Airports National Policy Statement

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for that resounding statement of support. This matter was discussed at the Cabinet this morning. The Airports sub-Committee met earlier this morning and reached its view, and the Cabinet was informed of it. I can tell him that the Cabinet gave almost entirely universal support for it.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, particularly his outlining of the five new rail lines that would support Heathrow’s expansion, but I contrast that with there being no proposals to support any new rail capacity at Gatwick. It is on the busiest commuter line in the country, and he is only too aware of the problems there today. The Opposition spokesman gave a masterclass in how to avoid making a decision if one is in that political position, but does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are to discharge our duty to future generations, having analysed and consulted on the proposal to death, now is the time to make a decision?

[Chris Grayling]

Now is definitely the time to take a decision. I agree that transport links to Gatwick need to improve, which is why Gatwick station is one of the projects that we are working on with the airport at the moment, but I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support.

Rail Timetabling

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The only thing I would point out, respectfully, to the hon. Lady is that she has just called for the transfer of rail services from Southeastern to Arriva, which runs Northern, while other people are telling me that Arriva is not capable of running Northern. That is the reality of what she is arguing for.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I do not envy my right hon. Friend and neighbour in making this statement today, but I know that he understands the position of Redhill and Epsom only too well, because he has been to visit Redhill station and see the infrastructure improvements that he is putting in place. However, my constituents were promised an improved service in 2014, after the London Bridge investment and for the new timetable in 2018, but even if the timetable was working properly they would have a worse service than they were promised four years ago. They have the privilege of paying the “Redhill hump” for being just outside the London zoning. My right hon. Friend and his Department are part of the industry, because they get the fare income generated under the GTR franchise, so will he please look at being part of the industry and not just dumping the issue of compensation entirely? Will he rapidly ask the rail Minister to bring forward plans to deal with the Redhill hump? Redhill services have had more cancellations than those anywhere else.

[Chris Grayling]

I say to Members on both sides of the Chamber that some places have undoubtedly been inappropriately disadvantaged by the timetable change. The rail Minister and I are happy to sit down in person with colleagues who represent those places to talk through how we can address those issues in future timetable changes. That offer is open to Members from all parties. We have seen a large number of colleagues today to talk about more short-term issues, and we are happy to have similar conversations as we plan for further timetable changes.

Monarch Airlines

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am sorry the hon. Gentleman did not have a good word to say for all the efforts put in place to bring people back. I would just remind him that, interestingly, in 2008—the last time we had an aviation failure in this country, Excel Airways—the Labour Government followed a very similar path to the one we have followed, with taxpayer-funded repatriation. They did the right thing then, and we are doing the right thing now. I am simply sorry that Labour Members have forgotten that they did the right thing in government, and cannot now say that our doing the right thing this time is indeed the right thing to do. [Interruption.] They did the right thing then, and we are doing the right thing now, and I am just sorry that he could not say a good word about those involved.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the reasons for the collapse. First, this is not an issue about Brexit. The airline had been struggling for three years, and the first concerns were raised about it long before the referendum was even held.

I had hoped that this summer, after the rescue package last year, the airline would see its way through. As its chief executive said, it has been a victim of the anxieties about tourism in the east Mediterranean for security reasons. Those have led to a concentration of business in the west Mediterranean and the traditional resorts of Spain and Portugal and a price war from which the company was ill equipped to recover. That is what has happened, no more no less.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the licence, and there was no issue about its renewal. What happened was never about the renewal of the licence—the business had simply reached the end of the road. Its board came to the conclusion that it could not carry on.

The hon. Gentleman asked why the company carried on selling tickets the day before. The reality is that any airline that runs into difficulties will carry on selling tickets until it can no longer do so. The moment it stops doing so, it collapses, and that is what happened. It would happen any time an airline ran into such difficulties. There is no other way to do it. The moment it stops selling tickets, it stops doing business, and that is precisely what happened.

The hon. Gentleman talked about competition, and other airlines are already stepping into the breach. Jet2, one of our fast-growing, emerging airlines, has already said that it will step in and run some of the routes. That is what a market does. If one business fails, others step in. The tragedy of the Labour party in the last few years is that it has moved away from understanding markets to being utterly hostile to markets and the private sector.

We have a thriving aviation sector with competition between airlines delivering a good deal for consumers, and occasionally—once under a Labour Government and once under ours—something has gone wrong. In both of those situations, the Government of the day stepped in to try to make sure that we looked after the travelling public. I have no doubt that if it ever happens again, someone will do the same.

