Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady has not understood what we are seeking to achieve. The Select Committee observed, in a good piece of work, that the present system was far too bureaucratic, and that only a minority of probation time was spent on working with offenders. We are seeking to create a simpler system in which we give much more professional freedom to those on the front line. We want to deliver an environment in which we can mentor and support people, and we want to bring together the best of the public, private and voluntary sectors, not only to make the system more efficient but to deliver high-quality mentoring.

The hon. Lady raised the question of performance. The probation trusts are currently hitting many targets, but there is one simple reality at the heart of all this: reoffending is currently increasing, and I do not think that that is good enough.

Let me explain some of what the Bill will actually do. Clause 2 provides for this group of offenders to spend the second half of their sentences subject to licence conditions in the community, like all other prisoners. Clause 3 creates an innovative period of additional supervision, which is added to the licence to make a total of 12 months' mandatory rehabilitation and support after release. I think that that is the least that we should have in our system; it is extraordinary that we do not have it already.

The supervision period is there not to punish offenders, but to help them to move away from crime. We want those who work with offenders to try new, innovative approaches to rehabilitation. I look forward to seeing the voluntary sector, for example, playing a much larger role. We all see good work done in that sector, and I want to see more of it being done in our formal systems.

A range of flexible requirements can be imposed during the supervision period. They are set out in schedule 1, and include participating in rehabilitative activities including restorative justice, being tested for drugs, and attending appointments to address drug misuse. Those requirements are designed to give those who work with offenders the ability to steer them during the months after their release from prison. The freedom to innovate will be critical to the driving down of reoffending rates in this group.

We are focusing particularly on drug use, which is common among offenders who are serving custodial sentences. Two thirds of those who are serving sentences of less than 12 months have used class A drugs, while three quarters have used class B or class C drugs. Drug use among prisoners is also strongly associated with reconviction on release. The rate of reconviction among prisoners who report having used drugs in the four weeks before custody is more than double the rate among those who have never used drugs. That applies to drugs in class A, class B and class C.

Clause 12 expands the current power to test offenders for drugs while they are on licence to include class B as well as class A drugs. Schedule 1 creates an equivalent testing condition for the supervision period that will follow the licence period. All that is an essential part of trying to ensure that when people come out of prison, we do all that we can to move them off drugs as quickly as possible, in a regime in which they are obliged to take part.

Let me now explain what will happen if an offender does not engage with supervision. Breach of any of the supervision requirements will be dealt with by the magistrates courts, and there will be an important new role for lay justices and district judges. Clause 4 provides a flexible set of sanctions that magistrates may—not must—impose if a breach is proved. They can impose a fine, between 20 and 60 hours of community payback, a curfew with an electronic tag, or committal back to custody. There is no “escalator” approach requiring a more onerous sanction to be used if a lighter-touch one has been imposed before.

The Bill also makes reforms to the two types of sentence that are served in the community—suspended sentence orders and community orders. Reoffending rates following those sentences are less stark than those following short prison sentences, but it is no less important for us to address them. Nearly everyone who ends up in our prisons has previously served a community sentence, and many of those people experience problems similar to those experienced by short-sentence offenders: problems involving mental health, alcohol consumption and drug misuse. Clause 15 creates a new rehabilitation activity requirement to mirror the new supervision condition that will be available for offenders who are released from short prison sentences. As with the top-up supervision period created by clause 3, that will provide maximum flexibility for those working with offenders, enabling them to instruct them to attend appointments or participate in activities.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I have a question concerning the flexibility in the new rehabilitation requirements. Can the Justice Secretary give me an assurance about the current 2003 requirements, in particular the mental health, alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirements that have not yet come into force, and where there is a real need for the courts to ensure that the orders are carried out? I know from my own experience that, sadly, orders have not always been complied with. Can he assure me that those powers will still remain even though there will be that flexibility?

[Chris Grayling]

The powers will certainly remain. What will be different is that having a 12-month supervision period—a period of mentoring—for people once they have left prison, or for those going through a community sentence, will provide much more of a pressure-point to get them to turn up for rehabilitation and go for mental health treatment, because there will be someone working alongside them who gets to know them and to understand them, and who can cajole and encourage them.

It is worth highlighting the experience we have had so far in Peterborough. There has been a huge drop in the relative level of reoffending; the number of crimes committed by the cohort going through the Peterborough trial is much lower than that committed by their equivalents in other parts of the country. The overall reoffending rate has fallen as well. That is a success story we should build on, and we will build on it.

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[Chris Grayling]

Clearly, we will see the same level of support provided for women and men. The hon. Lady will, of course, have seen in the document we published recently on women offenders that our direction of travel is clearly towards creating smaller units close to where women live, so that we can maintain the family ties. We are trialling a new approach at HMP Styal in Cheshire, whereby we will have a hostel under the wing of the Prison Service, but outside a prison institution, with open conditions. We are looking to see whether we can deliver a different kind of model for the detention of women offenders that can make a genuine difference to them. Successive Governments have wanted to achieve support through the gate for short-sentence offenders, and we will seek to achieve it for men and women alike.

