Probation Reform

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Yes. That is a very important point and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. When it comes to bringing down reoffending, making sure that we address issues of mental health and substance abuse will be key. This is not just about probation, but probation has a vital role to play.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Across the country, voluntary sector organisations do a high volume of extremely impressive and successful work with ex-offenders, much of which was undermined by the part privatisation of the probation service. Now that services are going to be tendered under the core interventions programme, can the Minister give me some assurances that he will prioritise voluntary sector organisations, as they provide the best results when it comes to issues such as housing and substance abuse, and that he will not award these contracts to private organisations that exist just to make a profit and deliver services that are not as good?

[Mr Gauke]

We will certainly want to prioritise organisations that deliver the best results; that is the key task. As the hon. Gentleman says, it is often the smaller voluntary services that are able to do that. At this point, it is not a question of providing specific targets as such. We want to ensure that the organisations that are best placed to deliver high-quality services—often from the voluntary sector—are in a strong position to be able to do that work.