Police
John Healey Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The Home Secretary told us yesterday that the measures she has taken to deal with bureaucracy have saved 4.5 million hours of police time. If I may say so, that is a classic volume measure; it would be fascinating to understand how her officials arrived at it. I wonder whether the Minister is familiar with the work of Professor John Seddon. In his book “The Whitehall Effect”, he describes the phenomenon of “failure demand”; how many cost-cutting initiatives, such as setting up single call centres and outsourcing back office activities, can lead to failure demand, a constant inability to recognise and respond to the real problem while encouraging a referral culture and repetition of largely useless actions. Those effects are rarely spotted by the consultants who advise on the changes, because they measure their work in terms of volume—the volume of calls made or answered within a specified time, and the estimated hours saved. Volume does not measure problems solved or the quality of engagement, but rising failure demand leads to decreasing police efficiency. Would the Minister care to look at that as he considers the measures that he is taking forward?
As the Minister demonstrated earlier today, the Government are quick to tell us that crime is falling, and it is true that the most recent statistics show a continuing and welcome fall in many traditional crimes but, as we have heard, they also show a rise in violent crime, rape and sex offences, and an alarming and perhaps still under-recorded rise in fraud, identity crime and cybercrime. These serious crimes need to be tackled, and the changing face of crime needs to be considered. As the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) told us, crime is changing, and when we look at the crime figures and contemplate police budgets, we need to bear in mind that crime is not a static phenomenon.
Our police forces need to reconfigure some of their activities in order to respond to these new types of crime. That is much harder in an environment where the preoccupation is the constant search for cuts. As the largest force outside the Met, the responsibilities of the West Midlands force are enormous. I pay tribute to the amazing job that the force does, but I worry that it may be approaching the limits of what we can reasonably expect of it. It has seen £126 million cut from its budget over the past five years, with a further £100 million of cuts still to come if the Chancellor is able to make good his promise of another five years of austerity for vital public services.
The west midlands is hit doubly hard because it has a very low council tax base and therefore a very low police precept—the second lowest in the country. That means that we are more reliant on central grant than some other areas, and consequently the policy of flat rates cuts has a disproportionate impact on us. For example, whereas central Government provide 86% of the West Midlands police budget, other areas are reliant on grant for only about 49%.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a very interesting and important argument to the House. Does he accept that our position in south Yorkshire is similar to his in the west midlands, with exactly the same financial bind? Since 2010 the South Yorkshire police have faced cuts in excess of £30 million. In south Yorkshire, as in the west midlands, we are seeing the hollowing out of neighbourhood policing and the closure of local police stations such as Rawmarsh and Wath, and this is setting back a generation of progress over the previous decade.
Steve McCabe
Indeed. The effect of disproportionate cuts is that some areas, often areas with higher levels and different types of crime, are taking a much harder hit. As a result of what the Government are doing, we in the west midlands are losing about 22% of our funding, as opposed to about 12% in Surrey. Given that, as in my right hon. Friend’s area, we have higher crime rates and more complex policing needs, it is hard to see how anyone could regard that as fair or just.
In the west midlands the position is made worse by the continued use of formula damping. If the west midlands was paid grant according to formula needs, we would receive a further £43 million. I recall attending a meeting with the then Policing Minister over three years ago—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) was also present—when the then Minister promised to take that factor into account. I know the Government are into re-announcements, but here we are, more than three years later, and the Minister tells us today that he is going to review the police formula. I think we have been here before. We want to know when we will see some action to address the unfairness. Of course, as the Minister was making that announcement, his hon. Friends were getting to their feet to say, “Don’t make any changes that will affect the situation that we are benefiting from.”
Mike Penning
No, I am not taking interventions from the shadow Minister, because he made a complete fool of himself earlier and I am not going to help him make even more of a fool of himself.
I say to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) that Dorset police do absolutely fantastic work. I think he thought that I might have said, “It all happens here,” or something like that, but that was my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who had come in to listen to his speech. I understand that about 20,000 people go to Bournemouth on a Friday and Saturday to enjoy the night-time entertainment. That shows how diverse police work can be in Dorset, and I praise the work done there. Martyn Underhill will be on the review board, which is important.
My hon. and gallant Friend asked for a commitment until 2016-17, but that is difficult because there is going to be a review and his police and crime commissioner will be on the board. It would be wrong for me to pre-empt that review. As I said in my opening remarks, it is vital that everybody looks at the different types of policing needed, especially going into 2016-17, and at how the formula was formulated all those years ago. That will not be a tweak; we have to take a fundamental look at the changes needed.
Mike Penning
I am not going to give way at the moment. I might give way later if I make some progress, but I have been given a time limit by Madam Deputy Speaker, which is why I do not want to give way too much.
Let us not get into the semantics of the speech made by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane): he was doing exactly what I would expect him to do in standing up for his force. It will be really interesting to see what happens when Manchester gets a mayor. It has clearly worked brilliantly in London, but we will wait to see what the Home Secretary decides. That sort of localism is very important. The PCC for Greater Manchester police does a good job, even though the shadow Minister said today—or was it the shadow Home Secretary?—that Labour wants to abolish the position.