We do have to learn the lessons. We have to understand whether we can make sensible changes to the laws to ensure that this does not happen again. We are already legislating to extend the ATOL scheme to provide better protection for people who book over the internet in a different way from how they have in the past. I am clear that the job of the Government is to look after the travelling public and step in when things go wrong. We have done that, and we are seeking to get back as much money as possible, as Labour did in 2008. Above all, our job is to do our best for the travelling public and the employees. That is what we are doing. I am proud of what we are doing, and I am just disappointed that the Opposition cannot even say well done to the people who have worked so hard in support.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The chief executive of Monarch has attributed the principal reason for the demise of the airline to terrorism and the resulting flight bans to both Tunisia and Sharm El Sheikh. Can the Secretary of State give his assessment of the merits of that argument?

[Chris Grayling]

There is no doubt that that was a significant factor, and not only because of changes in consumer patterns. Many other airlines chose to concentrate their resources this summer in the traditional resorts of Spain and Portugal. Alicante airport and others were full of planes this summer, and Monarch got squeezed out in a price war for which it was not financially strong enough. Ironically, it carried more passengers than two years ago, but with far lower revenues, and that more than anything else is what has caused its demise. It is a consequence of the security situation and of people taking a cautious approach to their holidays.

Chris Gibb Report: Improvements to Southern Railway

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman is actually quite right. At the start of this year, we launched an enormous recruitment programme and some 350 trainees are coming through the system at the moment. He will know that the system for training drivers is too tied up in red tape, union agreements and past working practices, so we cannot train drivers as quickly as I would like or bring in extra staff. It is a nonsense that we should depend on overtime to run any part of our rail system on normal working days. Our strategy is to end that situation, but it will be a blow to some of those who depend on overtime as part of their regular income. It is certainly not the case that Southern drivers are keen to see their overtime disappear in the run-up to the summer holidays.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I suppose I should thank Southern for taking me to and from the hospital at East Grinstead for an operation this morning. I have come back for this debate, and I want to ask the Secretary of State about the future and the investment that he is making. The situation in the Reigate and Redhill area needs serious investment in changes to the track layout at Croydon, and Reigate needs a 12-car platform so that it can have proper services into London. Will the Secretary of State provide the resources for Network Rail simply to produce a potential design of a proper station at Reigate? My constituents are hit by fares and by overcrowding on a service that has all the faults identified in the Gibb report by the various parties.

[Chris Grayling]

I assure my hon. Friend that I am currently working on what we need to do to ensure that the Brighton mainline, which has not had investment over the years, is capable of meeting the challenges of the future. We are spending far more money on our rail network today than has been spent for decades. The Brighton mainline has been neglected, which is one reason why performance has been so poor, and that is something that we have to change and will.

Airport Capacity and Airspace Policy

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Following the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), I should like to point out that the lethal combination of the new technology, the much more precise flight paths and the Government’s current policy of concentration rather than dispersal will lead to a disaster for the people who are right underneath those routes. It should be possible to use the new technology to create an artificial degree of dispersal, as happened before under the analogue systems. Will my right hon. Friend advance on this consultation with the knowledge that this is a very important issue to address for many of our constituents?

[Chris Grayling]

To be slightly parochial, I can say that those of us who represent Surrey constituencies are well aware of the issues around Gatwick airport and the flight paths that planes have been using there recently. My hope is that the consultation will lead to a system that will enable us to be much more careful about managing flight paths so that we can provide respite to communities and decide exactly how to handle approaches to airports, instead of having a rather haphazard set of flight paths. I can assure my hon. Friend that I think we will end up with a better system for his constituents and those in neighbouring constituencies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have every intention of addressing the issue and I am working as hard as I can to do so. I would tell Labour Members that figures published this morning show that, across our railways, far more—more than twice as many—problems arise as a result of infrastructure, which is in the public sector, than as a result of train operations, which are in the private sector. Their persistent arguments that nationalising would solve the problems are just plain wrong. We need to invest; interestingly, we, unlike the Labour party, are doing so.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The utility of any rail infrastructure investment on the Brighton main line in Sussex will depend on the trains running effectively through Surrey. Will the Secretary of State undertake to look at proposals from people in my constituency about extra infrastructure investment in Surrey, alongside the Sussex proposals?

