Sentencing Bill

Lord Barber of Ainsdale Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale]

77: After Clause 17, insert the following Clause—
“Unpaid work requirements: community work(1) The Sentencing Code is amended as follows.(2) In paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 9 (restriction on imposing unpaid work requirement), after sub-paragraph (1)(b), insert—“(c) that the unpaid work is work undertaken for a non-profit organisation, social enterprise, voluntary organisation or local authority.”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would prohibit private sector involvement in unpaid work as part of a community sentence.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Woodley, who is a little unwell today. Amendments 77 and 135 are in his name.

As a lifelong trade unionist, I have seen too often the damaging impact that privatisation can have on public services; in pursuit of maximising profit, costs are too often cut to the bone, often starting with workers’ pay, terms and conditions. The quality of service goes down, while the cost to the taxpayer goes up, and we are left with the worst of both worlds.

Privatisation has failed especially badly when it comes to the justice system. Probation is the classic example: it was part-privatised by the last Government, who had to renationalise it five years later because the service was close to collapse. Take prisons: private prisons are on average 47% more violent than public prisons, according to research published by the Guardian. Yet still we build more of them, with, of the three new prisons announced by the Government, two to be run for profit. Quite apart from the practical problems that come with outsourcing, it seems to me to be morally wrong for private companies to profit from prisons or probation, or indeed any part of our precious justice system. With this in mind, Amendment 77 seeks to address concerns that the Ministry of Justice is preparing to let private companies profit from unpaid work orders, also known as community service.

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[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Woodley for tabling these amendments and my noble friend Lord Barber for introducing them in his absence, giving me the opportunity to clarify the Government’s position on the issues they have raised.

I appreciate that my noble friend’s Amendment 77 is founded on concerns that unpaid work will be privatised. To be completely clear, and for the avoidance of any doubt, I assure him that the privatisation of unpaid work is absolutely not being considered. The Government are clear that unpaid work must be robust and continue to pay back where it matters most: in our communities. The Government remain open to a full range of potential projects that help our communities. Were any of those to have any private sector involvement, it would be within the realms of the current requirement for the Probation Service to retain ultimate control and supervision. This requirement is unchanged and, as I say, we have no plans to change it.

For example, it is already possible for a private company to influence the type of projects offenders may complete through nominating suitable projects, such as graffiti removal in a local community. In these scenarios, the unpaid work would always be overseen by the Probation Service and the work undertaken would always serve a community purpose—I stress that point. We do not intend to privatise the delivery of unpaid work, but we should encourage joining up with local businesses and charities to determine how best to expand projects further and to deliver work that has the greatest community benefit. We believe that there is sufficient operational guidance already in place to support delivery in a way that benefits charitable, state or not-for-profit organisations and guards against exploiting any offenders for private profit.

Turning to Amendment 135, I will address the concerns that my noble friend raised. It is important to be clear that it is the responsibility of the electronic monitoring field and monitoring service provider, Serco, to perform the duty of installing and monitoring the output of electronic monitoring devices. I note the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, about the commitment to probation being seen as a public service. He also noted that this community rehabilitation company was brought back into the public sector by the last Government; of course, it was also the Conservative Government who put it in the private sector, where it failed, in the first place.

I recognise and deeply appreciate the vital role that the Prison and Probation Service performs. I stress that, as my noble friend Lord Timpson said, we see it as crucial to the success of these reforms. We want it to be able to focus on recovering from the challenges it faces and on becoming genuinely world-class.

The Ministry of Justice has recently launched a pilot to test the fitting of electronic monitoring devices before offenders leave the prison gates, instead of at a home visit. This goes to my noble friend Lord Barber’s third point. We are doing this so that we can begin monitoring them immediately, in the crucial period just after leaving custody. The approach is initially being tested in six prisons. I therefore reaffirm to my noble friend and the Committee that it absolutely remains the responsibilities of Serco to install tags at these pilot sites and of Probation Service staff to manage the prison leavers to whom they are applied. The pilot will be subject to proper evaluation so that we can take forward the operational learning and evidence it generates to inform future practice.

I hope that that reassures my noble friend that the changes we are making do not change the responsibilities for applying the tags. With those reassurances in mind, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response. On Amendment 77, I noticed that he placed proper emphasis on payback to our communities from the unpaid work we are discussing, but I would hope that proper consideration is also given to payback to prisoners who face this form of punishment during their terms.

This is comparable to other community work schemes in many ways, and in previous job creation programmes there have been strong emphases on the quality of training provided and the safeguards against displacement and substitution of paid jobs. Those are important considerations that need to be taken into account in considering the programmes we are discussing in respect of prisoners.

On Amendment 135, I note and am pleased to hear what the Minister says about Serco continuing to have that key responsibility. In the light of the response on both these amendments, I am prepared to withdraw Amendment 77 and not press Amendment 135.

Amendment 77 withdrawn.