and the criminal injuries compensation scheme. As the Select Committee has acknowledged, the Department has protected front-line services by making the bulk of its savings—some 60%—through ways of working more efficiently. The Department also laid its 2011-12 accounts unqualified, before the summer recess and ahead of the timetable it had originally planned. That demonstrates a significant improvement on previous performance, but there is room for further improvement and the Department is looking to provide that this year.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed raised two specific points about the estimates, the first of which related to the explanation for the £159 million extra for the National Offender Management Service. As he will appreciate, a number of pressures that arise during the year were not part of the MOJ baseline used in the spending review negotiations. Such additional cost pressures will include not only inflationary impacts, but funding for voluntary staff exits—he will understand that there has been considerable change on that front in the past 12 months.

My right hon. Friend’s other point related to the impairments to the court and prison estate. As he knows, the Valuation Office Agency carries out regular reviews of that estate, and the recent downturns in the property market mean that that re-evaluation has obviously had an impact on the Department’s budget. The figure of £520 million or so is substantially explained by that change.

Let me talk a little about the justice system we are trying to design. Creating a transformed justice system requires the Department to go beyond improving its financial management. If we are to construct a justice system that punishes the guilty, protects liberties and rehabilitates offenders, the MOJ needs to continue to work at pace to drive an ambitious reform agenda. Despite the determination of those working within the justice system, there is too much litigation, too many people are reoffending and too much money is spent on systems. So by 2015 the Department will provide services in a completely different way. We are committed to transforming rehabilitation to reduce reoffending—I will discuss that in some detail later— to driving down costs across the prison estate to ensure that it delivers maximum value for taxpayers; making sure that the youth justice estate is appropriate and cost-effective; rationalising the court estate and identifying further efficiencies across the criminal justice system; and continuing to drive down the cost of legal aid and ensure it is focused on those cases that require it. That is what transforming justice looks like.

One of my top priorities within that is the transformation of rehabilitation. That has had a good deal of attention in this debate, so let me deal with the points that have been made. As the House knows, we have consulted on proposals that could open up approximately £1 billion of services to a diverse market; give greater scope for providers to innovate, with payment by results acting as an incentive to focus on rehabilitating offenders, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) was explaining; and change how the commissioning of services is managed.

[Jenny Chapman]

Will the Minister clarify a point for us, because hon. Members who are listening to this debate will not be clear about it? What percentage of the value of the contract will be paid upon the achievement of the targets?

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady knows that we are carefully considering the design of the system, so we will need to determine the appropriate percentage. She will also recognise that it is not going to be 100%, because anyone taking on this work will need to implement the orders of the court and to fulfil licence requirements. The fact that it will not be 100% may have some bearing on the discussion we have been having about the accessibility of this new landscape to smaller organisations, particularly those in the voluntary sector. We will settle on the precise figure having listened to those who may be involved in this landscape, and others, to make sure that we get it right.

Let me deal with some of the points made by the Chairman of the Select Committee. He raised the concern that he and his Committee have about having national as opposed to local commissioning, and I appreciate that that represents a change. It is explained simply by the need to ensure that the necessary expertise and abilities to commission on a payment-by-results basis are held by those doing the commissioning. We think it is difficult to see how that can be done on a local basis, but we think it is important, just as he does, that there are local elements in the commissioning process and that local intelligence is included in deciding what needs to be commissioned. We want to design a system—I hope he will see this coming through the process—that enables us to include that local understanding as well as greater expertise on payment by results. He is also right to say that we must design a system that allows voluntary sector organisations to participate actively.

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I understand that entirely. I am saying that it will be important under the system that we are trying to design for local requirements to find their way through the system so that they can be clearly understood. We will try very hard to ensure that that can be done.

Let me return to the voluntary sector organisations, on which we have rightly spent a bit of time in the debate. There are probably two areas in which we need to be careful to ensure that the design of the system is right. The first is in the assessment of the bids that are made for the rehabilitative work that we are discussing. When we consider the bids, we will want to be satisfied not just about their quality and price but about the sustainability of the relationships brought forward as part of the bids. We anticipate that a large number of bids will include more than one organisation and will often include smaller voluntary and community sector organisations. We will want to be persuaded when assessing those bids that the smaller voluntary and community sector organisations will have a sustainable future in the course of the contract. We will want to ensure that the design is right and that we keep our eyes on what is happening in contract management. It is partly about assessing the bids when they come in and partly about assessing how they are implemented over the lifetime of the contract.