[Chris Grayling]

This is a Surrey, Sussex and south London problem, and we must look at the whole thing holistically. My hon. Friend will be aware that I have asked Chris Gibb, a senior rail executive, to look at the issues and to identify ways of addressing resilience problems. He has now put in place detailed plans, and some of that work has already started. For example, a joint team to control the railway on a day-by-day basis was put in place three weeks ago—at Three Bridges, one person will be in charge on a day-by-day basis—and individual infrastructure issues are now beginning to be addressed. I am determined that we do as much as we can, as fast as we can, to improve the resilience of the network.

Airport Capacity

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

First, I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support, and for the support of his party and colleagues in Northern Ireland. It is very much my belief that Northern Ireland will benefit enormously from this decision, and so it should. I hope it benefits not simply in terms of connectivity: I hope to see some of the work being done in Northern Ireland as we aim for a UK-wide supply chain and encourage the airport to achieve that. On other aspects, we will work hard to ensure that we deliver the best possible outcome for all parts of the United Kingdom, that we listen and consult, discuss issues such as the one he raised and try to make sure it is as beneficial as possible to the people he represents.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

As the chair of the Gatwick co-ordination group, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this announcement and make clear to him the relief with which this somewhat overdue statement will be received by all the people represented by colleagues in the group. It will have been clear that keeping Gatwick in the game has delivered welcome improvements in the Heathrow proposition, but, as everyone who uses the Brighton main line will know, the Gatwick proposition, frankly, was not practical. Local authorities would have had to have found housing for the workforce to support the Gatwick option. Before this process began, Gatwick management ran the best single runway airport in the country and had a very good set of relationships with local communities. Will he now invite Gatwick management to go back to those priorities now that the scheme is over?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend has strong feelings about Gatwick expansion, as did many of those in his constituency and in his neighbouring constituencies. What I would like to say about Gatwick is that we need to understand the important role it plays in the economy of the southern part of the country—the Surrey-Sussex economy—and in the economic development of that area and the south coast. I recognise the very real amount of work that Gatwick airport put into its proposal, which, as I said, was very impressive and carefully crafted. I know it will be immensely disappointed with today’s decision. As I said earlier, I believe Gatwick will continue to be a really important part of our transport infrastructure and I send it all my best wishes.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 17th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

May I simply remind the hon. Lady that there were extensive negotiations and discussions around the Smith commission? Lord Smith himself has said that we fulfilled the terms of the Smith commission. To be honest, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Administration would do well to concentrate on using the powers that we are giving them rather than asking for more. So far, there is little evidence that, when we give them powers, they make use of them.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

May we have a debate in Government time on the airport commission’s report, particularly in the light of the shambolic performance last week with the non-decision and the manner of its non-announcement to this House, to discuss the unanimous conclusions of the five commissioners that Heathrow was the right site for a new runway? Can the terms of that debate be set widely enough to include consideration of the extraordinary proposition from Gatwick that it can put five times as many passengers up the Brighton main line, particularly in the light of Southern Rail’s performance in the past week?

Let me repeat a tweet from my constituent Jonathan Freeman, managing director of a Prince of Wales charity, who was travelling to work. He wrote:

“Really @SouthernRailUK?!Again?!Are you on some sort of sponsored screw up?”

We realise how desperate the situation is, when he says:

“CrispinBluntMP-you are our only hope!”

[Mr Speaker]

The situation was clearly deeply wretched. I think we are in danger of getting into the detail of the policy. As reference was made earlier to the fact that there was no statement on the day in question—on the Thursday—I should just say that it was a very regrettable state of affairs. The Secretary of State did deliver a statement on the Monday, and there can be no doubt that a Minister was going to have to appear at that Dispatch Box either to deliver a statement or to respond to an urgent question, as the Leader of the House knows. In future, rather than delivering the statement belatedly when it was going to have to be delivered, it should be delivered on time, as courtesy to the House of Commons requires.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 28th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The issue has been widely debated in the House, and I know that it is of concern to the hon. Lady’s constituents. However, I also believe that it is important to ensure that we have proper, affordable supplies of energy for the future. We must deal with the issue carefully and sensitively. There will be plenty of opportunities for the hon. Lady to raise it during next week’s debate on the Queen’s Speech or by means of an Adjournment debate, and I know that she will be a champion of her constituents in this regard. I must say to her, however, that it is very important to, in particular, the pensioners in her constituency for us to ensure that there is affordable energy for all our futures.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Two issues are of concern in the area that my right hon. Friend and I represent. One is the dreadful rail service that is currently being suffered on the Brighton main line route to London, and the other is the decision that will have to be made in the wake of the Davies commission’s report on runway capacity in the south-east of England. Members who are interested in those issues will attempt to raise them in Westminster Hall, but I think that they are sufficiently important to be debated in Government time at an appropriate moment, and I invite my right hon. Friend to consider that.

