Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2019

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 General Committees

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

We recognise that alcohol is a serious driver for offending in cases of violent assault and domestic abuse. We further recognise that alcohol monitoring tags provide clear benefits and have a prominent role to play in reducing reoffending that is linked to alcohol. We therefore support giving those who impose sentences the power to use sobriety tags and AAMR orders, where they are appropriate.

We are clear that our support for the tags and AAMR orders is based on the evidence that has been provided by the Government, which the Minister set out eloquently. It shows that there is a high level of compliance and that AAMR orders are an effective way of reducing reoffending driven by alcohol. However, that does not mean that there are no questions that the Government must answer over the national roll-out of AAMR orders.

While the Government have carried out two pilots of AAMR orders in London and across the Humber, Lincoln and North Yorkshire region, we are concerned about the significant length of time that they were in place before the national roll-out. The Government must clarify why the pilots were in place for a number of years—much longer than would have been presumed necessary—and why, after having hopefully learned so much over such a length of time, AAMR orders are now being rolled out nationally only in an incremental way.

The Government must set out whether the two pilots will be independently evaluated, and whether their findings will be publicly available and widely circulated to demonstrate that the evidence base for a national roll-out is built not just on enthusiastic backing from certain stakeholders, but on credible data that demonstrates beneficial impact. Pilots of new technology and procedures will almost always be welcomed to get things right and iron out any issues, but they must also always be open and transparent to ensure that the right lessons are learned.

We are concerned about the Government’s track record on electronic monitoring contracts, with the fiasco over 24/7 GPS location tagging fresh in our minds. Originally announced in 2011 for a national roll-out in 2013, those location monitoring tags ended up being delayed for five years at a cost of millions of pounds to the taxpayer, with the supposed cost-saving benefits not now expected to be fulfilled. That alone is serious enough, and should disqualify those involved from participating in the programme of rolling out and administering the use of sobriety tags, but the issues with the tagging contracts go much deeper.

In 2013, the Serious Fraud Office was forced to investigate the irregularities in Serco and G4S’s handling of the GPS location tagging contract. A criminal investigation found that Serco had charged the Ministry of Justice for tagging people who were dead, in prison or abroad. With such a record, G4S and Serco must not be allowed anywhere near another tagging contract if the public are to have confidence in the system. The Minister must guarantee today that the delays and costs of the GPS location tags will not be repeated in the case of sobriety tags, so that security and value for money are delivered for the taxpayer.

The Minister must make it clear that, unlike what has been done with the probation service, he will not further reward the failure of private companies in the criminal justice system. Under the Ministry of Justice’s public procurement regulations, there is a clear basis for disqualifying Serco, G4S and any others involved in fraud from bidding for and participating in the sobriety tagging programme on the grounds of a significant deficiency, so he must categorically rule it out.

With the prison system stretched to breaking point and internal MOJ figures reporting that our prisons will be full by the end of the year, the Government must set out what provisions are in place to ensure that offenders who breach AAMR orders do not put further undue pressure on our prisons. The Government must ensure that existing alcohol and substance misuse treatment services in our prisons, which are in a dire state, are strengthened to ensure that offenders do not have problems with alcohol and drugs, but have the support that they need.

The London pilot reported that the use of AAMR orders did not place a significant additional burden on stakeholders and responsible officers. The Government must guarantee, however, that that will also be prevented in the national roll-out, particularly considering the substantial understaffing and overworking of people in the National Probation Service that was recently reported by Her Majesty’s chief inspector of probation.

With alcohol abuse a significant factor in many domestic abuse cases, I hope that the Minister will heed the advice of stakeholders in the MOPAC pilot, who stated that AAMR orders should be imposed alongside specialist programmes, such as the building better relationships programme, to address the thinking and behavioural causes of domestic abuse reoffending and the ongoing risk of further abuse and harm. I hope that the Government will commit to naming a date by which the domestic abuse Bill will finally be reintroduced to Parliament after being dropped twice. I have learned that it may receive its First Reading tomorrow, but I wait to hear if the Minister is aware of that.

I hope that the Minister will commit to ensuring that the national roll-out of sobriety tags will not end up like previous MOJ contracts, give a guarantee that the contracts will neither overrun nor overspend, and make a firm pledge that G4S and Serco will be disqualified from the process, based on their previous conduct, so that the public and sentencers can have the confidence they need in the programme.