[Mr Burrowes]

The model of good practice on through-the-gate mentoring is the transitional support service, the longest-running and largest mentoring service. G4S, which delivers the service, does get a bad name, but when one looks at the results and the evidence from the evaluation, one finds that this is a very effective practice model which works alongside the public and voluntary and community sector organisations to deliver through-the-gate mentoring for men and women. That example needs to be followed in Wales—[Interruption.] This is all about women in Wales. [Interruption.] That is exactly what the transitional support service does.

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, new Labour believed in public and private and voluntary sector partnerships, but those days are long gone. Such partnerships can make a real difference. Large swathes of Wales have no prison capacity at all, and this Government are seeking to address that by building a major new prison in north Wales, so that many prisoners currently detained elsewhere can be detained in Wales.

Successive Governments have wanted to achieve support through the gate for short-sentence offenders, and this Bill will finally deliver it. This Bill will provide rehabilitation to a group of offenders who desperately need it; it will give those working with offenders the freedom to innovate and tailor their interventions to what each individual needs; and it will stop the cycle of reoffending that creates so many victims in our communities. Its provisions should command the support of hon. Members from all parties. The fact that the Labour party wants to destroy it is just a further sign of how far that party has moved back to its political roots and away from a world of common sense. If the Opposition have their way, the losers will be victims of crime up and down this country and young people whose lives will be wasted.

Let us finish by reminding Labour Members what they are voting for tonight. This Bill does not reform the probation service—it does not create a new structure for the probation service. It simply provides support for people who get short prison sentences for 12 months after they leave prison. The Labour party has always said that it supported that and has said so all year, but tonight, in this House, Labour Members are to vote against it. I think that that is disingenuous to say the least.

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[Sadiq Khan]

Let’s make a promise: if the Justice Secretary publishes his risk register now, when I am Justice Secretary, should I do what he is trying to do —God forbid—I will publish the risk register. He crosses his arms, but he cannot deny that his risk register says that there will be an 80% risk of an unacceptable drop in operational performance. That is playing fast and loose with public safety. He is not willing to publish his risk register.

I have not finished listing those who are on the first side of the argument. I have mentioned the probation trust chairs, the chief inspector of probation, The Economist, probation staff and the Justice Secretary’s risk register. The former chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, said that the Bill was “being rushed through”, and that “Many…questions remain unanswered”. That is not all. The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, has said:

“I am afraid it is obvious that, because they are…in a hurry, the preparations that the Government have made for the introduction of this scale of change are very modest indeed.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 May 2013; Vol. 745, c. 653.]

[Mr Burrowes]

I want to understand the position. The right hon. Gentleman has at last accepted that there was an anomaly for 13 years under the previous Government. They failed to provide proper statutory supervision for offenders with shorter sentences. Is he saying that he will urge all hon. Members today to decline to give the Bill a Second Reading and to decline to give any empowerment to ensure such supervision, which he recognises is needed? He is playing politics and will be letting down offenders, victims and taxpayers tonight.

[Sadiq Khan]

One cannot will the ends without the means. It is nonsense to suggest that simply pulling a lever will make that happen. It will not happen. We tried to do it, and I will shortly come to our efforts to put in place custody plus.

On the other side of the debate are a few loyal Back Benchers and the Justice Secretary who is purposely not bringing before Parliament his plans for restructuring probation, thereby avoiding proper scrutiny and debate, and is rushing ahead at breakneck speed in implementing these plans, not interested in whether there is any evidence that his plans will work, dismissing expert evidence and instead basing his decision to roll his plans out on his gut instinct—the same gut instinct that brought us the failing Work programme in his former role.

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[Paul Goggins]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who is a great expert on this issue. I am happy to admit that he and I have not always agreed on every point about probation over the years, but he well understands that service, what happens on the front line and the difficult judgments and assessments that probation officers have to make when faced with people who can often be dangerous and difficult in the context of the chaotic lives that many of them lead. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention.

Reference has been made to the concerns of police and crime commissioners. This is interesting, because these are the new people elected under this Government’s reforms, yet they, too, are expressing concerns. They are doing so because they understand the importance of local partnerships for reducing crime and managing offenders. They are deeply worried that this Government’s proposals will erode those relationships, weaken them and put public safety at risk. That is why they are expressing their concerns.

Another major issue is that two of the major private sector providers, which are the most likely bidders for the work on offer from the Ministry of Justice—G4S and Serco—are under criminal investigation, following allegations of their over-charging for services that they are already contracted to provide for the MOJ. I give credit to the Justice Secretary, because when he found out about this, he came to the House to make a statement and has taken appropriate action since then. I commend him for that, but the implication of his robust approach is that these two companies should be sidelined from the process of contract allocation at this stage. I say that not as someone who is ideologically opposed to the private sector having a role in this sphere—quite the reverse.

[Mr Burrowes]

What the right hon. Gentleman has just said prompts me to suggest that it is important to have a sense of proportion. It is true that an investigation is taking place in relation to G4S and Serco, but both the right hon. Gentleman and I are firm advocates of restorative justice, and G4S has done great work in that regard at, for example, Altcourse prison near Liverpool. The 70,000 G4S employees who are involved in the programme there are likely to be concerned about their own future, but many of them are working extremely hard to provide support and rehabilitation, and, not least, restorative justice.

