Debates between John McDonnell and Jeremy Wright during the 2010-2015 Parliament

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between John McDonnell and Jeremy Wright
Monday 12th May 2014

(10 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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I think that we had a constructive debate in Committee, and it is disappointing that the Opposition have set their face against secure colleges. I will not be able to pick up on all the points made during the debate, but let me do my best.

Amendments 16, 17, 18 and 21 would effectively remove from the Bill all reference to a secure college, and it is worth starting with the context of our proposed reform of the youth secure estate. At present we pay around £100,000 a year on average for a place in youth custody, and yet almost 70% of young people go on to reoffend within 12 months of release. For secure children’s homes the cost rises beyond £200,000 a place, yet reoffending outcomes are little different.

To give the House the facts, the proportion of offenders who reoffended in the 12 months to March 2012 is as follows: 69.9% in young offenders institutions; 70.1% in secure training centres; and 67.6% in secure children’s homes. That is why we need to do something different, and why we are pursuing the idea of secure colleges. I have heard the arguments tonight and, indeed previously, that there are better ways to improve the youth custodial estate, and in particular that smaller establishments such as secure children’s homes are more effective. The figures for reoffending that I have given do not demonstrate that, but I understand that plenty of good work is done across the estate.

The hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) asked whether we considered spending the money on the existing estate, and the answer is yes. However, if we continue to do the same things in the same ways, we can expect the same results. He seems to have said this evening that he accepts that the status quo is not acceptable but he does not think that secure colleges are the right way to go. He clearly favours a much more small-unit approach, such as secure children’s homes, but I wonder whether he has considered the cost of that. Our rough guess is that putting all young people currently detained in custody into a secure children’s home would cost in excess of £100 million more a year than we currently spend. I would be interested to hear—as, I am sure, would the House—how exactly that would be paid for by the Labour party if that is its intent. I suspect it does not know.

The truth is that no current model of youth custody is delivering the types of outcomes that we all want to see, or providing sufficient value for money for the taxpayer. That is why we want to consider secure colleges. I am conscious that there is an appetite to hear more detail on how secure colleges will operate than primary legislation can provide. It is therefore worth pointing out to the House that during the Bill’s passage we intend to publish and consult on our plans for secure college rules, including, where appropriate, setting out some indicative draft provisions. This will provide both Houses with more information on how we expect secure colleges to operate.

John McDonnell Portrait John McDonnell
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During the passage of the Bill? We are on Report! This is the end of the Bill’s consideration in this House. We have one more day. We will not return to this issue unless the other place amends the proposed legislation.

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Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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If the hon. Gentleman takes the time to look at the programme motion he will see that there are two days allowed on Report. This is the first day, not the second. [Interruption.] I have made the position clear.

John McDonnell Portrait John McDonnell
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Will the Minister give way?

Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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No, I am afraid I will not. I have 10 minutes left and a good deal of ground to cover. There will be a second day on Report and the other House will get to consider this matter. The hon. Gentleman was not present in Committee. Had he—

John McDonnell Portrait John McDonnell
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On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sure the Minister does not wish to mislead the House about the processes of this House. I would like absolute clarity. I am a Back-Bench Member dealing with this part of the Bill on day one, which is considering this part the Bill. On the basis of the programme motion, this part of the Bill will not come back for consideration on day two, so this is my last opportunity to consider the matter unless the other place amends the Bill on this point. I will not have the opportunity to take part in a debate informed by the publication of these rules. Is that accurate, Mr Speaker?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John McDonnell and Jeremy Wright
Tuesday 18th March 2014

(10 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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I agree with the hon. Gentleman that working together to share best practice is important, and we will certainly seek to do that. There are good examples of rehabilitation to be found across the United Kingdom.

John McDonnell Portrait John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
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At the heart of the Government’s reforms is the large-scale tendering of services. Does the grotesque debacle of the electronic tagging contract with Buddi not demonstrate that the Minister’s Government is incapable of managing this process efficiently? This is yet another contract where the competition has been ended. A Ministry of Justice statement says that it has had to retender the contract for the supply of new tags.

Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, I do not agree with the way the hon. Gentleman has represented the situation. The position is this. We will work with a preferred bidder to try to ensure that our needs are met and that we can reach agreement in delivering what will be impressive new technology to help us keep better track of offenders. If we cannot reach agreement with a preferred bidder, we must move on to another provider, and that is what is happening here. Four lots are involved in this particular process. On three of them, things are working as well as we could possibly have expected. In relation to the fourth, there are difficulties, but we are resolving them. What I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome is the use of the technology.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Debate between John McDonnell and Jeremy Wright
Tuesday 14th January 2014

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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The point I am making is that the rules, which pre-existed this Government by the way, are very clear: investigation is not the same thing as conviction. We have made it very clear, however, that we have initiated our own investigations. I have warned the hon. Lady before that she is sitting in a very large glass house and that she should think before throwing stones. This is a contract negotiated by her Government and substantially abused, it would seem, during her Government’s term in office. That abuse was discovered by this Government and acted on by this Government. She is hardly in a position to suggest that we have behaved in any way improperly. In any event, I remind the House that both organisations, Serco and G4S, are not on the list of lead providers.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington raised the question of whether those organisations could act in a supporting role. The answer is that we will want to look very carefully not just at the process of corporate renewal those companies are undergoing at the moment but at the specific bids they are making. However, they are not on the list of lead providers. I remind Opposition Members that we were told not so very long ago that the proposals could never work without G4S and Serco, that no one would be interested in bidding. We have a list of 30 different bidders, comprising 50 different organisations at lead bidder level. The Opposition are simply wrong about the level of interest.

John McDonnell Portrait John McDonnell
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I just want to get this absolutely clear and on the record. What the Minister is saying is that the two organisations that the Serious Fraud Office is investigating will be allowed to bid as part of a consortium for some of these contracts. In addition, I see that also on the list are A4E, which, if I remember rightly, was forced to hand back money to the Government as a result of its failure on contracts—in fact, some fraudulent activity on contracts—for the Department for Work and Pensions. We are opening up this whole network to a group of villains.

Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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The hon. Gentleman needs to be very careful with his language. He needs to understand that someone being investigated is not the same thing as someone being found responsible for poor conduct. It is important for a Justice Minister, in particular, to recognise that distinction. I assure him that in relation to each and every bid we receive we will look very carefully not just at the bid but at the organisations making the bid. He has heard me say on many occasions that we will not be awarding contracts to any organisation we think unfit to hold them.

Let me make the point, because it has been raised, that all the bidders on our list have experience of either working with offenders or across the wider criminal justice system. This is exactly the broad market that we want to see deliver these services. Below the community rehabilitation company level, we want to ensure that smaller organisations from the voluntary community and social enterprise sectors are able to play a key role in delivering rehabilitation.

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Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the Work programme, and anyway, as he might have heard me say more than once, this proposal is not a clone of that programme. It is a different proposal, as it must be, because the criminal justice system is a different entity. It is important to recognise that.

On smaller voluntary organisations, about which people have understandable concerns, the House might be interested to know that along with the 30 lead providers that have passed the competition’s first stage, a further 800 organisations have expressed an interest in playing a role as part of the wider supply chain, with more than 550 voluntary sector organisations among them. In the process of contract management, we will want to manage properly the relationships between the larger and smaller players to ensure that those relationships are sustainable in the long term.

John McDonnell Portrait John McDonnell
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Let me explain to the Minister why some of us feel strongly about this matter and why some of our language is strong. The Government awarded the contract for unpaid work in Greater London—so this affects our constituencies—to Serco. I will briefly set out some of the problems that have occurred: works shops have been closed, shutting down placements for women high-risk offenders; offenders recently complained to a probation officer in north-west London—my area—that no supervisors were available onsite; and rival gang members have been placed on the same scheme and transported in the same way. In addition, a known sex offender was alleged to be on the same placement as a victim. That is why we are angry.

Jeremy Wright Portrait Jeremy Wright
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I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern, but I do not agree with his characterisation of Serco’s contract. As he would expect, we have looked closely at its performance under the contract and, again, I assure him that we will look closely at all those who bid for this work. As with all competitions, the decision to award each contract depends on our being satisfied that bidders can meet our standards in respect of quality of service and price and, in this case too, on our being satisfied about the financial risk being taken to reduce reoffending and ensuring good value for the taxpayer. If we are not satisfied that overall bidders can meet our requirements, we will not award them contracts.

Hon. Members have raised the issue of the management of high-risk offenders, so let me make it clear exactly what will be involved. We are creating a new national probation service to manage directly all offenders who pose a high risk of serious harm and any sexual or violent offenders subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements. After an offender has been sentenced, the NPS will make an initial assessment of an offender’s risk of causing harm, and all offenders assessed as posing a high risk of serious harm will be the responsibility of the NPS. For low and medium-risk offenders, CRCs will be required to manage any risk of serious harm that the offender might present and to have appropriately trained staff and robust procedures in place for the management of cases where the risk of serious harm escalates to high during the offender’s supervision. They will also be contractually required to refer cases back to the NPS if they consider that the risk of serious harm might be escalating. In the end, the decision will be taken by the NPS.

