Justice: Non-custodial Sentences

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The Government consider it to be valuable, and it is our intention that a range of different requirements will be placed on those who are subject to supervision in the community. It is hoped that a number of suggestions, from both public and private providers, will assist in the rehabilitation revolution.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, rehabilitation in the community depends on well trained probation officers. Will the Minister tell the House whether there are any plans to insist on compulsory training of members of the private sector community rehabilitation companies that will be responsible for the supervision of medium and low-risk offenders in the community in future?

[Lord Faulks]

I know that the noble Lord takes a great interest, and has great expertise, in this subject, and I can assure him that that is very much the intention. It is intended to set up a form of probation college that will maintain standards and ensure that all those involved in the project have suitable experience.

Probation Services: Privatisation

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the request of the Chief Executives of Probation Trusts to delay the proposed privatisation of probation services for six months in the interests of public safety.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally) (LD)]

My Lords, there is a pressing need to drive down reoffending rates, which is why we are reforming the system for the rehabilitation of offenders. Public safety is always our top priority, and the department is working closely with trusts to minimise any disruption to the work that they do to protect the public.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but letters from experienced chief executives of probation trusts directly to a Secretary of State suggest a worrying lack of trust in the system between them. Behind those letters is an understandable concern about the current timetable in which chief executives were required to start work on 28 October, three days ago, on a realignment process for their staff that has to be completed by 31 January 2014, including the confirmation of outcomes for all their staff. However, despite frequent requests, as of yesterday they had not been provided with any details of the number of posts, the workload or the resources on which they can base any assessment, let alone allocation. Apparently, much depends on a risk assessment process that has yet to be resolved. When will these details be available, and why will the Secretary of State not agree to a reasonable and sensible request for delay?

[Lord McNally]

Any transformation programme is difficult, and keeping to a timetable is always challenging, but I do not believe that a six-month delay would promote better or more efficient work than is now being done. Of course we will keep these matters under review and check how progress is being made. There is a campaign in some quarters against the idea of these proposals but, in the main, we are having very constructive discussions with the trusts. I am confident that we will be able to keep to the tight but achievable timetable that we have set.

Children and Families Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, both my heart and my head are with my noble friend Lord Northbourne on this. One of the attractions of his proposal that we should get this into law relates to the very people to whom my noble friend Lady Howarth referred. The proposed amendment would have a lateral benefit for people in custody. Some of them benefit from instruction in parenting, but many do not. If parents’ duties were more codified, it might enable better structure to be given to parenting instruction, which seems to be a crucial part not just of education in custody, but of education in school as well.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment, and I want to make a case for qualified play therapists to be involved in this issue. Play therapists can play an important role with children and their parents, both in schools and in children’s centres, in breaking the cycle of continual problems within families, helping them fully to understand the importance of parenting and family bonding, and about relationships and responsibilities. Where play therapists have been allowed to carry out this type of work, there has been much success in keeping families living happily together. I know this because I am the patron of the British Association of Play Therapists, for which I declare an interest.

For many years I have spoken up about the need for parenting and relationships to be taught in schools. I have seen what this can do. I have even been into prisons, talking to men, in particular, about parenting and the importance of learning to live with their children, to love them and to bond with them. Many of them do not know how to do that and have never received the investment of time and effort in their lives that would make them understand the importance of this parenting and bonding. I hope that the Government will give this serious consideration and look favourably on the amendment.

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[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for tabling this exciting amendment. Amendment 231 in my name asks all schools to ensure that children are educated and protected through school policies, pastoral care, linking with outside agencies and the curriculum. It goes wider than that in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, but is of a similar tone.

The reason for my amendment and, I think, for the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is that pupils, teachers, parents and governors need clarity about what policy and practice is in a school. Otherwise, how can they be clear about what it is and how do they know how to operate? How do children know how to operate? For example, as regards behavioural policy in a primary school, pupils know how to behave because it is in the policy. Policy and practice should give clarity and security.

We have talked about the duties and responsibilities of raising children, and the importance of enabling young people, in an ideal situation, to learn about parenting long before they become parents, or perhaps later if they are in difficulties such as those that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned relating to the criminal justice system. I remember seeing a young man in jail being taught how to read to a four year-old with all the interaction that is necessary. It is never too late but it is preferable for that to happen earlier.

However, I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in two instances. First, education about social and emotional development and responsibilities should happen before and after key stage 3. For a start, it should come from parents to children but, when talking about schools, it should happen from a young age through to when the child leaves. Schools should develop a spiral of curriculum and pastoral care which matches the age and stage of a child’s development. It should not be just at a particular age, and I do not think that it is. The issue is about a child’s right to an education.

On the other issue, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, talked about the importance of teacher training. That is right but it is not always teachers who deliver personal, social and emotional education. I have seen many excellent school nurses giving sessions in the classroom to encourage pupils to think about issues around their own health. I have seen first-aiders talk about issues around helping others to be safe. I have even seen a teenage parent come into a class to talk about the experience of having a baby at a young age, which was a quite dramatic experience for the pupils concerned. Therefore, I say yes to all this about personal and social health education, and yes to policies and practice in schools being well advertised. However, I should like to look at just those two issues again with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I, too, lend my support to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and will link what I am going to say to my comments on Amendment 56. I have a grandson at a secondary school in Gloucestershire and, like the noble Lord, I was fascinated to see the material with which he and his parents were provided. Frankly, it was all about today and not about tomorrow. Although the quality is fairly good, I am quite certain that it could be improved.

Clause 70, later in this Bill, refers to the fact that education, health and care plans are allegedly to be denied to those being held in detention. Last week I had a meeting with two Ministers in the Department for Education who told me what progress has been made. What is most promising is that young offender institutions are to be classed as mainstream schools as far as the provision of the Bill is concerned. In welcoming the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that this guidance should be provided for schools, I should mention that young offender institutions should be included, absolutely for the reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. Above all, we must not exclude people in detention from learning to look after their children.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to underline the important point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and in so doing I should declare an interest as vice-president of the charity Relate. I am very supportive indeed of schools playing a full role in preparing children for all aspects of life, and those must include the importance of personal relationships, family relationships and parenting responsibilities. From my experience of running an organisation that helped to deliver relationship education in a large number of schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, it is not always teachers who do the teaching in the classroom. I know of many schools that ask experts in relationship matters to come in from outside because they are trained to do this work. I recall seeing a report from Ofsted which suggested that trained relationship practitioners are more confident and better able to deal with some aspects of relationship education, particularly the more intimate and sexual issues. If teachers have not had the appropriate training, teachers can feel a little less than confident about it. I wanted just to underline that important point.

Prisons: Child Suicides

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Blackburn]

My Lords—

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords—

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords—

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 9th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I join the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, in congratulating the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and thanking him for bringing this matter to the fore in the debates on the Bill. I am happy to break the habits of a brief parliamentary lifetime and congratulate the Minister on his constructive response. I hope he finds this habit catching, in which case I promise to reciprocate.

Like other noble Lords, I have received a briefing from the Prison Reform Trust. While welcoming the amendment, there are a couple of matters on which they seek some assurance—and I would echo their request. First, that the Government should require the contractors to specify—within the contract specifications —what particular services would be provided for women, and that the tender criteria, in turn, as part of the contract, would give sufficient weighting to that element. I imagine that should not present any difficulties but it would be good if the Minister could confirm it. Equally, the commissioning bodies will be given guidance along those lines.

