Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

rose—

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sir Alan Beith]

I give way first to my hon. Friend.

[Sir Alan Beith]

My hon. Friend would be surprised if I did not take rural issues into account, given that I represent the most sparsely populated areas of England.

I give way to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who is a member of my Select Committee.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I look forward to the evidence session tomorrow morning. Would it not be far better if the Secretary of State delayed further consideration of this proposal until after our Committee has examined the issue and produced a proper report on it so that there is an evidence base for the legislation?

[Sir Alan Beith]

It is our intention to report quickly on these aspects of the probation changes. There has been a considerable delay since the Bill completed its passage through the Lords, as was referred to by the shadow Secretary of State. Although the process for implementing the Government’s changes is fairly rapid, the consideration of the Bill has been relatively leisurely by parliamentary standards. It is my intention that the Select Committee will still influence the shape of what emerges.

When the Justice Committee reported on the probation service in 2011, we said that a more seamless, through-the-gate approach to dealing with offenders was vital and that less of a probation officer’s time should be wasted on bureaucratic processes that do not involve direct engagement with offenders. We saw potential in payment by results, but some dangers as well.

We also wanted something that the Government do not intend to give us, which is local commissioning. That would enable decisions about what is provided to be taken in the context of local circumstances so that we no longer have the absurd position whereby prison is a nationally provided free good, in that it does not engage local authorities through the provision of any expenditure. It is a national expenditure, whereas almost all other kinds of provision have to be financed and funded locally.

The Justice Committee reported earlier this year on women offenders. I welcome clause 11, which relates to the concern expressed in our report that the system was designed to meet the needs of male offenders and must make appropriate provision for women offenders. The argument is not that women who commit criminal offences are less guilty than men who commit criminal offences, but that the circumstances that generate the offences committed by women and the means by which women can be guided towards not committing further offences are often different. That is another area in which we have given advice that is relevant to the Bill.

There are some important questions about the Bill and the structure of the probation service that will be necessary to support it that must be considered. The first is whether there is a market out there. Are there enough potential providers that could take on the contracts and that could engage, as is necessary, with the wide range of charities, voluntary organisations and other bodies in which there is expertise? [Interruption.] I heard a reference from the Labour Benches to G4S and Serco, and the contracts of both those companies, which were brought about under the previous Government, are now the subject of serious fraud inquiries. One implication of that is that a number of companies may effectively be excluded from the bidding process. We must await the outcome of the inquiries as we cannot reach conclusions at this stage, but even were the process still going on, it would exclude at least two major companies working in that field.

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[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time. It is also a great pleasure to participate in such a well-informed debate.

I listened with great interest to a number of the contributions, particularly that of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), with whom I found myself in considerable agreement at many points. The difficulty is that he believes that we should take on trust the need to proceed with the terms of the Bill, and give the Bill a Second Reading, when so many questions have been raised and left unanswered in this debate and the debate that took place in the Chamber a week or so ago. That might not matter if we felt that there was time, during the passage and implementation of the legislation, to undertake careful scrutiny of those concerns, and time to research and implement the measures necessary to address them, but the proposals are being rushed through by the Government.

Already, shadow structures are being set up, the bidding process is under way, and local probation staff are being asked to begin to think about their future under the changed structures. There will be an incredibly rapid approach to trying to implement what a number of my colleagues have rightly described as rather half-baked legislation. If I believed that, if we gave the Bill a Second Reading tonight, the time would be taken to address all the concerns properly, I might be prepared to vote for it, but the problem is that we know that Second Reading will be followed rapidly by the final stages of the Bill and implementation, and a series of major concerns will be left unanswered. That is a real worry.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Has my hon. Friend observed that under the programme motion, we will complete the Committee stage by the beginning of December? It is highly unlikely that any further reports can be prepared by then, and that we can have an informed discussion on the issues, before the whole Bill is disposed of.

[Kate Green]

The timing is of serious concern, and is driven more by electoral imperatives than a desire to make sure that we devise a system that is effective and right.

There is much to welcome in the intentions behind the Bill. Like many others who have spoken, I warmly welcome the wish to introduce post-release supervision for those serving short-term custodial sentences. As many have said, there has been a gap in our system up till now, and it is good to begin to explore ways in which it could be filled. I am also pleased to see a provision in the Bill on considering the needs and circumstances of women offenders. We have been pressing for that since Baroness Corston’s excellent report; it is approaching five years since it was published. It is welcome to see that making an appearance in the Bill.