The costings are very interesting. Several hon. Members talked about the number of police cut since the coalition came to power. Interestingly, the speech/article read out by the shadow Minister mentioned 100 new officers. The assumption is that Labour would make a saving of £100 million through procurement. I do not know where that figure comes from. There are always assumptions within procurement, but we are working very closely with forces on that; as I said earlier, it is absolutely fine for Governments to decide what should be done as long as we get it right. The shadow Minister talked about making huge savings on shotgun licences. That matter is currently under review, and an announcement will be made shortly. He said that the abolition of police and crime commissioners would save £50 million, even though I understand that Labour police and crime commissioners were told at the weekend that they were expected to be in place until at least 2017. That is another hand-brake turn following others. I am sure that Vera Baird and Paddy Tipping would love to know exactly what the policy is, because it appears to have changed since the conference.
Even on such assumptions, including that the shadow Minister is right to say that this horrible Government would cut 1,000 police next year—that is complete and utter rubbish—and Labour would put in 100 police officers, that works out at an average of 24 per constabulary. That will make a difference, but not quite the difference that some Opposition Members think the shadow Minister has announced today.
Mike Penning
I have explained why I will not give way.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) made some important comments in his very measured and sensible speech. When he talked about centralised control and such things, my mind drifted back to the regional fire control centres introduced by the previous Administration. As an ex-fireman, I have followed the issue very closely. I was absolutely fascinated by the sheer waste of taxpayers’ money caused by the disastrous policy of regionalising fire control centres. When I was the Minister with responsibility for shipping, I was very lucky to be able to add the coastguard to the centre in Gosport, which saved the coastguard a huge amount of money; however, it also cost the Department for Communities and Local Government a huge amount.
It is absolutely right to look very carefully wherever there is centralised control. That is why I have always said that forces should work together to make sure that they know exactly what is going on. Forces do not necessarily need to work with their natural partners on their boundary, because they do not have to be next to each other to do procurement, human resources or IT together, as is absolutely vital.
The key to this debate is that although we as constituency MPs quite rightly want to stand up for our forces, we must be aware that ongoing savings are required within police budgets, as the shadow Minister said. We must make sure that the review does what it says on the tin and that we have a proper review.
Mike Penning
The right hon. Gentleman was not in the Chamber for most of the debate, so I will not give way to him even if I had time to do so.
We need to stand up for our forces, but we must also be realistic about them. Shadow Ministers should not make false accusations, build up promises or spread doom and gloom about the police who do such a fantastic job for us. They should not stand at the Dispatch Box and run down our police. [Interruption.] I am told that I am supposed to give way. You gave me 10 minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am now at that time limit, which is why I am not giving way. If the shadow Minister had not spoken for so long, reading out an article that the shadow Home Secretary wrote in a newspaper this morning, I would have been happy to give way.
I hope that we can now conclude the debate on time, as you requested, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that the motion will go through, and that there will be no more scaremongering from the Opposition.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Healey Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman and I have always differed on these matters. It is important to deal with historical wrongs, but I do not believe that we should encourage British law firms to deal with cases from other parts of the world, at enormous cost to the taxpayer, when in the end—as in the case of the Iraqi situation—there are serious question marks over those cases. I think we need a system that makes our legal aid available to British people, but not to people in the rest of the world.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Many people with a strong connection to the UK face homelessness which is prevented only by the threat of launching judicial review proceedings. Does the Secretary of State accept that, as Shelter and other housing groups say, his changes to legal aid will make that much more difficult? Will he publish data to show the impact of the changes?
Chris Grayling
I guess it comes down to whether we believe that somebody should come to this country and make a contribution first. Our proposals exclude those who are refugees who are seeking refuge in this country, but they are set out in that way because, I think, people who come to this country should make a contribution before they can start taking money out of the state system for other means of support.
Chris Grayling
As my hon. Friend knows, this is an area where our party has wanted change for a considerable time, and where I personally want change. Policy options are currently under consideration by the Government.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
The Justice Secretary will want to see all court buildings used to their fullest and most efficient extent, so will he permit social security appeals to be heard in the Rotherham court buildings so that people no longer have to travel to Sheffield, Barnsley or Doncaster to seek justice?
Chris Grayling
The essence of the court reforms we announced six weeks ago is that we should have more flexible court buildings, using technology and new ways of working. I obviously cannot comment on the specific situation the right hon. Gentleman describes, but if he writes to me, I will happily look into the matter.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Healey Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
As my hon. Friend knows, I have a lot of sympathy with him on these matters in areas such as breach of licence and automatic early release. For resource reasons, I cannot do everything that he would like me to do, but when he reads the Bill that is due to be laid before this House tomorrow, he will find things in it that are at least a step in the right direction.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
There are 33 firms doing legal aid-backed criminal work in South Yorkshire, but only one in four or five will get duty contracts in the future, which means less competition, less choice and less access to justice. Surely what we are seeing is the slow, lingering death of legal aid at the hands of the Justice Secretary.
Chris Grayling
The argument for consolidation in the legal aid world goes back well before the last election to reviews carried out, and arguments made, by the previous Government. Our current reform proposals allow those firms to retain own-client work, which is what they argued for. What we are setting out around duty work is designed to ensure that, in tough times, we can guarantee that everyone arrested and taken to a police cell will always have access to legal advice.