Perhaps I may raise a point related to women prisoners that is not specifically covered by this amendment but which has been referred to in the course of our debates—that is, resettlement prisons. It is a welcome concept and certainly should help to reduce reoffending by ensuring that women serve their prison sentences, or at least the latter part of the sentence, closer to where they are likely to return on release. I raised a question in earlier debates about the specific position of women in this respect because, as I understand it, there are only 13 women’s prisons in the country and they are not necessarily geographically distributed in such a way as to facilitate the Government’s intentions. I am not asking the Minister to confirm specifically today, but it would be good to know that that is being considered and that it is an objective which it is hoped the Government will seek to achieve. It would largely complete the work raised by the concerns now embodied in the amendment, which these Benches certainly fully support.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support the amendment and I am extremely glad to see that it has been introduced by the Government. For many years people have been hoping that there would be an improvement, and therefore it is to be warmly welcomed. The amendment refers to arrangements for supervision. I would like to raise one point in connection with that because the supervision, of course, involves the probation service.

As noble Lords will know, each of the 35 trusts has a volunteer probation board which is the employer of all the probation staff working in a trust. Apparently, there is an expectation that board members do not criticise the wishes of the Government because although they are volunteers, they are not civil servants. They have been reminded by the head of Transforming Rehabilitation that they should have regard to the constraints imposed on civil servants. I have had representations from board members about the vote which was passed in this House on Report about the requirement for the Secretary of State to allow us to discuss changes to be made to the probation service. Apparently, the board says that planning is going ahead on the timetable which I outlined on Report regardless of the vote in this House. Probation staff around the country are, as he described it, lost for words because it was expected that at the very least the Government would respect the vote of this House and reconsider their proposals, or at least appear to do so. As it seems that that is not happening, and this amendment is all about the supervision of women offenders, I should be grateful if the Minister could tell the House exactly what is happening following the vote on Report.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, perhaps I may deal with that matter first. The Bill is now in this House. It will then go to the other place, which will also have views about an amendment which the noble Lord was told at the time was defective and which remains defective. I do not think I can go any further than that. We will see what the other House thinks about the amendment and in due course it will come back to this House to be dealt with.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his kind remarks. He will find that that gives him a warm glow and so I recommend that he continues to make a habit of it. As my noble friend Lord Marks has said, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has a good strike record on these Bills and I very much enjoy working with him and benefiting from his wisdom. On the question of the report on progress in dealing with women in the criminal justice system, we will be reporting to Parliament and we will be able to see the progress not only of these measures, but of others that we are taking.

With regard to the prison estate, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has drawn attention to an issue that we are currently looking at. We have a number of thoughts on this matter and a study is being undertaken of the prison estate. We will come forward with specific ideas about how released prisoners and the specific issue of women offenders will be dealt with.

On contracts, the contract specifications will set out the services that contracts are obliged to provide. The contract will contain specific outputs designed to meet the needs of female offenders. In order to comply with this new duty, the contract will state that the Secretary of State has,

“complied with the duty under section 149 of the Equality Act”,

and will also draw attention to the specific outputs. As my noble friend Lord Marks pointed out, we will publish these contracts and they will be brought forward with all possible transparency. I hope that this will give confidence and that the House will adopt the amendment.

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I cannot see why the Government should be so diffident about the proposal, which does not tie their hands, would not involve building courts—let alone vastly expensive Titan-type prisons—and would cost significantly less to pilot than the Chancellor has pledged to commemorate those veterans who fell 200 years ago at Waterloo. Accepting the amendment would both symbolise our continuing commitment to those who serve and help the Government achieve the objectives of this Bill by reducing reoffending, thereby protecting the public and saving public money. I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support this amendment, to which I have added my name. We have spoken about this issue many times before. Several advantages come with this amendment in the context of the Armed Forces covenant, for which the Government are very much to be commended, not least because it requires an annual report to both Houses of Parliament by the Secretary of State.

What has been most encouraging since the announcement of the covenant is the number of local covenants that have been commissioned around the country. There is a huge support network for a particular focus on the multifarious needs of the Armed Forces. Mention has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, of the large voluntary sector which supports the military and their families. Those organisations are very capable of carrying out many of the functions that are needed. In addition to that, a growing support network is being developed for those suffering from mental health problems—the Minister has mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder and other kinds of fatigue—not least a number of official recovery centres based around the country which are linked into the military command structure. This is a diversion scheme, very much on the lines of the scheme developed by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, which the Government have supported. It is poised to go, supporting an element of the community to which the Government have said that they wish to pay particular attention.

I was present at the very encouraging meeting with the Minister, Damian Green, and was glad that he took all these points on board. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to the amendment and give the House an indication of the sort of timing that we might expect in terms of a government response.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him one question for my elucidation. I am interested in the use of the word “treatment” in connection with the word “courts”. Is it the intention that these courts should be available only to those who are shown to be suffering from either post-traumatic stress disorder or, let us say, Gulf War syndrome, or are they to be open to all, whether or not they need “treatment” in that sense?

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I think that I should defer to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, who is responsible for the wording of the amendment.

[Lord Lloyd of Berwick]

I am very sorry. I had hoped to ask the question of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, before he sat down, but it was by then too late. Somebody, I hope, will give me the answer.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“ProbationProbation service reform: Parliamentary approval
No alteration or reform may be made to the structure of the probation service unless the proposals have been laid before, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament.”

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, as I have said on a number of occasions, this is a curious Bill. While the whole House welcomes its intentions, many of us are deeply alarmed at the absence of detail about their cost and how and whether they can be implemented in the timeframe depicted on page 34 of the so far undiscussed Transforming Rehabilitation White Paper. I have received many letters of concern about this, including a number from serving members of the National Probation Service, who are understandably worried about what is being done to them and their service, 31 of whose 35 trusts are adjudged to be performing well, with the remaining four performing exceptionally well.

Last Thursday, the Minister was kind enough to e-mail me a copy of the revised impact assessment, which I have to admit I find as disappointing as its predecessor, because it is still so thin on analysis of impact, cost or risk. I note that, yet again, the Government’s justification for not releasing more details is that to publish estimates would put contractual negotiations at risk and so prejudice the effectiveness of the competition for delivery of offender services. Indeed, compared with what has been put to Ministers, as disclosed in articles in the Times and Guardian today, it feels rather more like a ministerial pat on the head of a recalcitrant child.

In drawing the attention of the House to the inadequacy of the initial impact assessment, I questioned whether, because it was published on the same day as the Bill and the White Paper to which it referred, it had been available to Ministers during their analysis of risk, or added later. I have to ask the same about the draft strategic risk register, prepared for a rehabilitation programme board on 21 May, referred to in the articles. If a board saw a draft only 12 days after the Bill was published, when were the risks that it assessed seen and discussed by Ministers?

I presume that the impact of these risks was excluded from the impact assessment, because it refers only to the Bill, not to the whole programme—a clever piece of parliamentary games playing. In asking the Minister when he and his colleagues considered these risks, I also ask whether a proper business plan for the implementation of their ambitious proposals has been drawn up, telling Ministers—and so the public, whom it is their duty to protect—exactly how, when and by whom they are to be implemented.