However, those welcome objectives in no way justify a pell-mell destruction—a wholesale dismantling—of the public probation service that is not founded on logic, and does not appear to be founded on good or consistent evidence. That is why clause 1, with all its flaws—I accept some of the flaws that have been suggested—is important. We should not pursue these far-reaching changes without proper parliamentary scrutiny of the detail of what will be put in place. If the Minister would like to come forward with ways to improve the clause, and suggest to what degree that parliamentary scrutiny is appropriate, I would be happy to hear what he has to say, but it seems quite wrong to continue down the track of implementing the proposals when such serious concerns are being expressed.

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[Mike Wood]

That is exactly the way forward. Were those extra requirements to be introduced, the probation service would meet them. Despite the attempt to obscure the reality of the Government’s plans, we learn that the probation service will not even be given the opportunity to do so, for some completely fallacious reason to do with not risking public money. That comes against the background of a Bill that will risk £20 billion of public money by giving it to untried and untested private companies. It is true that were the extra responsibilities and work to be offered to the probation service, it would meet the challenge.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

In my hon. Friend’s discussions with West Yorkshire probation trust, were any concerns raised about the work load of probation officers? My intuition is that it has gone up a great deal and that trusts have delivered incredible results. Obviously, the whole service is put at risk if officers are put under too much pressure to achieve the results that are required of them. The stress levels for probation officers are certainly very high.

[Mike Wood]

The large case loads of probation officers is a continuing concern. There is concern across the board about the proposals, but the work load for probation officers and probation trusts is a matter of record, as is the fact that they have in the recent past cut their costs. They have become more efficient, not less.

There are other problems with the proposals. They are untried and untested. The Secretary of State is now at his banquet and we all hope that he enjoys it enormously. In the first week that he was in post—before he even knew where his desk was—he cancelled out of hand the two planned pilots, which would have given us the evidence base by which to judge the proposals.

Payment by results, which has been lauded this afternoon, is unique in criminal justice systems throughout the world. By definition, therefore, we have very little evidence on the efficacy or potential of such a system. We do know that when it has been researched, it has not come out too well. For example, the Social Market Foundation, a cross-party think-tank, has said that even if the private companies reduce reoffending rates by more than 3% and achieve the payment-by-results reward, that would be limited to a reduction of 5% as anything more than that would require huge investment in rehabilitation programmes. It states that most companies would make their profit by cutting costs on staff and interventions, allow reoffending rates to rise by 3%, if necessary, and rely on the fee for service to produce their profits.

The myth has been perpetuated today that payment by results will have an enormous enervating and driving effect on the private companies who take part. We know that that is nonsense. The Government started with the intention that 30% of the fee should be related to results. We know that in the so-called negotiations, that was reduced to less than 10%. As the think-tank points out, the companies will earn a vast amount of their money by winning the contract. That is how they will make their profit. To extend the payment beyond that would be a bonus. Any suggestion that payment by results can have that effect therefore flies in the face of what will actually happen.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I will bear in mind, Mr Deputy Speaker, the fact that I need to end in time for the Minister’s reply, which I am looking forward to hearing.

The hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) has just given us an interesting vista of a militarised future for young people about which I have some serious doubts. If he wants to consider the consequences of the kind of solution that he proposes, he need look no further than the USA, which imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world per head of population, has a higher recidivism rate, has more brutality in its prisons and has a very large number of privatised prisons in which unbelievable brutality is carried out against individual prisoners. That does not work; it is not a solution.

Countries with a very low rate of reoffending are those that invest more in education in the first place, to give young people a better experience of life and better opportunities, and invest more in a prison service for young people that offers psychiatric and educational support and in which measurement is based on the educational improvements and achievements of those young people.

Members of the Justice Committee, including its Chair, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), visited Denmark and Norway to look at their experiences of dealing with young offenders. They spend far more money on it than we do and have reoffending rates of 20% and less in some cases, because they invest in those people. In this country, we are heading off in another, fairly ludicrous direction by saying that because there is a problem with the service we will hand it over to G4S, Serco and a few other companies that have a proven track record of incompetence and dishonesty, which will be sorted out by the courts.