Prison Communications

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for the measured way in which he has responded to the issue. Let me answer his questions in turn. The Wilson doctrine applies to intercept activity, so the routine monitoring of calls of this kind, while not within the prison rules, is not covered by the Wilson doctrine.

I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman an answer on the number of prisons. We have been able to identify the number of calls and MPs, but that has been done through telephone records, so I do not yet have information on the origins of the calls and the number of prisons. I expect we will see more information about that as the inquiry progresses.

I have as yet seen no evidence that information was passed on to anyone else. I do not believe that this was part of a concerted attempt to monitor; it was simply part of the routine checking of the process to make sure that nothing untoward was going on. Clearly, however, that is something I will ask Nick Hardwick to confirm.

I believe that all recordings have been destroyed—they are kept for only a limited period—but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that if any have survived, which I do not believe to be the case, they certainly will be destroyed.

Work relating to ex-Members of Parliament has not been done, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will ask that question and notify them. Until now, it has been a question of cross-referencing current Members of Parliament in order to identify issues.

On solicitors, I have asked Nick Hardwick to look at the full range of confidential calls. The reality is that occasionally mistakes will be made in a large organisation dealing with such issues. The total number of calls handled by the Prison Service over this period is about 16 million, so I will be up front with the House and say that occasionally mistakes will be made. I want Nick Hardwick to make sure that we have every possible safeguard in place to make sure that this cannot happen as a matter of routine.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about rule 39 mail. I do not have any evidence that such mail has been inappropriately intercepted. We keep rule 39 under regular surveillance and review. Although it is of paramount importance that it remains a conduit for prisoners to receive confidential material from their solicitors and to send such material to them, he will know that there have equally been suggestions over the years that rule 39 has been abused. I try to make sure that we continue to monitor it properly and respect its confidentiality, but governors are instructed to look at it if they have reason to believe—they must have such a reason—that rule 39 is being misused.

On the audit trail before 2006, we have looked at this practice from 2006. It may predate 2006, but the work that has been done with BT simply covered the period from 2006 onwards.

I share the right hon. Gentleman’s concern: in all aspects of what we do, it should be possible to have confidential conversations with constituents. Something has clearly gone wrong, and I need to rectify it. It goes back over many years, but it needs to be rectified now, and I assure the House that it will be.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his statement and, of course, the Department on putting him in a position to make the statement so speedily after the information was made available to him. However, the key point is that no actions appear to have followed cases of monitoring, and that there was no strategy in the Department of overseeing MPs’ conversations. In reality, this is not perhaps a hugely important issue, provided it can be confirmed that no action was taken as a result of calls being monitored in the normal way. Such calls will not be monitored under the new system, and we should all be grateful to him for the extra casework that we will get.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right. I see no evidence that this practice was part of an attempt to gain and pass on pieces of information. It is a very large and complicated system, with a very large number of people. My first impression is that this practice was the result of a series of errors, but that does not make it acceptable. I will of course ask Nick Hardwick to confirm that it was the result of a series of errors, and to make sure that it does not happen again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As a result of the reforms to the probation service, the criminal justice system will save money in the coming years as reoffending is brought down. It has for a long time been a travesty that those who go to jail for less than 12 months receive no supervision, support or mentoring at all when they leave. If we could just bring reoffending levels among that group down closer to the rates of those who do receive support and supervision, we would see a massive reduction in the costs of our justice system.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Integrated offender management, working between the police and probation, is a proven way of helping to reduce reoffending and improving the work of the probation service. What is my right hon. Friend doing to bring the role of police and crime commissioners closer together with that of the probation service?

[Chris Grayling]

In the tendering process we required the bidders to take into account and demonstrate how they would reflect the local policing and police and crime commissioner priorities to ensure that we have a joined-up system. In a world of payment by results, if a local integrated offender management system is working well, it would be crazy for those involved in probation not to seek to take part in it if it would reduce crime levels, reduce reoffending and help them improve what they do.