That leads on to the question of why, throughout this Bill’s progress, I have felt so deeply uneasy about the way in which this House is being used. We all want reoffending to be reduced, but we do not want to see any programme with that end fall flat on its face because understandable concerns about the viability of untried theories, in the uncertain world in which many offenders live what can only be described as chaotic and dysfunctional lives, have been ridden over roughshod in the desire to satisfy a party politically directed timetable that pays no attention to practical reality.

There is also the importance of taking people with you, particularly those whom you employ. Loyalty, like responsibility and accountability, is a two-way process. You cannot expect people to be loyal to you unless they know that they can rely on your loyalty to them. The loyalty of the probation service is being pressed to limits that would make every soldier shudder. Indeed, since 9 May, they, I and others who have asked questions have felt rather like that Chinese student who, trying to stop something relentless, climbed on to a tank in Tiananmen Square, whose crew could appreciate what he wanted but were not be deflected from their directed purpose.

I wonder whether the real reason why the Secretary of State is unwilling to reveal an objective assessment of the impact of his proposals is that he dare not, because they are so undermined by the sheer scale of the risks as assessed by his own officials in the Ministry of Justice. He cannot have welcomed the chairman of the Justice Select Committee in the other place saying last week that the Ministry of Justice, responsible for carrying out his ambitious plans, displayed naivety about the contracting out of key services and lacked the capacity to know what it was doing.

In Committee I tried to encourage the Minister to delay further consideration of the Bill until we had had a more satisfactory impact assessment, and answers to the many questions raised at Second Reading, many of which matched risks raised by officials, who described the whole process of transforming the National Probation Service as a,

“complex, large-scale change programme to be completed within an aggressive timetable”.

As I have long suspected, the change programme that has been laid before us is far from complete, because officials say, in a document issued only this month:

“We are undertaking further work on statutory responsibilities, to determine if there is an obvious split between the public sector probation service and competed Providers, and will come back with further advice on this, including on how we ensure that providers meet these obligations”.

Surely it is a bit late for that, when work on the Bill is so far advanced.

Officials spell out a breathtakingly long list of details of what this complex unresearched change programme entails, which, according to the White Paper timetable, have to be completed in little over a year. Those include the implementation and testing of the new operational model, but not payment by results, by three probation trusts; the establishment of the so-called new probation service; the establishment of 21 government companies; the recruitment and appointment of new senior management teams for the National Probation Service and the government companies; the allocation of staff into roles in the new organisation; and the transfer of 18,000 staff to new employers. Probation trusts are to have agreed the national and competed functional split, and identified the proportion of staff and assets to be allocated to the public sector or government companies, by the end of August, and to have implemented the new operating model, while remaining contractually responsible for delivery by public sector and competed functions, serviced by a single corporate support, by next April. Trusts are to cease responsibility for delivery, and all staff and other assets are to be transferred to the public sector, or government companies, by next August. Ownership of the government companies is to be transferred to successful bidders from October.

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[Lord McNally]

I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention, which probably was not intended to be helpful, but certainly was. That is because these are the stakes we are playing for. I do not doubt the figures he has given and indeed I have seen them. Reoffending costs this country between £9 billion and £14 billion, so let us not say that we are going to aim to prevent 50% of reoffending. If we could get it down to 40%, just think what that would mean in hard cash. That is the prize we are aiming for. Of course it takes some radical thinking and means taking risks that are outside the box—that is exactly what we are doing. When there is a new idea, it is a lot easier to throw spanners in the works or to say what is so often said about any new and radical idea, “Let’s have a bit more time to think about it and take it all a bit more slowly”. We have put a lot of work into this project and, as we develop and unfold it, we are willing to share information with Members of this House and others. However, the noble Lord is quite right that, as well as the impact on offenders who are taken out of the cycle of crime, and apart from the impact on victims who will avoid the crimes that the rehabilitated will not commit, there really is big money to be saved by carrying this through. I am as enthusiastic and confident about it now as I was when we started, and I hope that the House will feel the same as it did when it gave the Bill an overwhelming Second Reading.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply and I thank all those who have taken part in this short debate. I have to admit to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that I had not considered the details she outlined as far as the legislation is concerned. I had always assumed that the existing national probation service was the National Probation Service. Absolute logic suggests that I should go away and rethink the wording of the amendment because we must get it correct if we are actually going to put something through.

I should say to the Minister that I am not opposed to the intent of this Bill and I never have been. Indeed, I started my speech by saying that. The Cross-Benches are not the Opposition and I rather resent being called the Opposition purely because we sometimes go against what the Government propose. I am simply concerned to do all that I possibly can to encourage the Government and to make certain that we can be convinced by the Government that every possible examination has been carried out into whether what is proposed is possible and practical and that as little damage is done as possible to the existing public services, which have given such outstanding service for so long.

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for a number of things that he said, in particular that we will have a debate. As he appreciates, one of the frustrations of this Bill is that it is not actually about the proposals—it is about the tools of the proposals. The legislation would suggest that although we can say what we like about those tools, it does not matter a damn, because the Secretary of State is going to go ahead anyway, encouraged by the legislation’s permission for him to do so. In that case, we would be denied any chance to have our say and to put our expertise and intent at the service of the Government. I am also very grateful for his explanation of what was going on, because we have not heard that before. I am very grateful that he will put copies of the things in the Library, because I suspect that many noble Lords do not actually follow everything that is on the internet in the way that officials might hope.

There is no need to involve a third party in the distance between the leaks and me—I received the documents last Thursday and have them in my possession now. I was laying my assessment of Ministry of Justice documents before the House and not a journalist’s interpretation of those documents. My concerns were, I think, quite reasonable. We were presented with a Bill on 9 May, on which we started work, but these assessments of risk were dated 21 May, which suggests that they came after the Bill. That is something about which I still seek reassurance.

I am extremely sorry that the Minister should have suggested that I am not happy to take it as well as give it. As he knows perfectly well, this refers to an incident—which I did not wish to lay before the House—when I complained to him that he had attributed views to me when I was not in the House and therefore unable to answer. I do not believe that we should conduct our business that way.

In view of the questions that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has raised, I have some concern about this, but I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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This amendment is designed to promote the Government’s policy effectively. It is not designed to undermine its objectives or to prevent it; it is designed to ensure that we have a developed, piloted system, which is workable and cost-effective, in the interests of the whole community and of achieving the Government’s objective. I beg to move.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I do not want to add much to what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has just said, because he has covered everything. However, I notice that, in a recent letter to us, the Minister mentioned that results were to be paid for after one year. I suspect that this is very welcome to both the voluntary and private sectors, which will be competing for payment. The voluntary sector would find it very difficult to go for longer without payment. However, as the Minister knows, reoffending rates always used to be measured after two years. Indeed, if you follow the reoffending rates after that, you find that they decline over time. Therefore, is it not rather premature to come to a judgment after one year? Could the Minister say whether it is intended that, if an offender goes on to reoffend two or three years after release, the company that has been paid will be expected to make a repayment for reoffending that happened later?