New clauses 5 and 13 deal with reports by the Secretary of State to Parliament and the public on the impact of the reforms we intend to make. I want to reassure the House that the Government are already committed to acting in the spirit of those amendments. We are already considering how we can provide information about reoffending rates broken down by CRCs and the NPS. As Members will know, the MOJ already publishes reoffending statistics, not just annually but every three months, broken down by probation trust, prison and upper and lower-tier local authorities. I am happy to commit to the House that, in the future, the reports will break down reoffending rates for the different CRCs and the NPS. Indeed, as a first step, we have already published on the MOJ website a set of indicative figures to show what reoffending rates and cohort sizes in each contract package area would have looked like had the new structure been in place for the 2005-10 period. We are also piloting the justice data lab, about which I have spoken before, which will give providers the opportunity to match the performance of their cohort with something comparable.

On freedom of information, CRCs will be required in contracts to assist the MOJ in discharging its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act—very much along the lines of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), the Chairman of the Select Committee, outlined earlier, and in accordance with his Committee’s reports and conclusions.

On penalties, we are developing a performance framework that will include financial penalties for services not delivered to time or to quality. Contracts for CRCs will reflect that and, as I have said, the House will be able to see that this is the case when we publish those contracts in draft. I do not want to lose sight—nor should the House—of the major prizes here: first, expanding support for offenders released from short sentences and, secondly, developing a through-the-gate system for offenders released from prison. I think that that commands a broad measure of support.

That brings me to new clause 6, tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd). I want to reassure him that as part of our reforms there will be a new resettlement service provided in custody for all offenders before their release. This will be tailored to the individual’s needs, but is likely to include support in finding accommodation, family support, mentoring and financial advice. Services in custody will be underpinned by the changes to the way in which the prison estate is organised. That will mean that, in most cases, the same professional can work with offenders in custody and continue their rehabilitation work in the community.

As the right hon. Gentleman would expect, the Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service are working closely together to ensure that the Prison Service is well prepared to implement these proposals. Right from the outset of these reforms, we established a joint working group on this topic that reports to senior officials and ultimately to Ministers. The working group has commissioned an analytical model of prisoner flows through the prison estate. That allows us to test the impact on prisoner flows and locations from implementing the resettlement prison allocation model. Furthermore, I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the Prison Service is undertaking a full review of facilities and staffing levels at all proposed resettlement prisons. Together all these things will ensure that the changes we are proposing are deliverable and sustainable, which I think is exactly his concern.

On new clause 4, I understand that the case of Opposition Members is that this is a huge leap in the dark and that no testing of what we are doing is or will be going on. That is not the case. Let me set out to the House the key elements that make up our reforms, what we are doing to test them and the steps we have built in to assess how effectively they are working at key stages of implementation.

First, there are the reforms at the heart of the Bill: the extension of licence and supervision to offenders released from short custodial sentences. There are lawyers among Opposition Members, and they will know, and ought to appreciate, that with a change to the sentencing framework of this magnitude, it cannot be desirable to introduce it one part of the country but not another. To do so would risk postcode justice, with some offenders getting different sentences from others.

To expand supervision to the under-12-month group, as we all say we want to do, we need to make the changes at a national level. That means funding those changes at a national level. The savings to fund the changes come from two sources; first, the efficiencies generated by competing supervision of low and medium-risk offenders and, secondly, the back office savings from moving to 21 from 35 CRCs, along with a single national probation service. Competing services in only one area of the country, if that is what is being proposed—I have heard little detail as to what sort of piloting is being proposed here—would extend supervision to short-sentenced offenders but, in every other respect, we are carrying out extensive local testing of the reforms in no fewer than 14 probation trusts. There is also the testing we are carrying out on the new operating model for the CRCs and the NPS. Those tests will enable us to inform how the new processes will operate once implemented. The first round of tests has already started and will continue over the coming months.

Secondly, there is the important fact that the 21 CRCs that we are creating will remain in public sector ownership for some months after their creation until the conclusion of the competition. This gives us further opportunities to carry on testing and to refine the system. Caseloads will not all necessarily transfer at the point the NPS and CRCs come into being, and we have made it clear to trusts that where there is a case for doing so, we will give greater latitude to allow for caseload transfer to operate more slowly than the people transfer process. That will avoid disruption and the type of dangers that that might create, which Opposition members have described.

Thirdly, there is the testing that we are carrying out of our approach to payment by results. We have consulted extensively on this and there are also pilots under way to test different approaches to payment by results. Opposition members would have us believe that there has been no piloting and that there is no piloting. Neither of those two things is true.