Transforming Rehabilitation

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords—

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, we have yet to hear from the Conservative Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McNally]

I take that very wise advice and will do my best to ensure that there is continuity.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords, will my noble friend give an assurance to the House that in the consultation—for which we are all very grateful—the Government will be open-minded about the issue of the private sector, and the notion that it is appropriate that this extremely difficult task be dealt with by competition and the profit motive? Are the Government open-minded to the prospect that after the consultation this be omitted from the new scheme?

[Lord McNally]

That is always a possibility. In a way, we are all on payment by results, even Ministers—fortunately, we have to wait until 2015. Obviously, we are bringing forward a programme which builds on initiatives from the last Government and which suggests that some kind of payment-by-results incentive programme encourages efficiency and innovation. We do not bring forward proposals with the anticipation that they are either going to be rejected or are going to fail. I hope that they will bring forward really constructive responses. There has been a good and constructive response from the Opposition today. I am sorry that we squeezed out the noble Lord, Lord Myners, because I am delighted that he is the new chairman of the Howard League and I look forward to working with him on this and other areas. As always, almost by default as a Liberal Democrat, I enter this period of consultation with optimism.