Oral Answers to Questions

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

12. What progress he has made on his plans for changes to the probation service.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

15. What progress he has made on his plans for changes to the probation service.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

We are making good progress with our transforming rehabilitation reforms, which will realign current probation structures to address the gap that sees 50,000 short-sentenced prisoners released on to the streets each year with little support. The new structures will come into effect on 1 June. The process of reallocating staff to those new structures is now complete.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

We have a strong slate of potential bidders in every part of the country, with a good mix of private and voluntary sector expertise and some attractive partnerships that can deliver real results for us. We will see later in the summer who emerges successfully from the bidding process, but I am completely confident that we have a strong candidate in every part of the country.

[Grahame M. Morris]

The Minister accuses us of looking backwards, but his transforming of rehabilitation services programme is controversial and fraught with difficulties. Does he agree with his permanent secretary, Ursula Brennan, who told the Public Accounts Committee last week that if the Ministry of Justice was not ready to take the next steps, it would not do so—or would he press on regardless?

[Chris Grayling]

It is precisely because we are confident in the process that we are moving to the next stage. We will take it a step at a time, and we will always take steps to address issues of public safety. The Opposition, having identified the problem of offenders going without supervision, and having legislated to deal with it while in government and then done nothing about it, are now attacking us for wanting to do something about it. They have no ideas themselves.