[Paul Goggins]

The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed those issues in Committee and in the Chamber, and I know that he speaks genuinely, but the crucial question relates to who commissions the service. If a local probation trust that understands the local need asks G4S to do the job, fair enough, but that is not what is on offer in this instance. What is on offer is that the Ministry of Justice down here in Whitehall will decide which private sector organisation should do the job, whether it be in Greater Manchester, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, or elsewhere. That is what concerns me.

As I was about to say, I am not ideologically opposed to the provision of a role for the private sector. During the recent Opposition day debate, I referred to a report from Lord Carter of Coles which advocated greater contestability and a greater diversity of providers. I supported that report, and I still support it. I think that good work can come from the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector. What I am critical of is the straitjacket approach that the Secretary of State is imposing on the whole probation service.

Members in all parts of the House have already raised a number of important questions, even before we have dealt with the question of the untested payment-by-results model that the Secretary of State seeks to impose. I support innovation in the criminal justice system. We should be determined to lower reoffending rates, and we should be looking for new ideas in that regard. The Peterborough and Doncaster pilots are interesting pilots, but that is all that they are: interesting pilots. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) noted from a sedentary position earlier, they are voluntary. Only two thirds of those who are eligible to take part in them actually do so, and they are likely to be more motivated than others when it comes to cutting risks, stopping offending, and getting back on to the straight and narrow.

The Secretary of State has said that the results of the pilots so far are very encouraging, and we should take account of that, but I urge Ministers also to listen to the critics and experts who say “Let us be a little more cautious before jumping to national conclusions based on two local, voluntary pilots”—especially because those who have served short sentences often have the most chaotic lifestyles, are the most likely not to have jobs or homes, and are the most likely to reoffend. They are the most challenging group.

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) made an interesting and wise observation earlier when, in an intervention, he spoke of the role of the voluntary sector in a payment-by-results system. Such a system ought to present an opportunity to voluntary organisations, but the danger is—and I have heard this fear expressed—that the context and culture of payment by results will deter and undermine the many voluntary organisations that are doing great work in helping to turn people’s lives around, and they will lose a role rather than gaining one.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting pointed out earlier, the Secretary of State has form when it comes to payment by results. I have looked at the latest payment-by-results figures relating to the Work programme. The September figures confirm that, even now, the system is not meeting even the minimum expectations of the Department for Work and Pensions. Indeed, three providers have already been penalised for poor performance.

It is instructive to look at what the Work programme has been doing for offenders, which is highly relevant to today’s debate. Of the 19,800 offenders who were released in 2012 and referred to the programme, only 360 had been found a job by June this year. I think that Ministers should be extremely cautious, rather than over-bullish and over-claiming, when it comes to the results of the Work programme and of payment by results.

There are obviously many questions to be answered, and that is before we have dealt with the practical issues of appointing staff, transferring cases, getting the IT up and running, sorting out the offices, renegotiating contracts, and ending existing contracts. All that must be done not in five years, but in five minutes; or, at any rate, in the weeks and months that lie ahead. Serious Ministers—and I include the prisons Minister in that class—should pause to reflect on precisely where things are at the moment. The prisons Minister should do what he has been asked to do—certainly by Labour Members, and, I suspect, by Government Members who have serious concerns—and organise a proper pilot that is properly evaluated. If he is right, that is fine, but if aspects of the model are not correct, he should think again. In other words, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting said, he should be led by the evidence and not by ideology.

As I have said, I think that the central ambition of the Bill is a good one, and in principle I support it. I said the same during the Opposition day debate a few days ago, and I was grateful to my right hon. Friend for quoting from my speech earlier. I wanted to implement custody plus, and I was frustrated by our inability to introduce it when we were in government, because—for all the reasons that have been given today—the people whom we are discussing are the very people who need help, supervision and support the most. The obstacle was the £194 million a year that it would have cost to introduce custody plus: I am happy to admit that, and to express my frustration about it.

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[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship for the first time.

I want to pay tribute to the wide experience we have across the House in relation to criminal justice. There are criminal defence solicitor practitioners such as me and my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), there is the Justice Committee Chairman, who has served in this House for 40 years, throughout that time championing the cause of rehabilitation, and there is the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins), who has a good track-record as a Minister. It is a great shame, however, that we cannot unite cross-party around offender rehabilitation.

Members are saying that they agree, in their different ways, with the principle and substance of this Bill, but we cannot unite on it. Everyone who has been involved in this area, whether as a criminal defence practitioner, a Minister, a Select Committee Chairman or a constituency Member, will know what to make of what the shadow Justice Secretary referred to as an anomaly, which was the closest he got to an apology for the previous Government leaving this huge area unreformed. At long last we have a Government who are making offender rehabilitation the centrepiece of a criminal justice Bill.