Prison Overcrowding

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the proportion of positive drug tests in our prisons has fallen sharply in recent years; that is to be encouraged. I am confident that Oakwood’s upcoming inspection report will show a significant improvement. The hon. Gentleman is, of course, a Welsh MP; one of the Welsh prisons—Parc, a large new prison that had some teething problems—has turned into one of the best performing prisons in the estate. I am confident that the same thing will happen to Oakwood.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend should be commended on the energetic way that he, in an unprotected Department, has sought to contribute to meeting the Government’s wider economic objectives. He is entirely right that the overcrowding crisis was inherited in 2010, but is it not about time that we started thinking about the long term—about addressing the issue of the 20,000 prisoners who are in overcrowded conditions—and began to look properly at reconstituting a privatisation programme, so that we can have better-manned prisons with more efficiency for the taxpayer?

[Chris Grayling]

The approach that we have taken on privatisation has been to privatise individual services in the way that was recommended by the Prison Governors Association, because we needed to drive through savings quickly across the whole estate, rather than across part of it, but my hon. Friend’s point is sensible. I do not want a prison population the size of the one we have, but nor do I ever want a court to be unable to send an offender to prison when it believes that it should do so. That is why our rehabilitation strategy is so important. The way we will bring down the population of our prison estate is by preventing people from coming back to it, rather than by not locking them up in the first place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

When my right hon. Friend is drawing comparisons about the costs of cases, will he try to make sure that the income that will be expected to accrue to the various barristers taking part in those cases is considered, rather than the totality of costs, as it can be difficult to make a sensible judgment about what is fair and unfair?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right to say that we have to be very careful. Of course the gross fees that are cited include VAT and chambers’ fees, but those barristers also derive benefits from being self-employed that counteract some of the reductions they experience, because they can offset many other parts of their expenditure and overheads against tax in a way that employed people would not be able to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The most important part of the way the new system will work will be the co-location of individuals in the national probation service who are responsible for risk management and the new community rehabilitation companies, to ensure that where risk does change there is a swift transition from one to the other.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

In the Secretary of State’s target operating model for probation there is welcome mention of restorative justice. Can he say anything more to ensure that awareness of restorative justice across the system is so embedded that it becomes an option to be considered on all occasions, particularly to deliver much-improved victim support as well as the rehabilitative effect it has already demonstrated?

[Chris Grayling]

We very much recognise the importance of restorative justice. We are providing funding to police and crime commissioners to enable them to source restorative justice services locally, and give them the option of working closely with providers who will look after offenders in the future. We are keen to see that partnership work well at a local level, and for that resource to be used to good effect in mitigating the impact of crime on victims in the way restorative justice can do so well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that these matters are currently being considered by the Serious Fraud Office. He will therefore understand that it would not be legally appropriate to publish items being considered by the SFO until it has completed its consideration.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be more than aware of the importance of private sector suppliers to the Ministry of Justice in delivering his strategic objectives of greater efficiency and better use of public money. He will also know that those suppliers are responsible for the more efficient and innovative delivery of the whole justice agenda, so will he be sure not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and remember the terrific role that the private sector has played in achieving enormous savings for the taxpayer, which will dwarf any of the issues that he is dealing with? Will he also ensure that no mistakes are made either by the contracting departments in the Ministry of Justice or by the suppliers?

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend an assurance on both those points. It is important to remember that, notwithstanding the issues that have arisen, a large number of the people working for private contractors on behalf of the Government are doing a very good job for us. It is ironic that, before the Labour party returned to its socialist roots in the past few weeks, it too used to believe in outsourcing to the private sector. It has clearly changed its mind now; that is all part of the trip back to the days of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We are doing two things. First, through the Cabinet Office, which has responsibility for liaison with the voluntary sector, we are putting in place widespread support to help the voluntary sector prepare for this process. We have also put in place a justice data lab, which is designed to allow smaller voluntary sector organisations that have a track record in working with offenders to quantify the impact of their work on rehabilitation so that they can sell a story about what they can do to partners in the bidding process.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

As one would expect, getting more work into prisons will make a considerable contribution to reducing reoffending. Can the Secretary of State update the House on the progress being made by one3one Solutions?

