Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL] Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Ministry of Justice
Lord Beecham
Main Page: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beecham's debates with the Ministry of Justice
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]
Lord Beecham Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this amendment is the identical twin of Amendment 7A, which I moved last week in relation to Clause 2. As I said then, the effect would be to require the necessary supervision to be carried out either by a directly employed public service provider or by a person commissioned by such a public sector provider. I do not think it is necessary to rehearse the arguments again. I suppose that it is unlikely that the ministerial sinner will be in a repentant mood this afternoon, but I live in hope and I beg to move.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am like St Augustine; I want to give up sin, but not yet. I will deal briefly with Amendment 24C. It would mean that the responsible officer for the supervision of offenders subject to community orders and suspended sentence orders would have to be a public sector probation provider. As the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, this is essentially the same amendment applied to community orders as the noble Lord tabled on the first day of Committee for supervision of custodial sentences. As I said then, the Government are committed to providing new supervision for those released from short custodial sentences. To achieve this aim, we, as a responsible Government, have to be able to afford this additional supervision. To do that, we need to reduce the current costs of dealing with offenders.
We also want to encourage innovation among providers of probation services dealing with this group of offenders serving community sentences and suspended sentences. It is important to ensure that we continue to improve the reoffending rates of this group of offenders, as well as of those serving custodial terms. Paying providers in full only where they are successful at reducing reoffending will not only make savings; it will drive down our reoffending rates. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will withdraw his amendment now that I have clarified what the Government’s intentions are.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the repetition of the stance that he took the other night. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I commend again the noble and learned Lord for the tenacity with which he has pursued this important area of penal policy. I am entirely in agreement with the thrust of his amendments and I am sure that they will commend themselves to other Members of your Lordships’ House. However, I have one difficulty with his amendment.
Lord Woolf
I hope I will be forgiven if I intervene to say that, with great perception, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, seeks in Amendment 27A to alter the proposal in Amendment 27. I should make it clear that I support Amendment 27A in preference to my original proposal.
Lord Beecham
I am obliged for the noble and learned Lord’s intervention but perhaps I should decode what is happening for the benefit of those who do not understand—it took me some time—the effect of the amendment as originally drafted.
As originally drawn, the amendment would have removed from Clause 13(7) reference to,
“activities whose purpose is reparative”,
and substituted “restorative justice activities”.
The two things are not the same. Reparative justice will involve doing work, for example, of the kind that I came across when involved in a justice reinvestment project in the north-east. In fact, there were two significant projects: one led to the effective reconstruction of Albert Park in Middlesbrough and the other at Saltwell Park in Gateshead, both Victorian parks which had become very run down. Offenders were brought in to work on these and benefited from being taught skills, which it is to be hoped will be useful later. They made a visible contribution to the communities which they had damaged by their offences. It was a very good scheme.
Taking that out would exclude work of that kind. As the noble and learned Lord said, Amendment 27A reinstates that in addition to restorative justice so that the complete range of options would remain available. I hope that the Minister will accept the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, as amended by my restoration of the paragraph in the original Bill. It would be extremely disappointing, given that the Government are supportive of the principle of restorative justice, if statutory recognition was not incorporated in the Bill at this time and the opportunity not taken in its passage to lend weight to the growing support up and down the country for the concept in our system.
Baroness Hamwee
Not having come with a long speech, I want to register my support and that of my noble friends on these Benches for these amendments and, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham said, the growing support for the concept of restorative justice. The more I hear about that, the more it seems a very important part of rehabilitation. It has many aspects and one of those fits neatly within the thrust of this Bill and in the new Section 200A. Among the things it can achieve is redirecting offenders who can be described, as many noble Lords have done at previous stages, as having chaotic lives. Being able to put the chaos of one’s life into the perspective that this kind of activity can help achieve is an important objective of rehabilitation.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, my intention is purely to probe for information. Clause 14 seeks to amend Section 202 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which, as the Explanatory Notes make clear, is about programme requirements for community orders and suspended sentence orders. As drafted, the clause removes from the Act the provision that an offender can only participate in accredited programmes in places approved by the local probation board or local provider of probation services. My purpose here is to obtain from the Minister an elucidation of what the implications of the amendment to Section 202 of the 2003 Act would actually be. What sort of programmes will be encompassed within the new arrangements? Will they be accredited and who will the providers be? It is as simple as that. If the noble Lord is not able to deal with those questions today I would quite understand, because the clause is not particularly revealing of its purpose. I would be happy to receive a letter which could be placed in the Library, if that would be of assistance.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for that clarification. His reasoning may not have been clear when he notified his intention to oppose the Question that the clause stand part, but it was in his explanation. It may be helpful to reiterate what Clause 14 intends to do. Currently an accredited programme can take place only in premises that have been approved by a probation trust or other provider of probation services. There is therefore a slightly redundant step built into the process for delivering accredited programmes, whereby trusts currently have to set up premises for programmes and then approve those premises themselves before courts can require offenders to attend. Clause 14 removes this requirement. Although probation providers will still want to satisfy themselves that a programme’s premises are suitable for those attending, as a result of the amendment there will no longer be a formal requirement in law for them to ratify or sign that off internally before courts can require offenders to attend.