[Jenny Chapman]

I think the phrase the Minister is looking for is “bid candy”. I think he is trying to say that he would like there to be more involvement from not-for-profit, third sector and voluntary organisations, but is it not the truth that he has no idea at all of the number of organisations working with offenders in the criminal justice system? He does not know how many there are or what exactly they are doing, so how will he know whether there is more involvement after his reforms?

[Jeremy Wright]

The House will note the hon. Lady’s traditional fondness for central control, but we are not a fan of that. She is right that there is an issue about what is likely to be called “bid candy” in this context, but what she is missing is that that is precisely why it is important for us to consider not just the initial cost and attractiveness of the bid but the sustainability of what might be called the supply chain. We want to design that into the system for precisely the reasons she has given.

Let me move on to the issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed about prisoners who receive sentences of 12 months or less. There is broad agreement when the subject is raised that it is a good idea to bring within the ambit of rehabilitative services those offenders who receive such sentences, as at the moment very little provision is made for them. He is right to say that it will come at a cost, but it is difficult to be precise about the cost of that provision, which was another point raised by the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman). Until we have finished designing a provision, we will not know precisely what it will cost.

Another aspect that needs to be clarified by the design process is the sanctions regime. Part of the cost will be incurred by deciding what to do if someone who is under such a sentence and who will be expected to participate in rehabilitation after that sentence does not comply. We must go through a number of processes in the design of the scheme before we can be more precise about the costs, but we confidently expect the cost of incorporating those 46,000 extra offenders will be covered by the savings we can make by competing rehabilitative services for medium and lower-risk offenders. That is one of the central advantages of taking that course.

My right hon. Friend also made the point that it is important to have in the management of the Department the right people with the rights skills to carry out the work we are asking them to. He is right, of course. He will almost certainly know from his review of the work of the Department that we have set up a capability steering group to consider those issues. One of the major issues for us to address is skills in programme and project management. We are very conscious of the need to make sure not just that we bring in new people with those skills where we need to do that, but that we give those skills to existing staff who will come into contact with programmes of various sizes and shapes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

As I said, we recognise the need to make sure not just that we bring in new people who have these skills, but that existing staff gain those skills, so taking a snapshot of how many have a particular qualification at this point may not be the most helpful way of looking at the issue. We are trying to make sure that civil servants who want and need these skills are given them, and that where there are gaps in the Department and particular skills are required, we plug those gaps.

Let me move on to talk about prison costs. We are keen to push down those costs. Across the custodial estate our strategy is to ensure that we have sufficient places to meet the demand of the courts, while securing best value for money for the taxpayer. We are committed to driving down the cost of imprisonment and to closing old and inefficient accommodation, which will contribute significantly to that. I am surprised that the hon. Lady expressed doubts that such an approach would save money. It seems clear that it would do so. The reason—

[Jenny Chapman]

rose—

[Jeremy Wright]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will explain and then I will give way.

It is a straightforward point that older accommodation is more expensive to run and to maintain. Newer accommodation is much cheaper in both respects. That is one reason why we want to transfer from an older estate to a newer estate. It is not the only reason, but if the hon. Lady wants to intervene, I will give way.

[Jenny Chapman]

My doubt was based on assertions from the Secretary of State that there is going to be some “supermax” prison, yet there is a lack of information about how much that would cost, when it would be built and where it would be. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to those questions. If they cannot be answered, I will keep my doubts.

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady is entitled to her doubts but she needs to be fair. We have said that we will look at the feasibility of providing just that sort of prison, although I would not use the language that she used. We are looking for a system of imprisoning offenders that is most efficient for the taxpayer, but not just in financial terms. Also—this is what I was going on to say—newer estate is much more susceptible to providing work in prisons, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) described, and the rehabilitative agenda that we all want to see outside as well as inside the prison gates. I can reassure the hon. Lady that once we have had the chance to have a look at the sites that we might want to pursue for a larger prison and at the economics of doing it, we will give her all the detail she could possibly want, but we are not going to rush into it because, perhaps unlike our predecessors, we do not believe in spending money hand over fist until we get it right. We will make sure that we have got it right first; then we will bring forward our proposals.