Oral Answers to Questions
John Healey Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Chris Grayling
Cases involving children being taken into care would, of course, remain funded through legal aid, and they continue to be carried out through the courts in the way they always have been—that remains important.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
5. What his policy is on probation trusts tendering for probation services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
The “Transforming Rehabilitation” competition process has been designed to allow, as far as possible, a range of different entities to bid to deliver services. But such entities need to be capable of bearing financial risk, because under our reforms we will pay providers in full only if they are successful in reducing reoffending.
John Healey
The Justice Secretary is almost entirely without allies and without evidence for these privatisation plans. The Minister has confirmed that he is denying the experts in some truly excellent probation trusts, such as South Yorkshire’s, the chance to tender for these contracts. If South Yorkshire’s four local authorities combine to back the trust and take out the financial risks he talks about, will he think again?
Jeremy Wright
I would say two things to the right hon. Gentleman. First, he understands, I think, that one advantage of what we are proposing is that we move risk away from the taxpayer, so that those prepared to take on these contracts on a payment-by-results basis put their own money at risk, not the taxpayer’s. In the scenario he is outlining, it is difficult to see how we avoid the taxpayer continuing to take that risk. Secondly, as he may also know, many of the talented individuals who work for probation trusts at the moment are exploring the possibility of setting themselves up as mutuals so that they can continue to do this work, and there is considerable support for that from our colleagues at the Cabinet Office—they are providing money and support to enable them to do that.
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]
John Healey Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Despite what the Justice Secretary tried to argue at the beginning of his speech, the Bill is part of a wider programme that changes probation services as well as how the offenders with which they deal are handled. As such, it is important to understand the background of the Bill in order to understand its intent, the provisions and the wider programme.
To do that, it is necessary to look at the policy routes of the consultation reports that precede the Bill. The coalition’s first criminal justice consultation—“Breaking the Cycle”—was in December 2010. It promised to open up probation services to the market. The second report, of July 2011, proposed six new pilots of a payment-by-results method and at the same time pledged not a comprehensive rehabilitation strategy for offenders, nor a comprehensive reoffending rates reduction strategy, but a
“a comprehensive competition strategy for…probation services”.
There is an obsession with the market, competition and privatisation. This is not the means to an end; it is the end. It is the purpose of the Justice Secretary’s programme—that and perhaps burnishing his credentials with the wilder right-wing of the Conservative party for the future.
If the policy end was to reduce reoffending rates for short-term prisoners, the means are in place—probation trusts, which have been responsible for overseeing falling reoffending rates for those they have supervised for 13 years.
John Healey
I will finish my point and then give way.
If the end or purpose of the policy was better value for taxpayers without compromising professional standards or public safety, the means are in place with probation trusts, which have made savings of around 20% over the past five years and helped to reduce crime rates and maintain protection for the public.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
John Healey
I will give way to the Minister and then to the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti).
Jeremy Wright
I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument closely. He was a member of the Government who passed the Offender Management Act 2007. If, as is his contention, the previous Government believed that probation trusts could do all those things themselves, why did the Act allow for competition? Why did it not prescribe that all probation work should always be done by probation trusts?
John Healey
The Minister was in the Chamber for the Opposition day debate last week and will have heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who was the Minister responsible for the 2007 Act. In July 2007, he mentioned
“trusts remaining public-sector based and delivering services at a local level”.—[Official Report, 18 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 354.]
Essentially, the 2007 Act was not about abolishing local probation trusts, nor about trying to commission services from the centre from a desk in Whitehall; it was about using local partnerships and local professional expertise to secure the best mix of support that offenders needed and that the public required to keep them safe and protected from harm.
Rehman Chishti
I infer that the right hon. Gentleman would agree with rehabilitation being the end product. A key element of the Bill on rehabilitation and reoffending is clauses 12 and 13. Compulsory drug testing for class B drugs expands existing provisions, and clause 13 introduces compulsory attendance at appointments on licence for drug treatment and testing, which did not exist before. The key part is helping people who need help. The ones who are addicted to drugs are the ones who continue to go in and out of the criminal system. Clauses 12 and 13 deal with rehabilitation on that basis, and I think the right hon. Gentleman will at least agree with me that those clauses are the right way forward.
John Healey
There are some useful provisions in the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has said that the Opposition do not object to some of the Bill. Additional requirements as part of supervision orders are sensible. Extending the supervision requirement to those who are released from custody after short-term sentences is sensible. My argument is that the legislation is part of a wider programme, the policy purpose of which lacks evidence and justification, but not the ideology that drives the Justice Secretary. That purpose—that end—is the privatisation of our probation services. It is not about the means to a better probation service or better protection for the public.
Let me develop my argument. I have mentioned the first and second coalition consultation reports. To be fair, the third report—“Punishment and Reform: Effective Probation Services”—which was published in March 2012, restated the intent to open up the market for the supervision of low-risk offenders. However, it also proposed a stronger role for probation trusts and a stronger emphasis on partnership working. The report states:
“We intend that there will be a stronger role for public sector Probation Trusts as commissioners of competed probation services…We will devolve to Probation Trusts the budget for community offender services”.