Every year Members spend time in this House and in Committee scrutinising yet another criminal justice Bill and putting more offences on the statute book, responding, perhaps, to popular––or populist––demand, but not getting to the crux of the problem, which is offender rehabilitation and sky-high reoffending rates. What a shame that we cannot unite today to give a Second Reading to this Bill even though we agree on its main principle, which is tackling short-term sentencing and ensuring that rehabilitation is mandatory.

I pay tribute to the probation service, and many concerns have been expressed on its behalf. I know it well, as representatives of the service have come to see me recently, and I also know from my 20 years as a criminal defence solicitor about the excellent and diligent work done by probation staff. We have heard about the long hours they work, and how they deal with complex cases and issues. They cannot just tick a box to get someone out of the cycle of crime, and probation service staff are willing to go the extra mile and engage with non-criminal justice services to ensure someone gets into work, restores family relationships and addresses all the other areas that we know serve to drive down reoffending.

Although we must ensure that we keep those skills in the service and that the measures in this Bill support that, we must also recognise something we have not heard enough of: what members of the public, both victims and taxpayers, think when they see reoffending rates in respect of short-term sentences of 58%. That is failure. That is 58% service failure, and if any other service or business—although some people do not like talking too much about business—had a 58% product failure rate, people would say, “We have to do something about this.”

This is a catastrophic failure by the previous Government, not merely an anomaly. This is a massive gap in the previous Government’s policy in relation to criminal justice, despite the best efforts of the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East. Although they put custody plus on the statute book, they failed to implement it and ensure we could provide a better service to our constituents. They are the people who have had to live with and put up with—sometimes as victims—people coming back and repeating crime, as a result of that failure.

It is all very well saying, “We failed because of cost. We don’t have the cost”, but we heard no answers from the Opposition as to what they are going to do about that, apart from making this political point about clause 1. All they could say was, “We tried to put it on the statute book. But we did not do anything about it—we did not implement it—and we could not do it because of cost.” That is not good enough—it is not good enough for all those people are the recipients of that 58% failure rate—and we must do more. Whenever there is a 58% service failure, there is a need for change. There is a need for leadership change, and we have got that, because we now have a Secretary of State who is willing to be bold and radical, and wants to do something about the situation. That is why I applaud the principle of this Bill, which is about offender rehabilitation. However, we also need to change how we do that.

What is the bottom line here? Sadly, we have a dividing line, which is going to become evident at the Division, between those who support the Second Reading and the principle of the Bill—those who say that the status quo is unacceptable—and those on the side of the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who says, “The status quo is acceptable. We are just going to have to talk to the probation service.” He is going to talk, but what more? He is saying, in effect, that we should sideline this issue of service change for another 18 months and not get on with the job. We can talk about the issues of implementation and about how we need practically to carry out the principle of the Offender Management Act 2007, but why is he wanting to have dividing lines at this stage?

All hon. Members would like to see more mentoring to ensure that people actually get “through the gate”. I understand that 65% of offenders say, “If I had that mentor who took me through the gate, it would have a dramatic effect on my offending.” We cannot just have the status quo. As I mentioned in an intervention, there are cases where the private, voluntary and public sectors provide mentoring, but they are all too infrequent and the mentoring is voluntary, not mandatory. At its heart, the Bill is saying that there will be mandatory supervision, and that is about mentoring. We will not just have the same situation, whereby what people see through the gate is not that mentor who takes them into rehabilitation, but the drug dealer waiting for them, or their mates who are going to get them back into the same cycle of crime. For the sake of these people, we are not going to put up with the status quo tonight.

Sadly, 62% of these offenders will not get into employment after their release, and that status quo is also unacceptable. They are going to go on jobseeker’s allowance, and attempts will be made to get them back into work through the Work programme and other schemes. All too often, they get back into the only career they know, which they have learned all too well in prison: a repeated career in crime. That is not acceptable.

Nor is the status quo acceptable in terms of drug misuse, which, as we all know, is prolific. We know that 64% of prisoners will have taken drugs in the four weeks before going into prison. We can intervene and do all we can in prisons, and good work is going on in rehabilitation wings. RAPt—the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners trust—and other agencies are doing good work trying to ensure that we turn people around in the captive community of prison. However, what we need to do is ensure that when they get out of prison they are released into the hands of drug treatment providers and have the appointment that is going to be mandated in this legislation. That matters greatly and it shows why the status quo is not acceptable for these people, too. Too often, not only are they not getting off drugs, but they are getting more addicted to them in prison. If we cannot sort these people out in prison, we need to do more to ensure that we get them off drugs when they get out.

We have not heard so much about families in this debate, but 200,000 children in England and Wales have a parent in prison. That is extremely significant, as is the fact that at least 40% of these prisoners say that if there was that family support—those visits from family—when they are in prison and, crucially, continued support when they are released, it would have a dramatic effect on whether they reoffend. The status quo is unacceptable not only for the offenders, but for their families—their children. The evidence of intergenerational crime is growing, and for those children it is not acceptable for us to sit and argue around the edges today; we must take a stand and say that the status quo is unacceptable.