Let me move on briefly to youth justice, which was mentioned by the Chairman of the Select Committee. As he said, in February we published our plans for the future of youth custody. Young people who commit serious and persistent offences need to be properly punished and it is right that they are sentenced to custody, but custody is not delivering good enough results. The costs of youth custody are very high, yet 73% of young people leaving custody go on to reoffend within a year. It is not acceptable to spend so much yet get such poor outcomes. That is why we launched our vision for secure colleges that refocus a young person’s time in custody so that it is education with detention, rather than detention with education as an afterthought.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford and the Chair of the Select Committee mentioned the court estate, reform of which is key to a transformed justice system. In identifying ways in which it could operate more efficiently, the Ministry has closed 132 courts—84 magistrates courts and 46 county courts. However, we recognise that there is a need to carry on looking at how our estate is most effectively utilised, and we will want to keep in mind the points that were raised on that. Spending money to keep underused and unsuitable courts and tribunals open is not a good use of taxpayers’ money, so we continue to keep the use of our estate under review to ensure that it meets operational requirements.

The Select Committee is also right to emphasise how important co-operation across the criminal justice is for improving outcomes. In July last year, we set out important reforms now under way across the criminal justice system in the “Swift and Sure Justice” White Paper. We are building on those reforms to ensure that victims have a louder voice and that the criminal justice system commands public confidence.

[Jenny Chapman]

I cannot let that point go without observing that the new victims commissioner will be working 10 hours a month. Is that sufficient to give victims the voice they need?

[Jeremy Wright]

I do not believe that it is the number of hours spent on the job that matters, but what one does in them. The effectiveness of this particular victims commissioner will become apparent. We think we have an excellent candidate for the job and that she will do a first-class job for victims. I am sure that the hon. Lady will support her in that work as she does it.

We want to make optimum use of the available resources so that the criminal justice system is quicker, less bureaucratic and more efficient. Therefore we are working closely with the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General to ensure that we all look at the whole system to tackle its weaknesses. My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed was right to say that the Ministry of Justice cannot solve all these problems on its own. We are, as he knows, often described as a downstream Department, and we need to work with other Departments, not just those that I have mentioned, to ensure that we all do the right things to bring down offending and reoffending. He will know that we will shortly publish a criminal justice strategy and action plan to set out how we will deliver further change.

Legal aid is a fundamental part of our legal system but, as the Chair of the Select Committee rightly said, resources are not limitless and publicly funded legal support should be reserved for cases where there is genuine need. The Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 contains reforms that focus help on those cases where there is a genuine need of assistance from the state, and those proposals will be implemented in April. We are determined to protect fundamental rights of access to justice, but we must tackle an over-reliance on the courts and legal system at taxpayers’ expense. That involves directing people towards less stressful and less adversarial means of resolving their disputes wherever possible. I was taken with my right hon. Friend’s point, with which I entirely agree, that if we necessitate the use of lawyers in some of these tribunals, and those tribunals are not operating as they should, that was not the intention and it should not be the way in which we proceed in the future.

We are keen that in addition to transforming the services delivered by the Department, it transforms itself so that it has the right skills structures and agility to operate optimally. As my right hon. Friend and the rest of the Select Committee know well, in 2010, the Department reviewed its operating model, which resulted in more streamlined structures and a reduced work force. However, further reform is required if we are to live within our means in future and operate in the most effective and efficient way possible. We have therefore commissioned a review of the business structures and functions across the Ministry of Justice. That includes our agencies and arm’s length bodies. The review will look closely and critically at the ways in which services are commissioned and provided. In doing so, we want the digital-by-default agenda to be put at the heart of the Ministry’s operations, and for creative ways to embody and implement the principles of civil service reform to be found.