At that time, the Government said:
“Trusts are best placed to work with courts and with local partners to design and commission services jointly…We will support the joint commissioning of services for offenders between probation and key partners such as local authorities, health and the police.”
Andy McDonald
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the current proposals run the risk of dispensing with excellent services in the not-for-profit sector, which Government Members say they want to preserve? Will the proposals not leave that door open, because such charitable organisations do not have the critical mass to enable them to bid for the contracts or withstand a payment-by-results mechanism?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right. One of the real worries about this so-called reform programme is that it borrows from the Work programme, which the Justice Secretary introduced when he was Minister of State for Employment. Frankly, many of the failures, flaws and potential fraud in the Work programme could be replicated in our probation service.
Returning to probation trusts, I quoted from the March 2012 consultation report. What has changed since then? The Justice Secretary has changed. He has stopped the pilots; he has added medium-risk offenders who have served a custodial sentence, and those on community sentences and suspended sentences, to the list of offenders who will be handed over to the private sector; and he has issued the invitation to contract for £450 million of services before the Bill has even had its Second reading in this House. There has been no testing, no costing, no evidence to support such sweeping changes and no backing from any serious professional probation voices.
Clause 1 was inserted by the Lords as a vote of no confidence in the case that the Justice Secretary has been making. That was not a party political move, as it was led by Cross Benchers and a former chief inspector of prisons. Clause 1 was introduced and approved because there are still too many doubts about the Bill and the programme of privatisation—doubts about the viability, accountability, affordability and safety of services under a new, largely privatised system. How much will it cost? How much will it save? How will it be more effective? How will it reduce reoffending? How great will the risk be in putting serious offenders in the hands of private companies? How much money will be offered up front? How much will be held back and paid via payment by results? How will the repeated failures of the Work programme be avoided? How will the fiasco and fraud we have seen before be avoided in the Ministry of Justice’s management of contracts?
To justify the proposed legislation, the Justice Secretary has to address those concerns, and he has not. He has to be able to demonstrate that his plans are better than building on what is already in place. He cannot do that because all 35 probation trusts in England and Wales have been independently judged either good or excellent. All 35 probation trusts are hitting all the targets they have been set. Reoffending rates for those under their supervision have been falling every year for more than a decade. Imagine the credit the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government would take if all local authority children’s services were judged good or excellent. Imagine the purring pleasure of the Secretary of State for Education if all schools were judged good or excellent. Imagine the huge relief of the Secretary of State for Health if all hospitals were judged good or excellent. No other part of the public sector performs so consistently, and to such a high professional standard, as the probation service.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s argument. Is he suggesting that none of the 35 probation trusts should apply for mutual status, which would allow them to carry on their important work? Is he advising against that?
John Healey
That is a red herring. Unbelievably, probation trusts are prevented from putting forward proposals to bid for contracts to do the job they have proved they can do so well. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman comes across to south Yorkshire and looks at our probation trust, which is one of the best-performing trusts in the country. In the past five years, it has been top-ranked almost every year in reducing reoffending.
Sadiq Khan
I have been to south Yorkshire and, with the excellent police and crime commissioner, visited various projects that are examples of the probation trust competing with local charities to get the best possible project to rehabilitate offenders. What does my right hon. Friend think the probation trust would say if it was told, “We can guarantee seven to 10 years of funding, with a three-year contract extension, if you are allowed to bid for this contract”? What does he think its response would be if it was allowed to bid for the contract that the Government will allow G4S, Serco and Uncle Tom Cobleigh to bid for?
John Healey
My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Probation trusts want to do the work they already do, including with offenders who serve custodial sentences of less than 12 months. They require all their officers to be qualified to work with medium-risk offenders—the group the Government want to put out to the private sector—which is one reason why the results for reduction in reoffending have been so good in the past five years. I see no reason why probation trusts should not be able to bid to provide the service my right hon. Friend talked about. Ministers say, with a sweep of the hand, “They cannot possibly deal with the uncertainty of payment by results,” but that is not the case.
John Healey
Let us hear from the Minister why probation trusts should not be allowed to bid under their own terms for the work he wants to put out to contract.
Jeremy Wright
I think the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well what the answer is. A probation trust, as a wholly public body, cannot compete under a payment-by-results system, because that would put public money at risk. Of course he understands that.
John Healey
That is absolute nonsense. Public bodies, like local authorities, have reserves to deal with uncertainties. Why does the Minister not take a look at the legislation passed by his Government on local authority funding, which is based increasingly on business rates and contains an element of risk? Good, prudent public authorities can manage those risks, and there is no reason why probation trusts should not be able to bid for this work and do it as well as they do the work with the offenders they are already responsible for supervising.
Kate Green
Does my right hon. Friend agree that what the Minister has just said is Kafkaesque? The Minister is saying that he would rather contract out, with risk, to unproven private companies than retain in-house quality services without risk.
John Healey
To which I might add that the probation trusts have a proven track record—certainly in south Yorkshire—of dealing with the group the Minister is rightly most concerned about: offenders who have served less than 12 months in custody. That work is already done in south Yorkshire by the probation trust, with multi-agency teams including the police, drug workers and housing officers. The Justice Secretary’s plans will split up those cases and break the relationships on which such excellent work is dependent and currently undertaken.