I declare an interest as a criminal defence solicitor. In some ways, I have a perverse interest in not voting for the Bill’s Second Reading tonight. In many ways, my trade has an interest in this reoffending cycle continuing, my filing cabinet being full, with lots of new clients coming through the system. In many ways, it is not in my interest to vote for Second Reading, but it clearly is because I have a duty to ensure that we do all we can to prevent reoffending. I will be on the side of the public and victims, who want to do more.

We have the framework in the 2007 Act that enables us to put in place the contestability to allow proper rehabilitation. In some ways, what I heard in some of the speeches from Opposition Members is a throwback to the olden days, but if they listened to what their colleagues said many years ago, they would hear very different things. If they had listened to the speeches made by the then Home Secretary in 2006, they would have heard the following words:

“There is only so much that internal reform of the probation service can achieve”.

They would also have heard:

“There is no need for all of these jobs to be done by the same agency…we need to match appropriate skills to appropriate tasks to free up professional probation officers to focus on the most serious criminals in the community.”

Those words were a precursor to the 2007 Act. How things have changed in the Labour Opposition’s rhetoric now; they are certainly going against the principles behind the 2007 Act.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

On that quote from the debate around the 2007 Act, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that those words were aimed at the establishment of probation trusts and not at their abolition, which is what this Bill will lead to?

[Mr Burrowes]

The quote’s focus is on matching appropriate skills to appropriate tasks. We must ensure that the skills of probation staff are properly matched, not only so that they can deal with serious criminals, but so that we can use the best people around to secure rehabilitation for short-sentence offenders. Of course probation staff are going to be needed. They are going to be in the front line, because they are the experts, to ensure that the new organisations that are working to deliver payment by results are going to do the job. Of course, they are not going to ignore these skills, but we need to focus on how we can match the appropriate skills to the demands we face.

We face new demands, because we have recognised that there is unfinished business here. Dealing with offenders on short sentences is unfinished business that we cannot simply ignore by saying it is a matter of costs. We need to find a way, a model, to deliver rehabilitation to these people. Payment by results has been mentioned, so I will go into a little more detail about that mechanism because I have some experience of it. We should not ignore the value of paying for success. It may provide an opportunity and, indeed, a profit for some companies, but success will be measured by a mechanism of ensuring that offending is reduced, but that has a dramatic effect on people’s lives, on rehabilitating the individual and on the public, the victims and the taxpayer.

Taxpayers hearing this debate will think the current situation extraordinary. They will say, “Is it the case that in law we do not have to rehabilitate or supervise released prisoners who were serving less than 12 months? When we look at the cohort of the most prolific, who are causing the most damage in our community, is it not extraordinary that it has taken this long, and this amount of debate on and scrutiny of different criminal justice Bills, for us to have, at last, a principle that we must mandate supervision of this category? Why was this never in place before?” They may then even ask the Opposition, who want to divide the House on Second Reading, why they are trying to stand in the way of progress and of the principle of rehabilitating this cohort.

Clause 1, which took up some time while being scrutinised in the other place, is relevant in the sense of dealing with implementation, but it is impractical to suggest that we must come back before the House when any change is made to the probation service. To my mind, although I respect the experienced people who moved clause 1, it is more in line with an early-day motion to which people can sign up to make a political point, to make a noise and to show concern. It does not have practical value. We must get serious about how we can implement our approach practically.

I agree with the principles of the Bill. It is properly focused on the taxpayer, who has not had much of a mention, on the victim and, indeed, on the offender, to ensure that we consider the results and outcomes so that we do what we all want to do—that is, reduce offending—whether the work takes place in the private, public or voluntary sector.

We must be careful in how we approach the private sector. G4S and Serco are bandied about as though we were going to throw out the private sector from any relationship or involvement with rehabilitation, but it is also important not to trash the 70,000 G4S employees or those employed by Serco. I do not understate the serious investigation into some of the contracts, but we are also dealing with contracts on rehabilitation, getting people through the gate and mentoring. I mentioned the transitional support service in Wales, which deals with women and men. It has been evaluated independently as a most effective model, which is producing great success. The problem is that the system is voluntary, whereas the Bill is about making it mandatory, as well as the schemes operating around the country.

We have work in prisons; for example, Altcourse prison has an employment programme that provides 40 hours’ work in prison. Years ago, many a Minister would have dreamed about that and it happens through G4S and the private sector. We must recognise that those contracts must happen in partnership with those in the public and voluntary sector so that we can deliver and upscale the good schemes, as we are now mandated to.

I want to refer to some of the requirements on drugs and alcohol rehabilitation. I particularly welcome the mandated requirement for drug rehabilitation appointments. That is needed and should happen for appointments not just in the statutory service but in the voluntary service. The great hidden army delivering rehabilitation—the “Anonymous” groups—would also welcome such a move. That happens in other countries: they specify directionally that requirements should include an appointment at an “Anonymous” group. I would welcome that.

I welcome the flexibility in the Bill on rehabilitation activity requirements but, as I said in my intervention on the Justice Secretary, it is important that we also recognise the value of the specific requirements under previous legislation, not least those on mental health and alcohol and drug rehabilitation. Indeed, the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement is still in force and is being piloted, and I would not want us to lose that valuable measure. I want an assurance that we will be able to do that properly.

