Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

Parliament has on previous occasions decided against the ousting of the High Court’s judicial review jurisdiction. The Supreme Court recently indicated that it considered it would not be appropriate for the Government to take that route. However, improvements are being made. The legal aid reforms currently before Parliament seek to remove legal aid from repeat applications for judicial review in immigration and asylum cases.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

13. What recent progress he has made in implementing his policy of payment by results to reduce the rate of reoffending.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I advise the Minister, for next month the answers should be a bit shorter. They are just a bit too long.

[Ben Gummer]

I thank the Minister for that careful reply. He will be aware of the Justice Committee’s recommendation that contracts should follow the offender through the criminal justice system, rather than attach themselves to the various institutions through which he or she might pass. What progress has the Department made in considering those proposals?

[Mr Blunt]

My hon. Friend will have realised, given the number of pilots we are conducting—I am sorry, Mr Speaker, that the list was too long for me to deliver satisfactorily—that we are testing the different elements of the system to identify the best and most effective way to deliver payment by results. I hope that, in the end, we can deliver the offender-centric process on which my hon. Friend relies, once we have identified which part of the system makes offenders best respond to effective rehabilitation measures.