[Lord Goodhart]

My Lords, I was strongly supportive of Amendment 1, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. However, there was a defect in that amendment, which was disclosed by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. Therefore, it seemed sensible, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, appeared to propose at one moment, that he should withdraw that amendment and come back with another version at Third Reading. For some reason—I would be interested to know why—he did not do that, but pressed his amendment to a vote this time. The result was that the amendment was passed and cannot be changed, except by the House of Commons when it goes back there. It would have been much better if we could have decided a better version of Amendment 1 ourselves.

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[Lord Woolf]

My Lords, I would like to express my general support for what the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has proposed and said and also for that which has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. I venture to suggest that anyone who has experience of dealing with young offenders in the courts would come to exactly the same conclusions as they have expressed. They have very good reasons to advance their comments. The position of those aged 15-plus to 18 is a particularly difficult area which has been neglected largely by the approach of the criminal justice system until now. I particularly urge that what the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has said about that group is taken into account.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendments so comprehensively spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. One reflection on what she has been saying about consistency and continuity has come to me about the involvement of the probation service with the supervision of young adults which it admittedly has not been very good with in recent years.

One thing that worries me about the thought of the professional probation service in future being responsible only for high-risk offenders is that young probation officers are not going to have the chance to cut their teeth on the low and medium-risk offenders on which they build up the expertise which they can then go on to apply to the higher risk offenders. One of the cases that is frequently quoted against the probation service is the case of a man called Sonnex who murdered while he was on probation supervision. He was under the supervision of a very young and inexperienced probation officer who should not have been put in charge of so serious an offender. I hope that the Minister will reflect on this and on the importance of career development for the National Probation Service, particularly for those who have to deal with this very important group of young adults.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I, too, support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, on this amendment. Like my noble friend Lady Howe, I am sorry that yet again we should be coming to an important Bill like this and raising the issue of women as something that has been admitted, rather than actually trying to discuss in more detail exactly what should be done with and for women.

We have discussed frequently women in prison, but we have not discussed women in the community so frequently. On several occasions when it has come up, I mentioned the need for specialist women offender teams around the country. We have also mentioned the possibility of a women’s justice board, which would be responsible, like the children’s justice board for children, for looking after both women in custody and women in the community. I hope that the Minister will recommend to his colleague, to whom the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, referred, that she should look very carefully at this because there will be a need for somebody to keep oversight over the cohorts of women around the country who are being subjected to myriad different providers, and there will need to be consistency as well as quality in the content of what is done for them, so I hope account is taken of that in considering this amendment.

[Baroness Corston]

My Lords, I am delighted to support the amendment tabled in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. It is 15 months now since we had the first vote specifically on this issue that I can remember. At that time there was a tied vote and we were promised a strategy. Subsequent attempts to amend legislation to provide for gender-specific services have failed.

My reading of the current government policy on transforming rehabilitation is that we are going back 10 years, because we are going to have an offender strategy that can be tweaked for women, rather than asking what kind of strategic priorities we need for women offenders. Those are missing. We have a two-page statement, not a strategy, from the Government about what is going to happen for women. If this was a serious undertaking, this kind of amendment would have formed part of the Bill. It would not be up to Members of the House to try to put it into the Bill.

The other thing that I found very troubling during the course of my review was how many women knew that their lives were spiralling out of control but knew that there was nowhere they could go to get assistance. That is what was so amazing about the seed-corn money, although it was £15 million, that the previous Government put into keeping women out of prison by providing women’s centres as alternatives to custody. I know that the Minister has visited at least one, and I am sure that noble Lords who are interested in this area will have done the same. You hear stories of women who have gone through a period of the most amazing redemption because they have had these gender-specific services from people who understand the reality of women’s lives and the centrality of family and children. They understand that when women go to prison, unlike men, there is no one to keep the home fires burning, and they usually lose their children and do not get them back.

All these issues can be dealt with easily if you make provision statutorily for gender-specific services, because people have to think about it. It is not a question of women being an add-on. I accept that, given the overall prison population—there are about 86,000 men in prison and 4,000 women—you could say that women are an add-on. However, given that some 17,000 children a year are affected by their mothers’ imprisonment, and a significant proportion of those children end up in prison themselves, such provision seems to me to be the most important preventive strategy. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government are so reluctant to have this in the Bill, because it would be a matter of pride to do so. I know that the Minister will tell me how much has happened, and I will listen with patience but with some irritation, because, given my experience in the 21 years since I first set foot in a women’s prison, I know that it will not be enough. So I say to the Government: if this amendment is not accepted, we really want to see something that will work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, in supporting the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on this I should declare two interests, first as a former Adjutant-General—or personnel director of the Army—and secondly as president of the Veterans in Prison Association. I have been very interested in the attention given to this particular idea; and although I have not been to it, I have had reports of the activities in Buffalo to which the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referred. I entirely endorse all his suggestions about the north-east being used as a pilot area. I have been in contact with organisations working up there and have been very impressed by the supporting network that is available. It is one of the crucial parts of doing this.

Unfortunately the figures on exactly how many ex-service people are involved in the criminal justice system are slightly distorted by the fact that numbers of them who claim to be members of the services failed even to make the training. While they may make the claim, they actually have no right to do so. I think, and always have, that it is very important to establish that fact right at the start. Some excellent work was done by the Kent police to try to work out exactly how many ex-service people came through the police stations in Kent. They found that it was very important to ask them for their service number and then to follow it up to establish whether in fact they were genuine ex-servicemen or—as it were— pseudo ex-servicemen who did not deserve the same treatment.

In presenting his case, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has very rightly focused on the support mechanism that is needed in addition to the courts. There needs to be something equivalent to the diversion scheme which the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, has pioneered for the courts in general. It is very useful to recognise—as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has done—that there is a vast network of supporting service charities which act on behalf of the individual servicemen in their long-term and short-term needs. This is something of which account should be taken.

I also commend some other excellent work that has been going on in this country. The Cheshire probation service have been funded by the Royal British Legion to train probation officers to understand the particular needs of ex-servicemen so that they can apply that when deciding exactly how they should be supervised should they be sentenced. What would be very important in establishing these courts—which I entirely recommend—is to make certain that the courts have got a very wide supporting network behind them which should cover things such as mental health and probation. They should also make use of the service charities in whatever action they take with these unfortunate people. I am also very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned that many of these people come into the sphere of the criminal justice system comparatively late. The average age of 48 was mentioned. Therefore you are not dealing so much with the young adult as the person who has fallen on hard times through trying to come to terms with civilian life and needs particular help to enable them to re-engage.

[Viscount Slim]

My Lords, I support very much the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. I like the way that he has gone into the depth of the problem. I declare that I deal with veterans, from 18 year-olds with one leg to 90 year-olds who have been in various campaigns. I find that middle age is a tricky time for veterans, and it is a big problem.

I do not want to rehearse all the arguments. I believe that the Minister should look kindly on this, and a trial period is what we need. A veteran today gets a fair amount of help when he leaves the Army but the Minister will find, particularly as 25,000 service men and women are in the process of being chucked out of the Army, that the problems are going to increase, and something more will be needed than what is being done at the moment.