I know that the Select Committee has previously recommended that the different parts of the Department be further integrated. My right hon. Friend referred specifically to the European teams today, and I entirely understand his reasons for doing so. A range of different expertise is represented by different people in different departments, so although we will look closely at any opportunities for rationalisation, in this context, as it happens, the opportunities for rationalisation are not as great as they may at first appear. However, the question of greater integration more generally, as well as the delaying of grade and management structures that the JSC has also sought, is firmly within the scope of the review that we are carrying out.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford for his remarks. He is entirely right that work in prisons is a fundamental part of improving the services we offer in custody and beyond. He is right that working in a prison context allows offenders to develop not only the hard skills but the soft skills that might make them more employable. The idea of working a standard day or more hours in the week are hugely attractive from that point of view. I can tell the hon. Member for Darlington, who I know was concerned about this, that we are delivering more worked hours by prisoners in the prison estate than we were previously. Of course there is more work to be done, but we are heading in the right direction.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because it is important that we understand what is really happening. There is an idea that our prisons are somehow becoming little hives of industry in which prisoners are beavering away, but they are not. In about half the categories of prison in this country prisoners are actually spending more time banged up in their cells and less time doing purposeful activity. Perhaps most worryingly, that includes prisons for young offenders. Officials need to be a little more upfront with the Minister on that issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

It is a myth that no learning is available about payment by results, even from pilots. It is not always necessary to complete a pilot in order to get something from it. A good deal of learning is available to us from the pilots that have been in operation and, indeed, from the operation of payment by results elsewhere in government. We will take that learning with us in designing the scheme that we are attempting to put in place. The truth is that we could pilot for ever. Piloting in this context is an excuse to do nothing, and we do not intend to adopt that approach because we want to take action to drive down high rates of reoffending. We want to see innovation; we want people to come forward with new ideas within this system. If we expected to have to pilot every single one of those new ideas, we could pilot for ever and never make progress. We do not accept that that is the right way to deal with reoffending rates that are far too high.

Let me return to the point raised by the hon. Member for Darlington and my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis). When we listen to the hon. Lady and her colleagues say that there are difficult budgetary pressures, that the Department is having to cut costs, and how regrettable all that is, we should not allow her to forget the reasons we are having to make these difficult decisions. One would think that we had inherited a benign economic legacy involving piles of cash that we stubbornly refuse to spend, but that is simply not the case. We inherited a note on a Treasury letterhead saying, “I’m sorry there’s no more money”, and a pile of debt. We are doing our very best to deal with the mess that her party left.

[Jenny Chapman]

As I have acknowledged, the Department has a very difficult financial task ahead because of the decisions of the previous Secretary of State. The Minister admits that some of the commitments he has made are uncosted and that he has no idea whether their outcomes will be good value for money. I am trying to help him by pointing that out and steering him in what might be a more sound financial direction.

[Jeremy Wright]

I am extremely grateful for the hon. Lady’s help, but she is missing the point. The problems that we face with the finances of this Department and the Government more broadly have nothing to do with the previous Conservative Secretary of State for Justice; they are to do with the behaviour of the previous Labour Government. That is why we are in the mess we are in, and we are doing our best to get ourselves and the country out of it.

The hon. Lady mentioned the size of the contract package areas and asked about the proposal for 16 of them. We asked respondents to the consultation that has recently concluded whether they believe that that is the appropriate number, and we will consider what they said. It is a starting point, and we will see whether people believe that it is a sensible one. I am sure that there will be arguments about whether we have drawn the map in the right way, and we will consider all those in deciding whether we have reached the right conclusions. We will need contract package areas that are large enough to enable payment by results to operate effectively while not losing the local partnerships and connections that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed mentioned.

Proving what works is clearly crucial in the context of payment by results, and the hon. Lady is right to raise that. She will have seen in our proposals that we are interested in the idea of a justice data lab that will enable those providing rehabilitative services to understand exactly the effects and benefits of what they are doing. In the end, the test of what works will be whether the desired outcomes are achieved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford rightly said, if they are not achieved, the full contract value will not be paid. That is at the heart of payment by results, and that is why we believe that it is a productive way to go forward.