Sadiq Khan
I am terribly sorry to intervene again. Is my right hon. Friend aware of the concept of justice reinvestment? Manchester probation trust, for example, has excellent intensive alternatives to custody, and rather than being used to pay dividends to shareholders, the savings that are made are reinvested in other schemes that reduce reoffending even more. This is an example of a win-win situation, with public sector experts reducing reoffending and the money saved going to projects that reduce reoffending even more.
John Healey
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not aware of that. He is an excellent shadow Justice Secretary, and I am interested to hear what he says about Greater Manchester. I suspect that the point is the same with regard to south Yorkshire: the Government’s proposed changes are all about taking on the extra work that is already being done effectively. Many of the 35 probation trusts are now saying, “Give us the challenge and the opportunity to do this extra work and we will do it without the extra cost.” I ask the Minister: why destroy this local probation service, which the combination of privatisation and the Bill will do? Why dismantle the working relationships in place with partner agencies? Why privatise out of existence the people with the proven expertise and dedication to help the short-sentence offenders, whom he, in the Bill, rightly wants to support? Why run the terrible risk to the safety of the public with these changes?
The risk that Ministers talk about does not relate simply to the original crime committed. With these offenders, the risk changes, often rapidly and in response to personal circumstances—their stopping taking medication, breaking up with a partner, or suddenly falling into a circle of old friends and bad habits. Last year, one in four offenders moved, one way or the other, between the high and medium-risk categories. They are exactly the group that the Government want to see moving between the public and the private sectors—between the probation service and the contracted services. These individuals are likely to yo-yo between agencies, which will result in extra cost, paperwork and risk. The chief inspector of probation said:
“Any lack of contractual or operational clarity between the public and private sector providers will, in our view, lead to systemic failure and an increased risk to the public.”
In other words, there will be increased risk as a direct result of the Bill.
I turn briefly to parts 2 and 3 of the Bill. Like my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, I broadly support some of the provisions in part 2, including the ones that seek to reduce the reoffending rate among those who serve less than 12 months in custody, for whom the probation trusts do not have supervisory responsibility at the moment. That reoffending rate is around 60%. It is too high and the Government are right to want to tackle it, but this could have consequences for a rising prison population. First, the courts might well choose to make more use of short custodial sentences with this extra 12 months’ supervision added by the Bill. Secondly, if the new licence conditions available under the Bill are too tight, more people might breach them and be sent back to custody. The Justice Secretary has not answered, and cannot answer, such concerns—as he cannot the other concerns—because he will not test his plans in practice.
Finally, I turn to the amendment of the definition of “responsible officer” in part 3. It is being made so that the staff of private companies or charities can do the job that probation officers currently do. I wish to put on the record the words of a probation officer from Rotherham who can describe more forcefully and eloquently than I can how complex and tough this work is—it does not simply comprise a set of tick-box tasks. I received an e-mail late last night from this probation officer explaining that they and their colleagues averaged up to 60 cases in their case load. Typically, one third of their clients will be in custody, half a dozen or so will be high-risk and the others will be deemed low or medium-risk—exactly the group Ministers want to transfer to private contractors. They wrote:
“The job is one of constant juggling demands brought about by working with individuals who lead often chaotic lives. IT systems regularly freeze or crash… Another key service we provide is detailed reports to the Courts and Parole Board to aid sentencing and release considerations.”
I have not heard a word about such considerations from the Justice Secretary. They continued:
“Staff routinely work through their lunch breaks to ensure that work is completed in a timely manner and to exacting professional standards. Staff are known to work late”
and
“come in at weekends on a regular basis. This is true dedication and professionalism.”
The probation officer described a recent case:
“I arrive at the office at 8.00 completing administrative tasks. I have arranged to see my first case at 8.30 so as not to impact on the individuals work commitments. 9.30 I interview a person for a Court Report. I have not been supplied with the details of the offence by the crown Prosecution Service despite numerous attempts. I contact the individual’s solicitor who because they have respect and trust in the publicly run probation service sends me a fax copy of the documents. The individual…is distressed”
and
“discloses that they have a…plan to end their life… The pressing matter is to stabilise this person. I contact my colleagues in the Criminal Justice mental health liaison team. They arrange to see the person immediately after my interview with them. I contact a housing organisation with expertise in debt issues. They establish phone contact with that person later on in the day and arrange to see them the following day. My role is not just about undertaking the bare minimum but trying to assist people from the first point of contact regain control over their lives. In this case the individual was not classed as being a client of our service as they were awaiting sentence.”
This probation officer highlighted one other case concerning exactly the category of offender who will be put in the hands of private companies under the contracting and privatisation provisions:
“In another case the individual is being supervised for an offence of driving whilst disqualified…for drunk driving. He is assessed as presenting a low medium risk of harm, as there have been previous concerns relating to domestic abuse. In one incident he returned home intoxicated by alcohol and proceed to put his steel toe cap boots on and kick the family dogs to death in front of his young children. I become increasingly concerned about his behaviour. He informs me that he has missed an appointment with me because he had to take his 4 year old son”
to hospital
“with a broken collar bone”
that he said was the result of an accident. The probation officer had seen the “over-chastisement” of the child when the offender had come to the office the previous week. They continue:
“I share my concerns with social services. I begin to receive regular incident bulletins from the police of incidents they have been called to but no evidence of violence used. I assess his risk to be high. Eventually after his partner receives treatment for 3rd degree burns to her back, which are explained as accidental. Social services intervene. During this process I have been undertaking work behind the scenes to promote the safety of the child and partner”
while also
“undertaking work…with the client to challenge his behaviour and attitudes to alcohol.”