I merely state that there is a problem and I do not believe that we are doing enough about it. These veterans’ courts are proven elsewhere; we ought to look at them carefully and trial them. I hope that the Minister understands the problem and is able to do something about it.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

34: Before Clause 18, insert the following new Clause—
“Secretary of State’s duty
(1) The Secretary of State shall in each year publish a report on the financial and resource costs and benefits of the implementation of this Act.
(2) A report published under subsection (1) shall include, but need not be restricted to, information on the financial costs and benefits associated with—
(a) the supervision of offenders following release from custody,(b) breaches of supervision requirements,(c) changes in arrangements for the provision of probation services,(d) any changes in sentencing practice attributable to the implementation of this Act.(3) Publication under subsection (1) shall be effected in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for the purpose of bringing the report to the attention of persons engaged in the administration of criminal justice and of the public.”

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, this is a probing amendment drafted by the Prison Reform Trust, reflecting a great number of concerns put to it by practitioners. Although there is general approval of and welcome for the intent of the Bill, as has been voiced throughout this Chamber today and on the previous Committee day, there is concern that we do not know a great deal of the detail. Based on experience, those of us who have been involved in the criminal justice system in one way or another are concerned that it is the very lack of detail that it is likely to inhibit the advance of whatever is proposed. The amendment therefore does not aim to put a spanner in the works—far from it. Like many other noble Lords, I want to see the Bill come to fruition. I want something to be done about this terrible reoffending rate, if that indeed is the right term. What is more, I want whatever is introduced to be sustained and not a sort of one-day wonder.

At the heart of a lot of what is being proposed is the introduction of payment by results. I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Penal Affairs Group. We have been involved with the drug and alcohol recovery pilots, eight of which are currently running. They went live in April last year and are being run by the NHS. There was a long two-year period before they were introduced and they are being academically evaluated over three years by Manchester University and Birkbeck University. I think that they are very relevant to what is being proposed for the criminal justice system because they involve practitioners in the field. Those monitoring these pilots in the National Health Service have looked at the payback mechanism straw-man proposal for this Bill which, like all the papers we have before us, was published only last month. Although saying that in some respects what is proposed looks promising, they point out that it raises questions, many of which relate to the absence of numbers or qualitative weighting—or, indeed pilots—which does not give one a great deal of confidence in what is alleged.

In addition, they are concerned that there is no mention of the overlap and tension for both users and providers involved with other payment-by-result schemes such as the Work Programme, the NHS alcohol treatment programme, the NHS dual-diagnosis programme, the troubled families programme and indeed, in the case of the Ministry of Justice, the drug and alcohol recovery programme, all of which are connected with the offender rehabilitation programme and some of which could impact on the plans made and payment claimed for an individual who is subject to more than one payment-by-results programme. There does not appear to have been any resolution of that.

Various concerns suggested by other payment-by-result initiatives do not seem to have been fully addressed. For example, there is considerable concern about what is referred to as gaming—the public’s private sector providers playing games with the payment, the assessment or the people they actually put forward for it. To get over that, the National Health Service has put in place a mechanism called the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System, which has treatment outcome profiles and local area assessment and referral services, because it found that unless it does that, there is a great danger of it being taken for a ride, which it cannot afford.

There is also something proposed called the learning-curve discount scheme that nobody seems to know much about because we do not know whether providers are going to be able consistently to reduce costs and/or improve performance and therefore come up with something earning a discount. Also, there is no mention of the significant transition costs of payment by results, which other people have found both in establishing the data management systems for managing the outcomes and the substantial bureaucracy required to manage them. If they are being managed by the current system, which is working flat-out to manage current offenders, I wonder how it will cope with the problems of the payment-by-results schemes. There is also the problem of verification of outcomes which when they are delayed can cause problems with cash flow and therefore the whole payment-based system. I mention those not to be a Jonah but to say that I hope that all these have been taken into account by the Ministry of Justice, which, not having pilots of its own does not have the advantage of practical experience. I hope that it is cashing in on the experience of others to make certain that it does not fall into the same trap.

I admit to two other doubts which I must voice. The first is about costings, and I refer to an answer given by the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on Amendment 7A when he said that,

“competing the community payback contracts in London saw a £25 million saving over four years”.—[Official Report, 5/6/13; col. 1214.]

It is true that the Serco bid undercut the probation service bid by £24 million for a four-year contract. However, that started only last year and that £25 million does not include the costs of running the competition which went on for more than two years and must have been substantial. We also have to consider, when looking at value for money, that the contract has only been running so far for less than a year with three years to go. The probation service is very sceptical that someone such as Serco will put in quite such a low bid next time when recompetition comes up based on actual experience of running the thing. It would regard its bid as being more realistic based on its experience. So the jury is out and I am concerned that too much emphasis is being placed on savings that have been made when a contract has cost less when we have not yet seen the outcomes. The Prison Service has a bad track record on this. I remember complaining once when it excluded central administrative costs from a competition bid with the private sector to run a prison and then claimed that it had won. When the National Audit Office looked at it on a level-playing field it found that the bid had not been put in correctly.

My second doubt concerns time. I refer to the chart on page 34 of the White Paper, which sets out the Government’s timetable. This says that the new probation service, which presumably will include the 77% of privatised elements, will be introduced by autumn next year, after which the new competed services will go live.

If it took two years to compete the London community payback, and if it took two years for the National Health Service to set up its eight pilots for the drug and alcohol recovery schemes, I wonder whether it is realistic to expect that, in the one year between now and then, the Ministry of Justice will be able to complete all the contracts, all the recruiting and all the training of all the people who are needed to carry on with what is proposed while, at the same time, with the same staff, conducting the essential work that has to be done now with offenders. As I say, it is not that I doubt the intent but I question the practicability. I therefore wish that we would be given a more realistic timetable based on actual possibilities rather than the allegations we have been given on page 34.

My last request is that the Minister, who said that he hoped to have the new impact assessment with us by Report, will make certain not only that it is with us by Report, but that it is with us in plenty of time for us to consider it before Report, to make Report a more meaningful exercise.

That is why I am asking the Secretary of State to produce an annual statement of how all this is working out. Certainly, if I were the Secretary of State, I would want such a document on my desk every year anyway. Therefore, rather than asking for something additional, I am asking for something which I presume will be produced to be shared with both Houses so that we can keep abreast of what is going on in this hugely important venture which, in intent, enjoys the support of the whole House. I beg to move.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, the noble Lord has fired a salvo of questions and critiques of the Government’s proposals. It will be interesting to see what defence the Minister can put up to them. The noble Lord has made many telling points, not least the question of the timetable, which looks ridiculously short. The Secretary of State in his previous capacity introduced the markedly unsuccessful Work Programme, which was also rushed through with pretty abysmal results. There must be some danger, particularly if the exercise is rushed, that we will see repetition of that. It occurred to me to think as the noble Lord was talking about this transition that one can envisage staff members being involved in that transition. Does that mean that they take, for example, their caseload with them? Will the cases of those who are being supervised and who will transfer into the payment-by-results system remain with probation or, if the probation officer in question is to be moved over—presumably some of that will happen—will the case go across to the payment-by-results providers? Or will they be excluded? It all seems highly mysterious.