The court also has a crucial role. Drug rehabilitation requirements have been ordered in some cases and, for one reason or another, have not been delivered on the ground. The court has had to come back and say that they are a requirement of the court that must be delivered. There must be reviews by the court, which has a crucial role. Yes, we need flexibility for those delivering rehabilitation, but the courts have an important part to play.

Finally, we must consider implementation carefully. I recognise the concerns that people have raised about payment by results, but we have already been there. The Work programme has been mentioned, but I want to mention the drugs recovery pilots. I have had a particular role in helping to model those pilots and in seeing how they have worked out, particularly in my patch, Enfield. It is important to recognise that this area is complicated, that such schemes take careful local design and that the matter must be handled with care. I recognise that, but it is also important that we are not fixated on the price mechanism, the amount that is paid and whom it is paid to. One lesson learned from the pilots has been that the service has been transformed. They have linked together not just the drug treatment providers but those who want to support people into housing and employment. The service change brings those organisations together under a payment mechanism.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying about payment by results and drugs initiatives. He is right that lessons are being learned through piloting. Is he not concerned that the 70% sell-off of probation to be delivered by payment by results is being done with no piloting whatsoever?

[Mr Burrowes]

My point is that there have been many different pilots in the past few years that have considered different ways of ensuring that we are more driven by outcomes than by process. One of the great failures of the previous Government, not least on drug treatment, was that it was all based on process and on ticking a box. Indeed, the so-called payment by results was payment by activity, driven not by rehabilitation and outcomes but by the numbers of people getting into treatment. That is why it is important to recognise that payment by results has a crucial role to play across all public services, but will vary from service to service. We must therefore handle with care how we deliver payment by results on criminal justice.

I want to offer some advice on the LASARS, or the local area single assessment and referral systems—we are all into acronyms when we have service changes. They have had a particularly good effect, not least because they are locally based. They are also based on single assessments and many of us involved in the criminal justice system will be all too aware of the repetitive assessments throughout the system that lack continuity and delivery of change. LASARS allow a single assessment in the criminal justice and non-criminal justice worlds. Payment by results offers us the opportunity to get away from the criminal justice mindset in that regard. Public health interest concerns, mental health concerns and educational concerns must be dealt with under a wider remit than that simply required by a criminal justice model. That is why we need to make the most of the opportunity offered by the LASARS, which would help refer people to the right places through a single assessment.

Co-design is also important and we must recognise its value. One such example can be found in London, where the Mayor, Boris Johnson, has helped pilot Project Daedalus, which focuses on the rehabilitation of young offenders through the resettlement wing at Feltham. That cohort had appalling reoffending rates at 70%, yet through the scheme he did so much better. The project was radical in that there was a resettlement broker who could negotiate with employers, accommodation providers, drug rehabilitation providers and others to try to ensure that rehabilitation was delivered.

[Mike Wood]

Is the vast improvement at Feltham the reason that the Government plan to close it?

[Mr Burrowes]

The hon. Gentleman will note the welcome fall in the number of young people in custody, for which the Government can take credit. Feltham is a good example of new models and new ways of doing things. The old Feltham, based almost on a borstal-type approach, is past its sell-by date in many ways—

[Mike Wood]

Why close it?

[Mr Burrowes]

The hon. Gentleman comments from a sedentary position, but I ask him to allow me to finish. If the number of people going into an institution is in decline, one must reconsider the question of value for money. I encourage him to consider the consultations on secure colleges, with the opportunities for us to upscale what has been lost in Feltham. We talk about training and education, and we should try to ensure that we have more intensive rehabilitation that, although it takes place in custody, does not take place in custody on the same model as at Feltham. I agree that Feltham is another example of an institution that is past its sell-by date and needs change and radical overhaul, but that is why we recognise that we cannot go on with the status quo of the Felthams of this world or with the status quo for those people who come out of Feltham and other institutions and do not get the rehabilitation they and the public need.

Project Daedalus was very much focused on such a goal and was able to reduce reoffending, as I understand it, to 53%. That was an encouraging rate. The lessons learned from that project, which I saw from an early stage, are important. The brokerage system is important, but so are the connections back to the London boroughs. That relationship is important. I recognise that some partnerships are working now, such as the offender management programme in London, which brings together the offending management teams. Those relationships need to be continued under payment by results. We learned from the drug recovery pilots that the way to do that is to ensure that the co-design process brings local authorities along with it. It is important that there is accountability, too.

The importance of LASARs lies in their independence from providers and, in some cases, commissioners. They provide some accountability in the system, independent of the provider, and ensure that there is an advocate. We know that offenders will not all go in one direction; when they go in different directions, the advocate will make sure that there is a proper referral system that works all the way through a reoffender’s rehabilitation.