Probation officers deal with people who are often chaotic, volatile and vulnerable, and whose lives are constantly shifting; and these probation officers constantly have to juggle their priorities. Private companies will not have close relations with, or the confidence of, other agencies. Their staff will not go that extra mile, but will be under pressure to do the bare minimum.
John Healey
I want to finish on this point, because other Members want to speak. The hon. Gentleman could have intervened earlier, but he did not.
At the end of his speech, the Justice Secretary talked about common sense. Common sense says: pilot these changes, pilot the provisions in the Bill and pull the proposed privatisation programme. To do otherwise would be totally unjustified; it would run a reckless risk with the lives of vulnerable offenders to whom we owe a duty of supervision, and a reckless risk with the safety of the public.
Probation Service
John Healey Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Wood (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard).
I speak as a trained probation officer and as someone who was perhaps least offended when the Secretary of State talked about ideologues, as I think that ideology often gets a bad press. However, being ideological does not remove from the Government the responsibility to provide protection for their citizens. These dramatic changes within our criminal justice system place the 120,000 men, women and children I represent in this place, as everybody else represents their constituents, under threat, and we must therefore speak out against them.
The stated aim of the Government’s plans—we have heard this articulated several times—is to address their concern about reoffending levels. Recidivism should be of concern to all of us, but up to this point neither the probation service nor anyone else has had any responsibility for the vast majority of reoffenders. Nobody in this House disagrees that petty criminals who leave prison after serving short sentences need extra help and support, and we have already heard how that should be done: extend the remit of the probation service to cover such people. Why abolish the probation service and privatise out of existence the successful group of people who have proved that they have the expertise to make a difference to the lives of those people, and why exclude them from the Government’s bidding process? It is absolutely barmy.
Anyone listening to this debate would not think that crime has been falling for the past 20 years under Governments of both stripes. West Yorkshire probation service deals with offenders in my area, where reoffending is down by 14% over the past five years. The situation is in many ways better, not worse, than it has ever been. The probation service is leaner, fitter, better and more focused than ever—certainly compared with when I worked as a probation officer—so we have the opportunity, should we wish, to extend support to people through a proven organisation.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
South Yorkshire, like west Yorkshire, has one of the best-performing probation trusts anywhere in the country and it already works with people who are convicted and serve a term of fewer than 12 months. Is it not the case that all of the probation trusts have said they will do this extra work at no extra cost? The question for Ministers, therefore, is: why on earth will they not back the probation trusts, which are already doing the job and doing it well in most cases?
Mike Wood
My right hon. Friend makes exactly the right point, but we know that the reason why that will not happen is ideological: this Government believe that private is good and public is bad. We also know that they are not really convinced that these changes will make any real difference to reoffending rates or save money.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mike Wood).
Earlier this afternoon, I had a chat with my father, who was a justice of the peace for many years. When I told him that I would be speaking on behalf of the Dorset probation service this afternoon, he said without any hesitation what huge respect he had for all the members of the probation service he had met in his many years as a JP.
Dorset has 10 probation officers and a small administration group based in Weymouth. They handle a case load of 350 offenders at any one time. The pressure is intense. When I visited the team, I was deeply impressed by their professionalism and dedication. They told me that they were concerned about some of the changes that the Government are proposing. It would be wise for us to listen.
I should emphasise that some of the changes are broadly welcomed by the probation team. They are pleased about the extension of statutory supervision to those who are in custody for fewer than 12 months. We have heard about that proposal today. They also welcome the development of seamless through-the-gates resettlement provision. However, the seamless resettlement service will work only if there is active engagement between the probation officer and the offender for at least three months prior to release. Crucially, family ties have also been shown to be vital to the successful reintegration of offenders into the community.
With the closure of Dorchester prison, which until now has been the dedicated resettlement prison for Dorset, offenders and probation officers must meet at Exeter prison, which is some 90 minutes away. That inevitably reduces the number of times they can meet and the amount of useful time that they can spend together. Furthermore, it takes the offender further away from home and his or her support network. It also affects the probation officer’s ability to deal with the intense work load that they leave behind.
If those changes are due to cuts, as must be assumed, they are a false economy. Spending nearly four hours on the road is not a good use of time or money. It also has a knock-on effect on the service and the courts. If the resettlement is truly to be seamless, we must ensure that Dorset probation officers can spend time with Dorset prisoners in Dorset. I ask the Minister to look again at the provision of a dedicated resettlement prison for Dorset.
There are also questions over the part-privatisation of the probation service that need to be answered. At the top of the list of concerns is the potential impact of the split between the national probation service and the community rehabilitation company. The NPS will be publicly run and manage offenders with a high risk of harm, as we have heard. The CRC will be run by commercial bodies and will manage those who have a medium or low risk of harm through a series of interventions and programmes. The problem is that offenders do not usually remain low, medium or high risk; many factors can mean that an offender moves from low risk to high risk, not least if they revert to a drug or alcohol habit.
