Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Baroness Chapman of Darlington and John McDonnell

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

But those are lead bidders, and I understand that none of the contracts will be taken on by one organisation alone. There is nothing to prevent G4S and others from being involved in the provision of probation services when the contracts are awarded. The other reason this information is relevant to probation is that it reveals that the quality of the supervision and enforcement of contracts by the Ministry of Justice is not quite what we would like it to be.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

The statement that was made to the House a couple of weeks ago was explicit about the possibility that G4S and Serco would form parts of consortia. I think that the Minister should make the position absolutely clear.

[Jenny Chapman]

That is certainly my understanding, and nothing that the Minister has said so far contradicts it. Unless we hear something more definitive from G4S, the Ministry of Justice or the Minister today, I think that that must remain our assumption.

The MOJ tends to take its eye off the ball as soon as a contract has been signed, so new clause 5 helpfully provides for a longer-term regular check on the performance of probation service providers. Its scope is really quite limited: it merely requires the Secretary of State to report to both Houses of Parliament on the performance of all providers that are contracted to manage offenders. In particular, the report must include an assessment of the transparency of each provider, and must specify what information it is making available to the public and how reliably it is responding to freedom of information requests submitted to the MOJ. It must also update both Houses on what measures were included in the contracts to ensure that poor performance could be penalised, and on whether any have been invoked.