[Paul Goggins]

I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I will give him the benefit of the doubt—perhaps he can clarify this—but I hope that he is not suggesting that he and his colleagues are in favour of change and innovation, while Opposition Members simply want the status quo. If he is, I urge him to reflect on that. He has just spoken in great detail, and with great knowledge, about the complexity of local relationships. Given that complexity, the introduction of the new model of payment by results needs to be done carefully. It might help to have a proper, thorough pilot, and to evaluate it properly and thoroughly, before rolling the model out across the country.

[Mr Burrowes]

I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I am not suggesting that he is completely on the side of not having innovation and progress, but the reality is that we have to make a decision in this place. The Bill sets down the principle of mandatory supervision of those sentenced to under 12 months, and that is an important marker. There are issues relating to implementation and the timetable—much concern has been expressed about that—but they can be worked through; they are not good enough reason for voting against the Bill on Second Reading.

Clause 1 tries to create an artificial dividing line when all of us are very much on the same side in wanting rehabilitation. It has been so many years since we last had the opportunity to put centre stage the rehabilitation of offenders, particularly those with short sentences; we should not let down the public.

We have heard a number of interesting speeches. Concerns were raised about justice reinvestment. Justice reinvestment does not go completely against the principles of the Bill—far from it. There are different models of payment by results that can ensure that, as I suggested, we continue local links and partnerships, and make sure that savings are reinvested in the local area. The more we involve local groups—small and, yes, large—in this enterprise, as I believe we will have to, the more the local area will benefit. I look forward to the contracts that are awarded involving a partnership of private sector bodies—large or small—the voluntary sector and the public, and ensuring that reoffending rates are driven down.

Today, having raised concerns, our task is not to argue unnecessarily about implementation points. We have a simple choice tonight. We can do nothing. We can follow the path already set as regards short-term sentences —they were legislated for once under custody plus—and do nothing as regards implementation. We can allow that 58% rate of reoffending to continue, without any idea of change. We can decline to give the Bill a Second Reading. Or we can grasp this opportunity to get to grips with what has perhaps been on the too-hard-to-do pile, and give the Government credit for being willing to tackle the issue. We do not have everyone in our constituencies saying to us, “Please, please, do this,” but we know that the issue affects our constituencies through crime rates. We should give offenders a second chance of getting through the gate, having a mentor, getting into employment or rehab, and getting back in contact with their family. We should be on the side of victims and taxpayers. For those reasons, I urge hon. Members to give the Bill a Second Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Green]

I agree that Greater Manchester has been innovative. As I say, in my discussions with Greater Manchester, the trust was preparing for exactly this approach, at least a year ago, and had the brakes put on. It was told that it would not be able to bid in the process in the way that it had planned, so I would be interested to understand, as I think the hon. Gentleman would, what Greater Manchester and other such trusts will and will not be able to bid for, what sort of entities they will have to establish to enable them to bid and potentially to take a leading role in that bidding process, and whether there will be time for them to create those entities and put in bids, given that, as I understand it, the preliminaries of the process are already under way this month. He and I look forward to some reassurances from the Minister.

A number of my colleagues have pointed out that the Lord Chancellor’s proposals mirror the structure and approach of the Work programme, which he introduced as Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions. Leaving aside the pretty poor performance of the Work programme to date—I am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt; it may achieve improved outcomes over time, although it is getting off to a depressingly slow start—in the light of everything that has been said in the Chamber this evening about what we have seen from the Work programme and what seems to be being replicated in these contracts, I am concerned that we will have a national top-down driven system, when what we have heard from both sides of the House, about innovative experiments in different parts of the country, is that a localised, bottom-up, partnership approach across a range of local agencies has been what has worked best.

I am concerned that the track record of some of the large multinational providers, who are likely to bid for these contracts—indeed may be the only people qualified and able to take the risk inherent in bidding for these contracts—is that they are not good at developing supply chains down the local agencies. As hon. Members may know, many voluntary and charitable organisations have complained bitterly about their experiences with the Work programme. They complain that they have been used as so-called bid candy, but have not been given any opportunity to deliver activity. They complain that they have had very few referrals, having been included on bids by the large prime contractors. There are real concerns that we are seeing a model that looks very like the Work programme in terms of top-down, Department-led contracting. There are also concerns about whether we can be confident that those problems and pitfalls will not occur in these contracts in the way that they did in the Work programme.

[Mr Burrowes]

Are not the hon. Lady’s fears somewhat allayed when she looks beyond some of the headlines and at some of the private companies? The ones that are delivering results and are effective in reducing offending, which would be paid in the system, are only those that are properly engaged at a local level with small organisations and the voluntary and public sectors. It is only when all that comes together at a local level that they will deliver results and be paid, so their every incentive is to do what the hon. Lady fears will not happen.

[Kate Green]

The same claims were made for the Work programme, but the experience has been entirely different. At the very least we must expect the Minister to give us some reassurances as to why this will be different when the model looks so very similar.

Hon. Members have talked about some of the innovative programmes in their own probation trusts. As has been said, Greater Manchester has had a number of particularly innovative programmes. One in particular speaks directly to the Government’s proposals for post-release supervision for those serving short custodial sentences. I am sure the Minister will be familiar with the Choose Change programme that was developed in Greater Manchester. It has been running for a number of years and we await its final evaluation. I hope that the Government are drawing some interesting and important lessons from that experience, on which I would like to hear the Minister’s comments tonight.