[Richard Drax]

I did not suggest at any stage that youngsters should be brutalised in a militaristic fashion in a prison. I am suggesting that they should be taken out of prison and given hope and a structure that gives them a chance in life that otherwise they would not get.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

We are all in favour of young people having a decent chance in life. If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would have heard me suggest that we need to invest much more in young people in school and college and beforehand, so that they gain a wider range of life experiences, greater self-reliance and a greater sense of community involvement. I am concerned that he seemed to base his whole argument on the operations of the military, rather than on a much better form of community service and development.

I support the reasoned amendment and am pleased that it has been selected. I draw attention in particular to the last part, which points out that

“the Ministry of Justice’s own internal risk register warns that the Government’s proposals could result in a high risk of an unacceptable drop in operational performance”.

We on the Justice Committee will start taking evidence on this tomorrow. Despite the Secretary of State’s refusal—and, indeed, that of previous Governments—I think it is high time that Governments start, as a matter of routine, to publish the risk registers of any service for which they propose major change. It is a simple act of transparency on the way in which the Government operate.

The speed with which this Bill is being pursued is extraordinary. The Justice Committee will take evidence and I hope that we will come up with some conclusions, but that is for the Committee to decide, not me. I hope that any conclusions will be taken on board, but the Bill is going through the House today and has to be out of Committee in three weeks’ time, so there is hardly any time for any considered public discussion or debate or for Members of the Commons to take a proper look at it.

The fundamental issue is that this is about the Secretary of State’s obsession with the privatisation of services. I cannot forget the day when the Justice Committee visited the Ministry of Justice. When we met the Secretary of State, he had hardly sat down at his desk before he said that he was a complete convert to the idea of franchising out and privatising various MOJ services. There clearly is an obsessive attitude that only the private sector can produce results.

I am sure that when the hon. Member for South Dorset meets members of the probation service in Dorset, he tells them what a fine job they are doing and what wonderful people they are. That is because they are wonderful people who are doing a fine job, but how are we rewarding them? We are giving them more work to do with fewer resources and putting them in competition, in a race to the bottom, with the private sector, knowing full well that the financial argument will win out at the end of the day and that the private sector will win, with its profits, low wages and inadequately trained or qualified staff, and the public probation service, which all of us are proud of, will be the loser. This Bill is going down a very dangerous road.

The statistics helpfully provided today by the Library show that the total case load of the probation service in 2003 was 199,000, of which 120,000 cases came from court orders and 80,000 came from pre and post-release supervision. By 2012, the number from court orders had declined to 114,000, while the number from pre and post-release supervision had gone up to 111,000. There is already a significant change in what is going on.

The reoffending statistics quoted are from Doncaster and Peterborough. I welcome anything that brings about a better prison service, better education and less reoffending. That has to be a good thing. The Justice Committee visited Doncaster, and it was an extremely interesting experience, but the statistics show that its reoffending rate of over 40% is still way above the national average of about 30%. It is a privately run prison and many of the regime’s liberal aspects are interesting, but it is perfectly reasonable to ask questions of the company that runs it about the treatment of its inmates.

I will make one last point because I want to leave enough time for the Front Benchers. Both unions that are involved in the probation service—Unison, which has fewer members from the probation service, and the National Association of Probation Officers, which has more—made a number of strong points in the evidence that most Members have no doubt received from them. The Unison paper makes the point that

“probation operates as a seamless whole. Splitting the service in two will allow dangerous offenders to fall down the gap between the two parts.”

Other colleagues have supported that position. NAPO has the same view. I attended its meeting and will conclude with a quotation from it:

“Napo believes that the proposed…agenda will undermine pubic protection procedures and place communities at risk of harm from poorly managed offenders. It will have a detrimental impact on staff who will have limited senior management support and who will be based many miles away and will have little local knowledge of the area they are responsible for. This will place unnecessary pressures on middle managers and front line staff.”

This privatising will not save money, but will cost more through higher rates of reoffending, greater danger to the public and, ultimately, more people in prison, not fewer. We should support the reasoned amendment tonight and give—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I tried not to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but that was a very long quotation. We need to get on to the closing speeches.