Probation Services

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie [V]]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate makes an extremely good point. We are concerned to ensure that these smaller organisations will be in a position to deliver the sort of rehabilitation and resettlement services in which they have excelled in the past and in which we are confident they will excel in the future. We have endeavoured to make the bidding process under the dynamic framework as light-touch as possible and have engaged Clinks, the umbrella organisation, to try to ensure that the whole process will be open to the sort of charitable and voluntary organisations that the right reverend Prelate has referred to.

[Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]]

I congratulate my noble and learned friend and the Government on the decision to reunify probation services, which clearly has widespread support. Does he agree that probation is an often-unsung service, in which probation officers work hard to improve life chances for those stuck in the cycle of reoffending? These reforms will help them to deliver probation services that can improve offender rehabilitation and enhance protection for the public.

[Lord Keen of Elie [V]]

My Lords, we consider that these reforms will enhance the delivery of probation services; indeed, there would be little point in undertaking them unless that was a deep-rooted belief. I hope that the probation service is not an underestimated or unsung part of the justice system. I believe that, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, observed, it is acknowledged to be a critical part of our justice system. We certainly hope that these reforms will lead to a strengthened and more effective probation service, but we acknowledge the work that it has already done.