Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Debate between Countess of Mar and Lord McNally

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Of course, part of the problem is that it is described as a risk assessment by journalists. As I said before, a variety of exercises is carried out by the project development team, using various combinations of some of the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, plucked out—in fact, it was a third source because they came from a leak to a journalist to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, to the House. So I ask the House to decide how accurate they are.

Of course, the Opposition cry, “Tell us”, but they went through similar exercises on big projects when they were in government. They realised that this was work in progress and it remained part of the management team’s work-in-progress tools. It is not a document that would give help to anybody in terms of what the noble Lord is talking about as risk. It is not about that kind of thing; it is about looking across the piece to see where the emphasis of work and development has to go.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, following his comments about his noble friend Lady Hamwee’s remarks about the probation service, he twice at least used the phrase “the probation service” in his speech. Can he say what he was covering in that phrase? In addition, has he not considered that a major stumbling block is the fact that we do not know how much this is going to cost? My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, both said that we need to know the cost. The Minister has made no mention of the cost.

[Lord McNally]

We are working within a very strict budget. Because we have other commitments as far as the overall expenditure of the department is concerned, we have also said that we will be spending a little less than the £1 billion that is spent on probation at present. We believe that with our experience of piloting other schemes we can bring that down. But that will unfold as we test against the market. One of the reasons why we cannot give the precise figures is that we will be going into negotiations with commercial operators who would very much like to know in advance what our baseline would be, along with our other financial operations. We know the figures in broad terms and, as we have said before, while this will make some savings, it is the flexibility, the hard bargains that we were able to drive with the private sector, and the efficiencies that we will introduce which will bring the costs down.

Yes, we all use the term “probation service” rather loosely. What my noble friend Lady Hamwee drew attention to was that there is no definition of it in statute, and therefore she was warning the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, of a possible defect in his amendment in calling it as such.