The new system would mean an offender being passed from the CRC to the NPS, and potentially back again. Will the Minister comment on the continuity of care under such a scenario? That issue matters because research has shown that the relationship between an offender and their probation officer is crucial to whether—once released—they succeed on their licence or order. That continuity is so important that, as I understand it, a change of probation officer for an offender is investigated by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons, and every effort is made to ensure that the prisoner keeps the same probation officer throughout. As a result of the split between the NPS and the CRC, probation officers are concerned that that relationship could be affected, with serious consequences for both the offender and wider society.
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech and a strong point, about which the Minister was shaking his head. Is it not the case that one in four offenders in any one year moves between medium and high-risk categories? They therefore risk yo-yoing between the agencies, which must involve extra cost, extra bureaucracy and extra risk to the public.
Richard Drax
I hear the statistics from the right hon. Gentleman, and on my right, my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), says that they are wrong. I was expressing the concerns of my constituents that there will inevitably be some potential confusion between the two organisations. I have been told by probation officers that what is vital and successful at the moment is the fact that they can keep an eye on someone and there is no need to think, “What happens if they go there? Who is going to deal with that? Will they slip through the net?”
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
I will be brief, because I cannot disagree with anything already said from the Opposition Benches. We have heard the expert opinion of people who really know what they are talking about.
No one thinks there is a silver bullet that will stop reoffending. If we think there is one answer, and that it is either in the private sector or the public sector, we will be looking for it for an awfully long time. As we all recognise, everyone in the House wants to reduce reoffending rates as far as possible, protect society and turn criminals into law-abiding citizens, not just for their own sake, but to save money for the public purse. The big question is: how do we do that? Most people, certainly in the Opposition, believe that the public sector, in the form of the probation trusts, has demonstrated an ability to innovate and make improvements. Certainly, that is the case in Derbyshire, and we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins). There has been some astonishing innovation and really fantastic improvements and results.
Natascha Engel
Yes, and in South Yorkshire. Obviously, I cover a lot of South Yorkshire as well.
How can we best cut reoffending? We can talk about private, public, a mixture of both, about the involvement of charities and so on, but our big concern, and the concern of the chairs of the probation trusts, including in Derbyshire, is that these reforms are being so hurried—they are to be implemented in one year—that the safety of the public could be at risk. Opposition Members have talked about the amount of work, the staff and buildings and everything that needs to be transferred, and 12 months simply is not long enough, so will Ministers please consider pausing and piloting these changes properly? Why is that not possible?
What would we lose that is working well at the moment? With any dramatic change, there will be things lost that work well. We need to protect those services that are working excellently, not throw them out with the bathwater.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
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Mr Syms
Absolutely. Progress has been made and the Government listened to our Committee debates. I was surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who mentioned cats, did not mention Mungo and Basil, as they got a mention in Committee. It was an interesting Committee and things were well debated. We made proposals that will improve the Bill. I urge the Minister to resist most of the amendments, but to consider the amendment to do with the tariff, which needs to be given serious consideration.
To go back to my first point, the Bill is about simplifying things and making them more flexible, and I urge the Minister to resist more complicated legislation. Let us get on with the job and let us make it easier for legislators. This is a good Bill, extending the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 to private property and protecting assistance dogs. It contains a lot of good things and if we can get the tariff up as well, it will be a result for those who served on the Committee and for this House.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) and it was good to hear him speaking in the House, after a period in the Whips on the Front Bench, although what he had to say was still a little too loyal for my taste.
I welcome clause 98 and the extension of the offence of allowing a dog to cause injury or the fear of injury to all places, including all private property. That is long awaited and closes a significant loophole in the law. Ministers have simply been much too slow to make this change. Today, however, particularly with new clause 3, the new Minister has the opportunity to act ahead of a serious and growing problem, instead of just giving a long-delayed response to a problem, as we have seen so far. I am talking about the introduction of dog control notices.
We know that thousands of victims are injured and hospitalised each year as a result of dog attacks. We know that the number of owners sentenced for offences related to dangerous dogs has increased by more than one third since 2009. Just in South Yorkshire the police tell me that in the past year they have responded to 464 dog attack incidents, and that just in 2013 they have so far taken out 26 court cases pursuing prosecution against those owners.
The latest case reported to me was that of Rebecca Lowman of Goldthorpe, who was attacked and badly injured in the arm and leg last month when she was defending a woman who was being attacked by her own dog in her own house. While Becky was still in hospital, I sat down with her husband John, who was very upset by Becky’s injuries and very angry that the police had no ability to act on that dog because the attack took place in that private house.
Since I started campaigning on this issue in the past few weeks, a lot of people have contacted me, including Norma Saunders, who told me that she knows someone who was a victim of a dog attack. She said:
“After the dog attacked several times, our community felt terrorized. I did not let my little boy play in the garden & I did not walk to the shops, but the authorities were not interested.”