Parliament has already approved a change in the law that means that the responsible officer, who is the person responsible for delivering the requirement, now chooses the accredited programme that the offender must follow. This was previously in the gift of the court. This change was made by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 and commenced in December last year. As a consequence, the court no longer specifies where the offender must go to participate in the programme but simply imposes a programme requirement and sets the number of days on which the offender must take part.
The detail of the requirement is now in the hands of the provider, who is best placed to know which programme is the most likely to promote rehabilitation. This also means that where it emerges that a different programme would work better—for example, the offender starts on a cognitive programme but it becomes clear that a domestic violence programme would be better—the responsible officer can switch the programme without taking the order back to court. The amendment in Clause 14 merely furthers the principle of operational discretion for providers by removing the largely redundant requirement for formal approval of a place as suitable for offenders subject to a programme requirement.
In closing, I reassure noble Lords that the Government see a continued place for accredited programmes under our new framework for delivering services for offenders. Accredited programmes are evidence-based and developed from the academic literature on what works. Where interventions have a substantial degree of evidence for their effectiveness, it is important that we build on that success. Those advising the courts through pre-sentence reports will continue to be able to recommend a programme requirement where a particular intervention is available locally, and where probation professionals believe that it is the right way of dealing with the causes of an individual’s offending. Based on that clarification, I urge that Clause 14 should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Beecham
I am very grateful to the Minister for his clarification. It occurs to me to ask whether it would be envisaged that a provider of services in respect of the premises to which the noble referred could require, for example, repair work to be carried out for the benefit of the provider. That potentially would create a conflict of interest. I do not ask for an off-the-cuff response, but I would be grateful if the Minister would look at it.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
My Lords, I, too, cannot remain silent. I am so glad that we are privileged to have the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, to add her voice to this debate. The crucial thing is that we have not managed to listen hard enough before. There is no question that women are different from men. They are not just differently shaped; they have particular needs and they are absolutely specific. We have known this for years. It is possibly boring but quite graphic to look at just a few of the facts and figures. Women serve very short sentences on the whole, with 58% serving six months or less and many only four months, or a matter of weeks. The sentences are for non-violent offences; we do not need to be protected from these women. Some 81% are for shoplifting, and we know that most shoplifting is for food for their children or for drugs. About 60% of the women, in fact, are drug users.
The final thing, which the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, also mentioned, is that the collateral damage of the imprisonment of women is absolutely unquantifiable. If more than 17,000 children a year experience and suffer separation from their mothers, that damage does not really take a lot of imagination to assess. Some terribly graphic reports have been published. For many children, to be separated in this way from their parents is like a bereavement: in their eyes, their mothers have died. This is a terrible thing to have to experience, but this is what we are doing to this primarily non-violent, very vulnerable, group of people from whom we do not need to be protected.
The centres, which we have models for, do exist and it would not be difficult for the Government to develop them along those lines. Several years ago now, when I chaired the Rethinking Crime and Punishment initiative, we funded the Fawcett Society, which issued an important report, before even the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, saying that we should make this specialist provision. We now have one or two important Together Women groups, and a total in this country of about 55 groups altogether, which is not very many. We have the 218 service in Glasgow and the Willow partnership, which we are very proud of, but they are a drop in the ocean compared with the needs of these women. I have been to a women’s centre recently and not only were the women telling me how much their lives were being changed but there were people at the centre who had been users and were now coming back to support other people who were going through the same terrible experience.
The facts and the figures, as well as this kind of affective argument, seem irresistible. I hope that when this amendment talks about the particular needs of women that the Government will have ears to hear and will take this forward immediately.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Corston, to whom tribute has been paid again today—as it is regularly, and rightly, when these matters come up—has spoken with her customary passion about the problem which her report so significantly addressed. The implementation of her report has, alas, as yet not gone far enough by any means. The Committee will, I am sure, agree completely with the thrust of her powerful argument this evening. I certainly support the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, to which other noble Lords have spoken.
It should not be necessary, but it still clearly is, to remind your Lordships’ House, and indeed others, of the impact of the present system on women offenders, particularly those who end up in custody. There is a shockingly high rate of suicide and self-harm for those in custody; it is much more significant than it is among male offenders. We are in essence discussing those who perhaps will be in custody for a short time, but even short-term prisoners will be subject to the temptation of self-harm, and that will apply, particularly again, to women. It is important that we look at this issue for a discrete group and take the sort of measures that deal properly with their problems. Although we are concerned today with the provisions of this Bill, that will need to be at various levels of the justice system. I hope we will have a sympathetic and practical response from the noble Lord when he replies.
