Probation Service

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend has paraphrased what the chief inspector of probation, the probation trusts and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations have said, which I will come to shortly.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I would like to make some progress first, if that is okay with the hon. Lady.

Over the past few days, the Justice Secretary has claimed that the pilots in Peterborough and Doncaster prisons show that his plans work. If he is honest with himself, he will know that that is nonsense. Those pilots are not only completely different from his plans for probation but are nowhere near to finishing, let alone being evaluated, although the interim results show that they are far from being a huge success. He should know better.

We must not let the Justice Secretary pull the wool over our eyes by saying that only low and medium-risk offenders will be in the hands of G4S, Serco and their ilk, as though only those caught stealing chocolate bars will be in their hands. Risk level is not directly related to the original crime committed. Offenders rated low and medium-risk include those convicted of domestic violence, burglary, robbery, violence against the person, sexual offences, and much more. I asked the Ministry of Justice how many offenders would be covered by these ratings and how many would be transferred over. It could not tell me how many of the 260,000 offenders supervised by the probation service are high, medium or low risk. You could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker! However, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is a wonderful thing. Using FOI, we have uncovered that the number of medium and low-risk offenders who will be handed over to the likes of G4S and Serco is 217,569.

[Sadiq Khan]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and then to my hon. Friend.

[Caroline Lucas]

That is very kind of the right hon. Gentleman and I am grateful. He spoke about the higher reoffending rates for those sentenced to less than 12 months. Is not that an argument in favour of extending the good practice of the probation service in allowing it to take over that area rather than contracting it out? The probation service is currently meeting or exceeding its targets, so if we let it work in that area as well, it can do equally well there.

[Sadiq Khan]

One would have thought that because the Justice Secretary is saying that we should extend supervision to those who have received a sentence of less than 12 months, he accepts that probation works and that the probation trusts are doing a good job, but no: he is abolishing the probation trusts and giving the big boys in the private sector responsibility for supervising those offenders. His argument is illogical.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

Our probation staff are not prohibited from bidding. We have teams of staff who are preparing mutual bids, some of which will, I hope, be successful. They are receiving help from the Cabinet Office to do so, and we are hoping to see members of our current team take this opportunity, win contracts, and go on to make a real difference.

[Caroline Lucas]

The Government claim that private providers will have the tools they need to assess offender risks, but the proposals refer to a new and untried risk of serious recidivism model. Is the Minister aware of concerns that that could lead to private companies wrongly assessing the most serious cases—those with low risk of recidivism but high on the risk of harm, such as convicted murderers and rape offenders—and will he commit, in the interests of public safety, to proper piloting and external validation of any new tool before its implementation and before the creation of community rehabilitation companies?

[Chris Grayling]

We intend to use the same systems across the public, private and voluntary sectors—that is enormously important—so that there will be no question of people using different systems. It will be part of the contracting structure that what the public national probation service, working with the most serious offenders, uses will also be used by contractors.