The Ministry of Justice has made great strides in delivering a justice system that is more effective, less costly, and more responsive to the public. The ministerial team has a clear vision for continuing to transform the justice system over the remainder of this Parliament and beyond. I believe that we can deliver better rehabilitation of offenders, a smarter system of detaining and educating teenage offenders, a cheaper and better prison system, and a legal aid and criminal justice system that commands public confidence—and that, at the same time, we can bring costs down.

I hope that the many Members who take an interest in the Ministry of Justice’s activities—they have not all participated in this debate—recognise the improvements that have been made to how the Department organises itself and delivers its services. I know that the Department remains committed to building on these improvements and working with Ministers to deliver our vision for a transformed justice system.

Question deferred until tomorrow at Seven o’clock (Standing Order No. 54).

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend will know that we are very keen to look not just at direct contracts from Government work but at other work for ONE3ONE Solutions to pursue. We want to make sure, of course, that there is a balance to ensure that ONE3ONE Solutions is not closing out jobs that could be provided to British firms elsewhere. We will want to make sure that it has the maximum opportunities to pursue those jobs within prison that will help prisoners learn skills—both hard skills and soft skills—as this was an agenda that my hon. Friend was successful in pursuing as my predecessor.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

Much was made in the Government’s announcement on the prison regime at the weekend of the ability of gay inmates to share cells. As far as I am aware, that is already not permitted, so will the Minister inform us how many gay inmates have been sharing cells with their partners, or is this further evidence of the announcement being designed to chase the headlines?

[Jeremy Wright]

The point that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was making—frankly, I would be surprised if the hon. Lady disagreed with it—was that it is clearly not appropriate for someone to live in that form of domestic arrangement while in custody. It is important that prisons are safe, secure and decent, but it is equally important that their regimes are properly austere and that the public have confidence in the way in which people act while they are in prison.

[Jenny Chapman]

I think the Minister makes my point for me: the Government do not know the figure, and this was clearly about the headlines. However, while the Secretary of State has been fretting over the weekend about the pocket money, the trainers and the overalls of inmates, he has failed to keep the most dangerous prisoners locked up. Indeterminate sentences help keep offenders inside until they are safe to release. The governor of Whatton prison, Lynn Saunders, told The Guardian:

“I think I am fairly liberal in my attitude—I haven’t come across anyone”

serving indeterminate sentences for public protection—

“in this prison who I didn’t think should have an IPP. Not one.”

Why did this Government abolish indeterminate sentences, putting the public’s safety at risk?

[Jeremy Wright]

I think the hon. Lady knows very well that we have replaced IPP sentences with extended determinate sentences. We have also introduced a mandatory life sentence for a second very serious violent or sexual offence. Those are entirely sensible sentencing approaches. The position with IPPs had become a disorganised and chaotic one, which we could not allow to stand. I am afraid that that is another classic example of the last Government’s introducing a measures that they had not thought through properly.

I also think that the hon. Lady is entirely wrong to minimise the seriousness of the need to ensure that the regime in prison commands public confidence. If she believes that the public take no interest in what happens to prisoners while they are there and in the privileges to which they have access, I think she is wrong, and if she believes we should leave the position as it is, she should say so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

No is the simple answer to that question. Many sports contain an element of risk—riding and cycling, both of which have much higher injury tallies than boxing, come to mind. At London 2012, the majority of injuries were not from boxing, but from other sports. Most young people like an element of risk, and boxing has a really important role to play in encouraging young people to take up sport, particularly in deprived and inner-city areas. I am keen to encourage them to do so.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is clear that new ways to fund sports and the arts must be found, particularly for local and regional projects. In Darlington, Project Vane involves exciting private sector partners who want to invest in bringing an old arts centre back to life, which may well hold boxing too—

[Mr Speaker]

Is this a question about boxing?

[Jenny Chapman]

Yes, indeed, Mr Speaker. May I invite the Minister to look at our bid to the Arts Council for capital investment—there are no ongoing revenue needs requiring public sector investment—to help us to bring that project along?

[Hugh Robertson]

The best thing to say is that I wish the hon. Lady every good fortune. I am not responsible for the Arts Council—I suspect that a submission from the Minister with responsibility for sports would get a fairly dusty response—but I wish her every good fortune.