Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Stephen Mosley

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

11. What progress his Department has made on implementation of its payment by results policy for the rehabilitation of offenders; and if he will make a statement.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

The Government are committed to introducing payment by results as part of a new approach to offender rehabilitation. We will provide further details in the rehabilitation and sentencing Green Paper.

[Stephen Mosley]

With 60% of offenders on short-term sentences reoffending within a year, it is absolutely critical to have a major step change in our attitudes to rehabilitation. To that end, will my right hon. and learned Friend tell us whether he plans to introduce any more pilot schemes, and if so, when and where will they occur?

[Mr Clarke]

I entirely share my hon. Friend’s view, and we are hoping to get more pilots under way in the new year, as soon as we have got our Green Paper out and drawn up the framework contracts that we shall have to enter into with providers. The country is full of people with extremely good ideas on how to improve rehabilitation and reduce reoffending, and we must ensure that we have a proper means of engaging with people in the voluntary and independent sectors and in private sector companies—in any combination of those that people wish—to try to produce the result that my hon. Friend and I, and all our constituents, would like to see.

Legal Aid Payments

Debate between Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Stephen Mosley

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

We will not go back on the graduated fees scheme. It might well be that the previous Government will not have been the only one who had to examine what could be done to improve the efficiency of the legal aid scheme and to address its costs, although I realise that that will not be altogether popular.

There are a lot of specialist firms, although there could no doubt be more. The number of firms bidding has gone up in the present contract round, with 330 organisations bidding for twice the amount of work available. However, I will ask the LSC to consider whether something like the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal might be required in particular cities or areas.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

I think that part of the problem is that this is not an isolated situation. One of my constituents is owed £11,000 from the past financial year by the LSC. Yesterday, I received an e-mail from the policy consultant of NAGALRO, the professional association for family court advisers and independent social work practitioners, to say that some of its workers are owed more than £15,000 from the previous year—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I gently say to the hon. Gentleman—he is a new Member and these things take time—that an urgent question of this kind is narrowly focused on a particular organisation operating in a given area and that questions and answers must be confined to that? We have heard the hon. Gentleman, and I call the Secretary of State to make a brief reply.