It is clear when we look at Choose Change—a through-the-gate programme, working with offenders in prison, as they left prison and on release—that it depended heavily on being a multi-agency programme in which private, public and voluntary providers were all comprehensively engaged. That included the prison and probation services, corporate partners, the voluntary and community sector, and, crucially, local authorities. I am very unclear how local authorities will fit into the model of provision in this Bill.

It was instructive from Choose Change that the range of interventions needed was extensive. They included interventions in relation to employment, education and training. Many offenders, as the Minister will be well aware, have exceptionally poor levels of literacy and numeracy, so investing in routing them to the right educational opportunities and continuing their education commenced inside prison consistently on release is an important element that will need to be designed into any provision. Income and access to financial services have been a key element of what the Choose Change programme has identified as being important for offenders on release. Housing needs are an exceptionally urgent priority for many on release, as are health needs, particularly mental health needs. It often transpires that offenders have no registered GP to whom they can turn for health care, and their engagement with the health service has been sporadic.

The need for a package of interventions, bringing together a number of agencies and players, and beginning that work inside the prison and continuing it as part of a continuing process—not a broken process whereby the prison services does this inside prison and someone else does it post-release—will be an incredibly important feature of what the Government seek to achieve. I am pleased to see the Minister nodding as I say that. I hope that he will be able to reassure us this evening that there will be a continuum of support, not a form of support that begins only as someone leaves the prison gate. There has been a lot of encouraging discussion this evening about through-the-gate models, but we need to understand how those will work within the prison as well as after release.

We also need to understand that the interventions will be made in the right sequence. Some things can only happen easily post-release. It is quite difficult to do much, for example, about housing until someone is near the point of release. But other things, such as education and preparing for employment, can be started much earlier. The sequencing of interventions inside prison and post-release will be very important, and I would be grateful if the Minister said something about how he sees that working in these new contracts.

It will also be important to know how the programme that will be put in place through the contracted provision will work with other programmes already running in the community in relation to criminal justice. That includes how it will work with prolific offender programmes, integrated offender management programmes and programmes such as Spotlight in Greater Manchester, which enables the police and other criminal justice agencies and social services to keep close tabs on those in the community, perhaps not serving sentences but known to the system. How does the Minister envisage those different community-based initiatives will be linked into what is being proposed?

The Minister will also want to look carefully at the learning from Choose Change, which shows that intervening with offenders who have long histories of offending behaviour is particularly challenging. Some offenders who are serving their eighth, 10th, 15th or even their 20th short custodial sentence will be particularly difficult to work with on release. Therefore, it would be useful to understand how the Minister envisages these contracts being able to cope with, on the one hand, those who may have had one experience of custody, where it is to be hoped that with good post-release supervision they could be quickly taken off the track of offending behaviour and we could see some effective rehabilitation, and on the other hand, those who may have 10, 15 or 20 years of offending history. The lessons from Choose Change are that that is a very challenging group of offenders to work with, and simply wrapping some fairly basic post-release supervision around them is unlikely to be sufficient to change the course of their offending behaviour.

How does the Minister envisage the contracts being structured to incentivise inter-agency working and in particular how working with women offenders will be made financially attractive to providers, which has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members?

I agree with the Chair of the Select Committee—I will return his compliment by saying that I rarely disagree with him—that there are many good examples of women’s organisations and centres producing extremely strong support programmes for women offenders. In Greater Manchester we have the extremely successful Women MATTA—Manchester and Trafford Taking Action—initiative, which has worked with the Pankhurst Centre, the local authority, the probation service and so on. However, many of those women’s projects are now under severe funding pressure. They are not cheap to run. I hope that the Chair of the Select Committee agrees that women’s special needs and circumstances mean that cut pricing will not necessarily be very effective for women offenders. I am therefore keen to hear whether the Minister is confident that the structure of the contracts will reward providers for working with the especially challenging circumstances faced by women offenders and how they will be incentivised to make use of the very good practice and experience of the women’s centres across the country that have been delivering such programmes in recent years.

In conclusion, I must say on behalf of the Greater Manchester probation trust and a number of Opposition colleagues that our opposition to giving the Bill a Second Reading is not the result of wholesale opposition to introducing a mix of private and voluntary providers, which has been a feature of the effective working we have seen in Greater Manchester and across the country in recent years. We are concerned that there is little evidence that that particular approach to wholesale contracting out with an arbitrary cut-off point at the level of medium to high-risk offenders is the right way to structure the participation of private and non-statutory providers. There seems to be little opportunity for the very good programmes that have been run by the public probation service to compete effectively in a rapid time scale and continue to be major players in the provision of the services that the Government are now seeking to introduce. There are real concerns that strong local relationships and structures will be disrupted by the bidding process. Finally, as my right hon. Friend the shadow Justice Secretary said, there are real concerns about the risk consequences for the public. I hope that the Minister can offer more reassurances in that regard than we have had so far this evening.