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[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for that reply, and for the dialogue we have had about the various issues that were raised. The noble Lord has quite rightly appreciated the deep interest that all Members of this House have in this issue. It is too important to be let go by default. We have a certain amount of expertise, as well as interest, in this House, which we are extremely anxious to deploy if we possibly can. Therefore I am very happy at this stage to withdraw the amendment, but I would like to consider the content of the impact assessment before deciding what action I take on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 34 withdrawn.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

Leave from “House” to the end and insert “declines to consider the Bill in Committee until Her Majesty’s Government have produced a revised impact assessment on the Bill which includes the supporting evidence for the cost estimate given of around £25 million per year associated with breach of licence and supervision conditions for short sentenced offenders and an explanation for the decision to regard key assumptions, sensitivities and risks as not applicable.”

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I wonder whether noble Lords might leave the Chamber quietly and whether those passing in front of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which is something we do not normally do, might do so even more inconspicuously. I have given the noble Lord the opportunity to hesitate for a moment as he has some important matters to set out in explaining the purpose of tabling the Motion and what he seeks from the Minister in response.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Chief Whip for that intervention.

I suspect that I am not alone in being in something of a quandary about the Bill. I entirely support the main intent behind it, which is to reduce the appalling reconviction rate that is an indictment of our offender management system, particularly as regards those awarded short prison sentences who have the highest reconviction rate and are responsible for so many crimes on release. For many years, I have campaigned for many of the measures that it contains, so why should I be calling on the Government to slow down their headlong rush towards a goal that I share? I do so for two reasons, both based on personal experience. I spent 41 years in the Army before I became Chief Inspector of Prisons, a number of them in Whitehall. My memories of those days were revived today when I read the obituary in the Times of Sir Patrick Nairne, who was a most distinguished civil servant as well as a hugely cultured and civilised man. From him, and others like him, I learnt that when a paper or proposal was intended to be moved towards the Secretary of State, it should be put first to the Army board, but only after it has been properly researched and costed, which research included careful examination of all the consequences, intended or otherwise, that could be identified. Only after such proposals had gone through the Army board, the Chiefs of Staff and then Ministers, would they reach the Secretary of State, and certainly not the outside world.

When I heard about this Bill in the gracious Speech on 8 May, I little thought that it would be published the next day at the same time as the long-awaited response to the consultation document, Transforming Rehabilitation, to which it relates. However, what was even more worrying was that, having been subjected in recent years to a very low standard of impact assessments accompanying Bills, this one was also dated 9 May, which suggested to me that far from being a document which had informed Ministers and officials throughout their deliberations on the Bill, it had been added as an afterthought. Far too many of the impact assessments that I have seen recently seem to have only two options—take it or leave it; or, I, the Secretary of State, have decided that this is what I am going to do. That is one option and the other is to do nothing, which is not acceptable. When you are launching untried theories that affect the lives of literally millions of people, I suggest that this is bad government.

My second experience has been over the past 18 years, when I have been associated with the offender management system itself. When you get down to the guts of offender management, you find that it is all about enabling someone or some people to influence someone else to live a useful and law-abiding, as opposed to a useless and law-breaking, life—nothing more and nothing less. I have observed with considerable dismay the relentless advance of political and bureaucratic interference, and the time and ability of those concerned to do that, with the inevitable result that the reconviction rate has increased. The old Prison Commission, before it was abolished in 1962, was run from a house in Eccleston Square, with a staff of 128 people without computers. Now, admittedly with double the number of prisoners, the computer-assisted National Offender Management Service has a cast of more than 2,000.

Throughout the time that I have watched the system at work, I have been deeply humbled and impressed by the incredible dedication and drive of countless thousands of people working in and for the Prison Service and probation service, who have come up with successful innovation after successful innovation only to see them killed rather than exploited by the bureaucratic system. If only the management system had the wit to monitor what was best and bring it into common practice, I believe that it could introduce cost-effective treatment of offenders in every possible condition.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said was very familiar, because of course it was also his Second Reading speech. I make no complaint, but I say to the Opposition that they may be on this side of the Box one day. If using this kind of amendment to prevent a Committee stage proceeding were to become too much of a habit, it would be very easy to gum up government business.

I associate myself with the noble Lord’s words about Sir Patrick Nairne, because I was also a Whitehall warrior for quite a long time. I worked with Sir Patrick in the 1970s. My experience of both Whitehall and Westminster makes me less than apologetic about our approach. Governments are always faced with attacks for having no policy and being too slow, or for having too many ideas and rushing Parliament. I would rather we had too many ideas.

The truth is that successive Governments have tried to tackle the challenge of rehabilitating offenders. We have put forward our proposals for scrutiny and I am old fashioned enough to believe that that is exactly what the Committee stage of a Bill is for. I look forward to the next eight hours or so today and to the next Committee day for the House to do its proper job of scrutiny and questioning, and I will do my best to give answers.

On the specifics of the impact assessment, I agree to take another look at it and see where we can update it for the benefit of the House. I will bring that impact assessment back before the Bill completes its stages in this House. I hope that will be in time for Report. However, as noble Lords on the other Benches who went through similar exercises will know, we have to hold back certain things for commercial reasons. We are about to enter negotiations to get the best deal for the taxpayer and therefore do not wish to reveal our entire hand in advance. I will update the impact assessment as much as I can but I suggest that we now get on with the work of the day and the work of this House, which is the detailed scrutiny of the Bill.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for what they have said. I am particularly grateful for the Minister’s reassurance that he will look at the impact assessment. That is hugely important not only for us but for the officials and members of the services who will carry out the work. Can the Minister say anything about the unanswered questions which I and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, that is what a Committee stage is for. I will try to answer as many of those questions as I can, but after the noble Lord’s experiences in the military, in Whitehall, in Parliament and in the various services, he will know that not all the questions he poses have an instant answer available. I have never hidden the fact that we are being innovative in what we are doing, and because of that, there is no track record to refer to. However, that does not resile from the fact that these are worthwhile proposals to be considered, and I am very willing, during the course of the examination of the Bill, to try to be as full in my answers as I can.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that because it was precisely what I was hoping he would say. As I said, my quandary about the Bill is that while one approves entirely of its intent, one is concerned about the lack of detail. If we can elicit that detail during the Committee stage, we will be able to achieve our purpose. I personally am very keen to get on with the debate as quickly as possible. I apologise for taking some time but it was important to raise the issues of the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny and the speed. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I support Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, with the suggestion that “18” should be substituted by “21” in order to bring in this vital group. I thoroughly agree with her about the work being done by the Transition to Adulthood Alliance. Further than that, the probation service was the first to admit that it has not been very good at dealing with the 18-to-21 age group in the recent past, with the exception of three very good programmes: the intensive alternative custody programmes in Manchester, South Yorkshire and London, which have been mentioned before in this House. I am not sure that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, which was very happy to take on the responsibility for 18-to-21s in custody is quite so happy having them under the youth offending teams, which are very much geared to the under-18s. On the other hand, I know that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales is more than happy to work closely with the probation service in developing these adult services. I therefore hope that, in considering the rehabilitation of this vulnerable and impressionable group, the Minister will agree that the probation service experience in Manchester should be exploited and spread further. I know that it is poised to make an advance on where it had already reached.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, may I add one thing to what my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has said, as well as supporting both the amendments? Very many of the young people who will be in custody or will have gone through this process will also have been in care with the local authorities. It is therefore even more important that special attention is given to them above the age of 18. I particularly support that aspect of the proposals.

