Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will continue to do everything we can to improve the process in both Departments. I am absolutely clear that we want to get the appeals process right, both in the tribunals service and in Jobcentre Plus, where we have introduced a mandatory reconsideration process. Ultimately, the reason we are doing all that is that there are large numbers of people out there who can return to work and make a better lot of their lives, which we want to help them to do, but unless we have a reassessment process, we will never find those people to deliver that help to.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Does the prisons Minister realise that staff at HM Prison Northumberland, who have successfully merged two prisons and earned a positive report from the inspector, are sickened and infuriated that the public sector bid will not go through to the final market testing round because of promises from private sector providers that the Department might lack the capacity to verify?

[Jeremy Wright]

I understand the disappointment that will be felt by those who put in the public sector bid at HM Prison Northumberland but, as I have explained to my right hon. Friend, the difficulty is that the difference between the public sector bid and those we are taking forward to the next round of the competition was substantial, and it would not have been responsible to ignore that gap. However, I also say to him that this is a two-stage process. It will be important that the Government are satisfied that those who go through to the next round of the competition have the capacity to deliver what they say they can deliver, and we will look carefully at the bids in that context.