I pay tribute to Hallam FM in South Yorkshire, which has taken up this campaign, aired the problems and given listeners the chance to give their experiences over the past week. A couple have phoned in with very powerful points. One said that the law must be changed:
“I was mauled by an American Pitt bull crossed with a Bull mastiff at my friend’s house and as it was in its rightful house nothing could have been done…I have been left with traumatic memories and ugly scars, this dog has not been put down and has in fact bitten someone else”.
Another caller simply said that we should
“just do what is definitely necessary to prevent any more horrific and fatal attacks on innocent people and children.”
The Minister has the chance to do just that this afternoon.
I urge the Minister, taking advantage of his fresh mandate as a new Minister in a new post, to accept new clause 3. Dog control notices have been legislated for in Scotland for three years and this represents a sensible extension of the scope for local authorities, courts and the police to take action against a person in control of a dog whose behaviour is out of control. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has explained some of the steps and sanctions available to the authorities when a dog control notice is in place.
Labour has been arguing this case but Ministers have been dragging their feet for three years now. During that time, thousands more have suffered serious and often debilitating injuries. Most dog owners are responsible and their dogs are well behaved, but a minority see dogs as status symbols or even offensive weapons. The Government must go further than this Bill. Closing the loophole in the legislation over attacks on some private property is a sensible step, but one that they have been pushed to take. Let us see Ministers take the next sensible step this afternoon, introduce and accept the principle of dog control notices and help to reverse the rising trend of attacks and to head off some of the attacks we will otherwise definitely see, which will leave adults and children badly scarred, badly injured, badly traumatised and, in some cases, dead.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I support the Government’s gradualist and sensible approach and I urge the Minister to resist new clause 3. We all regret and are desperately unhappy about vicious attacks by dogs, particularly on children—although also on anybody else—and if legislation could solve that problem and new clause 3 could deal with it without causing massive potential inconvenience to millions of peaceable people who own dogs, I would be in favour of it. However, like all such amendments, it would probably, sadly, do little to control the vicious people who use dogs as weapons and it could impact severely on millions of ordinary, peaceable dog owners.
I declare an interest because, like you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am a dog owner. My dog, a little border terrier called William, is a lot smaller than yours. I saw yours in the Westminster dog show last year and many people think that your breed of dog is quite powerful, but I know from having witnessed your dog that it is well brought up and peaceable.
Let us be sensible about this. I know that new clause 3 is well intentioned, but it could have draconian effects. All it states is:
“Where an authorised officer has reasonable cause to believe that a dog is not under sufficient control”.
It requires a reasonable belief—that is not probability. We all know that there are disputes between neighbours, or that people have rows with other people. That is such a small bar to get over for an “authorised officer”.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That was part of our objective. Some people argued that we should go for one case, one fee, but that would in my view do deep long-term—if not total—damage to the Bar. We chose not to go down that route. We have put together a package of proposals that, on the basis of the case mix carried out last year by junior barristers, should leave a substantial proportion of them either with an unchanged income or a slightly increased income.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
19. If legal aid cannot be paid unless permission is granted for a judicial review, does the Justice Secretary accept that lawyers will be unable to take on some of the strongest cases such as when local authorities might refuse to recognise their duty to house a homeless family? Those are exactly the kind of cases where they will offer an early settlement or a no-cost settlement.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Mr Blunt
We know that it is important to tackle youth unemployment. The £1 billion youth contract will encourage employers to give young jobless people a chance, the Youth Justice Board has developed an employing ex-offenders action plan, and resettlement consortia have achieved success in helping many young people to find employment on release from custody.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that the best efforts to reduce reoffending are often based on local courts with good local knowledge, working closely with local agencies? We have a very good magistrates court in Rotherham for Rotherham, and a very good one in Barnsley for Barnsley. Will he rule out any further magistrates court closures, which might put local justice in jeopardy?
Mr Blunt
The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I cannot do that. We have to deliver the whole justice system as efficiently as possible. Because of the financial catastrophe that overtook the country under the last Administration, in which he played a prominent part in the Treasury, the provision of all court and prison infrastructure has to be examined so that we can deliver offender management considerably more effectively than the last Administration.
Police
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Nick Herbert
I will come to all those issues in the course of my remarks. Naturally, I intend to address all these issues.
Nick Herbert
Let me make a little more progress, and I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman later.
Following careful consideration of all those responses, I have decided that force level allocations will remain as announced in my written ministerial statement of 8 December. Each police force in England and Wales will face an equal percentage reduction in core Government funding in 2012-13. I believe that that is the most transparent, straightforward and equitable means of apportioning the funding reductions. It is important to note that the allocations were set out last year and have remained the same.
John Healey
The Minister talks about choices, but will he talk about consequences? South Yorkshire has been forced to cut more than 100 police officers since the election and will have to cut another 300. Will he rethink these Government funding cuts for the police instead of stripping us in south Yorkshire of the police we need?
Nick Herbert
I will come to the issue of police numbers, although the previous Home Secretary in the Government whom the right hon. Gentleman supported said just before the election that he could not guarantee the number of police officers. One of the points I will be making today is that the Opposition are committed to reductions in spending that mean they too would produce a situation in which police forces were losing officers—the question is how forces adapt to that. Anyway, I do not think we should just play the straightforward numbers game.