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[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, said that the language which is used must be understandable. However, it seems to me that a word in the Bill is very confusing. It states that the relevant period is for “rehabilitation”. I am not awfully good at the English language but rehabilitation suggests to me going back to a golden age before the offence was committed. In fact, the life of probably the vast majority of these offenders was hell before the offence was committed. We should be looking for something better than rehabilitation—something more like habilitation.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I support the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, and, in so doing, declare two interests, one as chairman of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties and, secondly, as a vice-president of the Centre for Mental Health, which has the privilege of hosting the follow-up work being done by the noble Lord on his excellent report, which he mentioned.

My concern over this issue was heightened by a paragraph I read on page 9 of the White Paper, which describes how the Ministry of Justice will put in place a system which will give providers sufficient grip to make sure offenders engage with the rehabilitative services. I am not certain that “grip” is the right word to use in connection with these people.

The noble Lord rightly mentioned his concern about the training and education of the supervisors who do not, of course, come from the probation service but from a whole host of providers yet to be realised. He mentioned the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, during the passage of which my noble friend Lord Rix and I met with the chairman of the Queen’s Bench Division to discuss how offenders could be made aware of these issues during the judicial process. We were most particularly concerned about the increasing incidence of police taking action without going to court, and making certain that offenders have the necessary representation on the part of responsible adults who can interpret matters for them. This issue needs to be looked at.

That allows me to make another observation about the White Paper. Although it is acknowledged that many of these offenders have mental health problems, including learning disabilities, there is no mention of commissioning mental health services for them, which gives the probation service a problem. With the emergence of a new commissioning process under NHS England and of health and well-being boards, it will be important for the probation service to be associated with those boards to make certain that the proper support is available, not just in relation to the subject raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, but in relation to all aspects of mental health problems experienced by offenders.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My noble friend Lord Northbourne’s comments on the word “rehabilitation” have stimulated my thoughts on this matter. He is absolutely right: rehabilitation can only mean a return to a condition which once existed. I am not enough of a linguist to say exactly how the word is constructed, but that is clearly what it means. I wonder, however, whether the word “reform” might be appropriate in the circumstances. I well remember one of the very first days that I attended this House, in 1981. A speech by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, a most distinguished gentleman, was given very great publicity and attention by the House. Its theme was that in the whole of his experience, both as counsel and as judge, he did not think that prison had reformed a single person. I remember asking myself how that could be, side by side with Rule 1 of the Prison Rules of the time, which said that the chief purpose of imprisonment was the reform of the offender. Both could not possibly be right. Putting aside that irrelevance for the moment, it may very well be that the word “reform” would be a more appropriate description of the situation than “rehabilitation”.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, raised the question of the condition of supervision that a person should be of good behaviour. It may well be that Parliament should define that situation more closely and specifically. There are two aspects here. The first is the boundary that it is Parliament’s duty to place and the second is the communication of the exact location of that boundary to the defendant in appropriate circumstances. It is part and parcel of the duty of the sentencer in any aspect of sentencing to make it clear to a defendant exactly what the court means. Over and above that, it is also their duty of the interview solicitor and counsel before leaving the matter, to make quite certain that the defendant knows exactly what is meant and what is expected of him or her.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I added my name to one of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, rather thinking that they would be grouped together. That was perhaps the result of not being allowed the time to get our act together, but I suppose I must apologise. I hope my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf will be happy if I speak to this amendment and associate it with the other amendment. As well as supporting everything that has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf on this issue, my particular concern is for the effect on the families of female offenders. I am concerned about their special needs because, as we all know, these women often have mental health problems and, I am sad to say, they have often been abused as young women. There is a lot of history of that. Drink and drugs also figure quite highly. But above all, the actual offences committed are often of a very minor nature. I can remember a visit to a women’s prison on one occasion and being asked by the women concerned why they had such harsh sentences compared with what a man would get for a similar offence.

Going back to the effect on the family, we need to know how many homes are broken up as a result of women being given a prison sentence, because that is a huge cost. If we are thinking, as we must, of financial costs as well as emotional and family costs, and of the long-term effect on the children of that family and their need to be taken into care, this should rate very highly on the list of considerations when sentences are being passed. I back what has been said by other Members, and I hope the Minister will be able to address these points and reassure us that by the time we come to Report there will be a much more satisfactory framework for what is intended for women offenders.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf on Amendment 7. I understand that at this moment the Justice Select Committee in the other place is conducting an inquiry into women offenders. One of the areas on which it has had a lot of evidence of concern is payment by results. With reference to what we were told yesterday about cohorts, I presume that women offenders will be separate cohorts as far as payment by results is concerned and that the results that have to be achieved will be tailored to women and very carefully considered.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

I do not think that my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf need apologise in any way for the amendment. There is no suggestion of arrogance in spelling out duties such as these. In the past 30 years, we have had about 30 criminal justice Acts, whether they carried that name or not, and I would be very surprised if one were not able to find in each and every one of them some structure not unlike that proposed by my noble and learned friend. If one thinks of the very basis of a prison sentence, at least 25 years ago that structure was spelled out in a way that some might think embarrassing to a sentencer, because it seems to me that no sentencer would ever conceive of approaching the problem in any other way. The statute states that the sentencer has to consider whether the offence that has been committed is serious enough to justify imprisonment in the circumstances and that he must then go back to see, in the light of all the circumstances, including the personal circumstances of the defendant, whether it is necessary for there to be a sentence of immediate imprisonment. In one respect, one could say that that is utterly insulting. Could there ever have been a sentencer so lacking in understanding and conscience not to approach his or her duty in that way? Yet, as a circuit judge, I had to look at that section day in, day out, and I found it utterly reassuring. I plead the point that there is nothing wrong in spelling out a duty, even though that duty might be obvious to everybody looking at the situation.

Like so many others who have been involved with the criminal courts, I have taken the view that men commit offences on account of all possible features in the range of human wickedness. In the case of women, it is very different. The splendid report on women in prison written some years by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, reinforced the point that many of them are not criminals at all and should not be in prison. I am not saying that some of them have not committed truly horrendous offences, but that must be a very small proportion, and a very high proportion of women in prison should not be there. Including these principles in legislation, obvious though they are, would do no harm whatever.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I have to admit that I am deeply uneasy about the Bill, not because I do not agree with its general objective of reducing reoffending—of course I do—but because of the many questions about the implementation of its associated strategy that remain unanswered and the speed with which it is being rushed through this House. I entirely associate myself with the wise words and caution expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf.

The problem with the Bill is not what it contains so much as the fact that it is a cart being put before a horse before we know whether it is going to be pulled by a horse or a tractor. Knowing his support for the probation service and his appreciation of the practical, I welcome the fact that it is the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who will take the Bill thorough the House, while sympathising with him in his role of conveyor to the messianic Secretary of State of the fears expressed by many noble Lords in this House.

Until last summer, the criminal justice system was embarked on a rehabilitation revolution led by a Secretary of State whose method included careful examination of practicalities and attention to the all-important role of people in the rehabilitation process. In the new rehabilitation revolution on which we are now embarked, people appear to be made to play second fiddle to the market, while the timing appears to be determined by the need to present tough achievements to the electorate in the 2015 election manifesto. The problem with it is that in addition to punishing offenders it also punishes those who work with them, particularly the probation service, for all the wrong reasons.