Transforming Rehabilitation

Debate between Lord Grayling and Crispin Blunt

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am grateful to the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), for the elements of his statement that were supportive of what we are doing, and of course I should thank the Labour party, because it is only thanks to legislation introduced by the Labour Government prior to 2010 that I am able to make such an important reform for this country. I should also pay tribute to the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who established the Peterborough pilot. The work being done in Peterborough prison by the team involving the St Giles Trust—I met representatives from the trust this morning—and other charities working in partnership with the private sector is an impressive example of what can be done in mentoring offenders.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned pilots. The last Government were obsessed with pilots. Sometimes those in government just have to believe in something and do it, but the last Government set out a pilot timetable under which it would have taken about eight years to get from the beginning of the process to the point of evaluation and then beyond. Sometimes we just have to believe something is right and do it, and I assure Members that if they went to Peterborough to see what is being done there, they would think it was the right thing to do.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Work programme, and I wish he would stop using statistics that are certainly not entirely—[Interruption.] I am not sure how to describe them; “misleading” might be inappropriate language to use. The Opposition keep missing an important point: in the Work programme, we do not pay until someone has been in work for more than six months. So if 800,000 people joined the Work programme in the first year, half of them could not have been in work for six months. The reality is that the Work programme has so far helped 200,000 people find jobs. Many of those people have been in jobs for the short term and have then gone on to second jobs, and many of them have gone into long-term employment. The programme is making a real difference, and I defy any Member of the House to visit a Work programme centre, see the work that is being done and not come away impressed. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman mentions G4S. It is true that G4S is one of the prime contractors in the Work programme, but interestingly, it subcontracts all its work in the Work programme to voluntary sector organisations and small businesses. The Work programme is the biggest voluntary sector welfare-to-work programme that this country has ever seen, with organisations such as the Papworth Trust delivering support right across East Anglia and organisations such as the Careers Development Group involved. That charitable organisation is running large parts of the Work programme in London. Labour Members need to look at the detail of what is happening.

The right hon. Gentleman made a sensible point and asked a sensible question about the management of and fluctuation in risk. We intend the public probation service to work closely with local providers, and where there is a variation in risk—where it suddenly becomes clear that an individual represents a clear and present danger of harm to the public—the mechanisms will exist to move those people back under the public sector umbrella. So the public sector will continue to work with the most serious offenders, through the multi-agency public protection arrangements and similar, and the police will continue to work closely with the public sector on the most serious offenders. Where there is a clear and present risk to the public, it is the duty of the public probation service and of this Government—and it will continue to be so—to make sure that we supervise and manage that risk, and that intelligence is shared between the police and the public probation service to manage the risk that exists, when it does exist, because we must ensure that the public are protected.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of cost, and I simply offer him one example of where efficiencies can be delivered. When we contracted out the delivery of community sentences in London, the cost of delivering those sentences fell by nearly 40%. I am absolutely certain that although very good work is being and will continue to be done in the probation service, and those professionals will continue to work in this field, there are efficiencies to be found. Such efficiencies can be reinvested in providing support to those prisoners whose sentence is less than 12 months, who have never had it before.

Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman asked about the more difficult offenders. I wish to make it absolutely clear, as our consultation document does, that we will have a pricing mechanism that makes it impossible for providers simply not to support the most difficult prisoners. Every prisoner must have support. We are delivering support that is mandated by the courts for every prisoner, and that will be continued.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

These proposals, which will greatly increase the potential for offender managers to deliver rehabilitation, should mean that probation officers will be employed by many different types of organisation. Indeed, it will be vital for the success of these reforms that probation officers at all levels of experience are found in the remaining public sector organisations and in the new delivery organisations. Will the Secretary of State therefore ensure that he strengthens the corporate identity, and the training and academic underpinning of probation as a profession, so that there is a strong base for our excellent probation officers and their profession, wherever they are deployed?

[Chris Grayling]

I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend. There is a slight myth in the media that we arrived in the Department in September and nothing had been done before, but that is totally untrue; I have inherited some very good work done by him and his colleagues, which created the foundation for these reforms. Indeed, he and I worked closely together in providing employment support to prisoners through the Work programme. It is very important that we ensure that we have the best possible professional standards. I apologise here, because the point was raised by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). One of the questions I have for the probation profession is: should we facilitate the creation of some sort of chartered institute that raises professional standards in the profession? It will continue to be an important profession, with high-level specialist skills needed to manage the most serious risk. I am also ensuring, through these proposals, that existing probation staff have the opportunity to set up social enterprises and mutuals, so that they themselves have the opportunity to be part of the future.