My unease stems from the inconsistency in two statements by the Justice Secretary. First, in launching the consultation associated with Transforming Rehabilitation on 9 January, he said:

“Despite significant increases in spending on probation under the previous government, almost half of those released from prison still go on to reoffend within 12 months”.

This confirmed my fear that—for entirely illogical reasons, because this is the one group of offenders for whom the probation service currently has no responsibility—he blamed probation for the fact that three-quarters of the annual cost of reoffending could be attributed to this group and was bent on total reorganisation, despite all the various changes that had been imposed on the service over the past 15 years and the fact that it was hitting all its targets.

Secondly, in his foreword to Transforming Rehabilitation: A Strategy for Reform, published on 9 May, the same day as the Bill, he says:

“Through the savings we make, we will extend rehabilitation support to those on short-term sentences, who currently have the highest reoffending rates but who are typically left to their own devices on release. This support will be guaranteed through legislation, which is the only way to ensure we target the hardest to reach and most prolific offenders”.

When has legislation ever been able to guarantee the consistent availability, provision and affordability of the money and people required to produce that support?

To go with my caution, I have many questions about the practicalities of the transforming rehabilitation exercise but I intend to focus on the impact assessment, which became available only four days ago and is about as thin and inadequate a document of its type as I can remember. I have discovered in the past that the quality and content of an impact assessment invariably reflects the quality and quantity of the thinking behind the measure it is designed to assess. The fact that, although signed on 9 May—the same day as the publication of the White Paper and the Bill—it was made available only last Thursday, makes me wonder whether Ministers had it during their work on the Bill or whether it was written later to justify decisions that had not only been taken but laid down since before the consultation exercise was launched.

To question the few assessments it contains of the implementation of a policy whose objectives it states will be reviewed at a date to be determined, may I ask the Minister what factors were taken into account in estimating that there would be a cost of only £25 million a year associated with the breach of licence and supervision conditions for short-sentence prisoners? How many offenders were assessed as likely to breach? Were any facts, and therefore costs, deliberately excluded from the assessment? What factors did the Government consider in estimating that there might be additional police costs of only £5 million a year? What is the Government’s estimate of the cost of providing a rehabilitative service to offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months and how much of that are they looking to recover through competition? Surely, the Government know the cost per individual of drug testing and treatment and, based on existing figures, how many offenders are likely to qualify for the testing and treatment that this legislation purports to guarantee? Why then has the cost not been quantified on that basis so that the affordability of the measure can be assessed? Finally, does “not applicable” in the box showing the full economic assessment on page 2 mean that the Government made no assumptions in coming to their decision and believed that there were no associated sensitivities or risks? What about the risk to the public?

Those are all the assessments that the document contains. There is no mention of the cost of extending rehabilitative services to short-sentence prisoners—an expense that the previous Government found to be unaffordable—or evidence to explain how it may be balanced by competing services. There is no mention of any assessment of the ability of the private sector, which failed so spectacularly to provide security staff for the Olympic Games, and to provide trained and accredited staff who can be relied upon to provide the regular contact needed with offenders, whose chaotic and dysfunctional lifestyles are described in the White Paper. There is no mention of the cost of the proposed reorganisation of the probation service, of any assessment of the cost of training and accrediting non-public sector responsible officers, or of whether the requirements of the Private Security Industry Act will apply. Nor is there any analysis of the timeframe or content of the results for which providers will be paid, or any estimate of inevitable IT costs. There is no mention of how reoffending will be measured. In this connection, I wish that the Government would drop the use of “reoffending” when talking about measurement because, as the Home Office statisticians told me on my first day as Chief Inspector of Prisons, when I asked what it meant, it simply cannot be measured because nobody knows. We all know that reconviction rates can be measured, so why do we not just use those?

On top of all that, there is no assessment of how many additional short-term sentences are likely to be awarded or of the impact of the new provision on either prisons or the supervision of those awarded community sentences. Then there is what I can describe only as spin in relation to some other measures. Nothing is worse than announcing something that is unanimously welcomed, only to have to admit that it cannot be delivered because it cannot be afforded. I am always suspicious of the word “new” when all that is meant is a redistribution of existing responsibilities. In connection with this, there are many questions about how the governance of the probation service will be exercised, many of which have been asked already. However, I am currently concerned that probation trusts are in the lead of an array of essential local partnerships that I will not list. Under the Government’s proposals, it appears that these trusts are to be abolished. How are these partnership responsibilities to be reallocated? How do the Government think that the introduction of the market will improve existing arrangements in this respect?

On prisons, I am glad that the Minister mentioned the welcome intention of regrading resettlement prisons. However, this, too, is incomplete and comes 22 years after the original direction from the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, then the Home Secretary, following the recommendation made by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf. Bearing in mind that everything done with and for prisoners during their sentence should be aimed at helping them to live useful and law-abiding lives, why not go the whole hog and, instead of disrupting half the prisons in the country, activate regional clusters to enable local rehabilitation of local prisoners to take place throughout their sentence and not just at its tail?

In conclusion, while I accept that there are good things in the Bill, I am concerned about the timetable. The Government justify that by alleging that, by legislating early, they can give potential providers clarity over the service that will be required, allowing them to prepare their bids and form partnerships. However, while the Bill may be clear to those who have drafted it, there is a considerable lack of clarity about the achievability of what it is designed to enable. I ask the Minister to seriously consider delaying the Committee stage of the Bill—which I note is to be on 5 June, three days after the House resumes—because it leaves precious little time, either for noble Lords to prepare amendments or for the Government to provide answers to the questions that have been asked this afternoon, including those that the Secretary of State was unable to answer on a recent Radio 4 interview.

I admit that, during all the thinking about the Bill, some words of Shakespeare have been coming into my mind, from act 3, scene 2 of “The Tempest”, in which Caliban says:

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not”.

I am afeard that the isle that is the transforming rehabilitation exercise, including the Bill, is full of soundbites and hot air that give hurt and delight not. Like other noble Lords, I look forward to having those fears allayed during the passage of the Bill.

Probation Service: Community-sentenced Offenders

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ramsbotham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the management of community-sentenced offenders will remain the responsibility of the Probation Service.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Transforming Rehabilitation consultation by my department closed on 22 February and we are now considering our response. We have proposed opening up the market for rehabilitation services to a more diverse range of providers, but the public sector will retain ultimate responsibility for public protection and will manage directly those offenders who pose the highest risk of serious harm to the public.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Last week, the Justice Secretary appeared before the Justice Select Committee in another place and said that we have a duty to supervise offenders in a consistent way and that he wanted to make the probation world more independent of Government and the big bureaucratic documents that tell them how to do their job. For 100 years until recently dissolved by its subordination to prisons, the probation service, in partnership with the police and the courts, was responsible for the consistent supervision of community-sentenced offenders independent of such interference. Can the Minister tell the House how the Justice Secretary’s proposed division of responsibility for the supervision of different types of offender between probation and an unknown number of untried private and voluntary sector organisations will better honour his duty of consistency?

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!