I take this opportunity to refer again to resettlement prisons and women, because there is an issue here that that was mentioned on the last occasion in Committee and needs stressing: the proposal, which is welcome in principle, for resettlement prisons for those in custody who will be returned to the community to be nearer the place to which they will return. I pointed out that there are only 13 women’s prisons in this country and that there might well be a problem with housing women in a women’s institution close to where they live. It is a significant issue and a concern to organisations involved with this issue. It would be wrong to house women in an essentially male establishment simply because that happens to be nearer and there is no women’s institution in the appropriate geographical area. In fairness, in replying, the Minister did say:
“it is very important that we make the best use of the existing provision for women offenders in the prison estate, both taking account of its size and the geographical spread. We will be consulting with both providers and stakeholders to design the most suitable resettlement arrangements”.—[Official Report, 5/6/13; col. 1270.]
It is only a week since the noble Lord addressed the issue, and we are not expecting a result now, but an indication of the timescale for the consultation and who will be consulted would be welcome and would help to allay concerns about this issue. I hope we can get a sympathetic response.
Lord Beecham
“Veterans’ courts pilot
(1) Veterans’ courts shall be established for the purpose of assisting the rehabilitation of ex-service personnel convicted of offences for which non-custodial sentences could be imposed by the trial court.
(2) Subject to subsection (3) below, before instituting the provision of veterans’ courts, the Secretary of State shall prescribe by statutory instrument a scheme for such a system, which shall be laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.
(3) Before such system may come into existence, the Secretary of State shall undertake a pilot scheme lasting three years in duration, which shall be independently evaluated to include consultation with magistrates, with the evaluation report laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this amendment reflects the suggestion I made at Second Reading that the UK should follow the precedent set by the United States and establish veterans’ courts to supplement the trial courts when ex-service men and women plead guilty to or are convicted of crimes for which non-custodial sentences could be imposed, to assist the rehabilitation of those ex-service personnel. Consistent with earlier amendments moved in relation to payment by results and probation, it calls for such a scheme to be piloted before being eventually embodied in the system on the basis of a resolution to be approved by both Houses of Parliament.
There were two sources of inspiration for this amendment. The first was a report published in 2011 by the North East Regional Joint Health Scrutiny Committee, led by officers of Newcastle City Council, looking at the mental health needs of the ex-service community. The second and in many ways more relevant source was a recent seminar on veterans’ treatment courts organised by Justice for Vets and the Community Covenant—two voluntary sector organisations—and the city council. That took place in Newcastle about three weeks ago.
Estimates of the numbers of UK former service men and women vary. The Department of Health says that there are around 5 million in England while research by King’s College for the Department of Health and MoD in 2010 estimated only 3.8 million, with about 20,000 men and women leaving the forces each year—a figure likely to grow now that the size of the Armed Forces is being reduced. Around 2,000 service men and women a year are discharged on health grounds, with the main issues being adjustment disorders, depression and alcohol abuse. They have a significantly higher rate of post-traumatic stress syndromes than the general population.
Evidence collected by a community veteran mental health project in the north-east suggests that most mental health problems occur after discharge. There are varying estimates, too, of the numbers in the criminal justice and penal systems. NOMS figures are at the lower end of the range, but even if they are right, between 3% and 5% of the national prison population at any one time may be veterans, and many more veterans will have been before the courts and received non-custodial community sentences, probation or suspended sentences, giving a total of around 20,000. The incidence of mental health disorders among the 16-to-44 age group of veterans, their families and carers—the so-called ex-service community—is threefold that for the UK population, and combat stress referrals have risen by two-thirds in the past few years. Early service leavers who are young are particularly vulnerable to emotional and mental health problems and are up to three times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
The seminar to which I referred was addressed by a former state prosecutor from Little Rock, Arkansas, who has also served in senior positions in the state’s correctional service. He describes himself as “not a bleeding-heart liberal”. With that experience, one might well accept that. Nevertheless, he enthusiastically espouses and promotes the concept of veterans’ courts. The presentation included a video by a senior trial judge who also presides over the veterans’ court in Little Rock.
The US has some 20 million veterans, around five times the number in the UK, and in the last five years every state has established a veterans’ court. The offender can be referred from the trial court and is required to attend monthly so that progress can be assessed. A veteran mentor is appointed and systematic efforts made to help the offender deal with the range of problems with which he or she may have failed to cope. Substance abuse, mental health issues, lack of housing, skills or a job, family breakdown and other problems are addressed by development agencies. Failure to co-operate on the part of the offender leads to recall by the trial court and the possible imposition of a custodial sentence.
The system has proved remarkably successful. The court in Buffalo, New York, which I think was the first to be established, has a 100% success rate in avoiding reoffending. In Minnesota, reoffending rates fell very sharply for 83% of those participating. The potential savings were found to be considerable. In the analogous system of US drug courts around $5,700 was saved per participant. Even Texas, a state not known as a stronghold of bleeding-heart liberals, is looking across the board in its justice system for more cost-effective approaches than imprisonment. When considering the position of men and women who have served in the Armed Forces, it is surely time for us to extend the reach of the military covenant by piloting veterans’ courts here.
I suggest beginning with the north-east. The region is the largest contributor of recruits to the armed services, and veterans comprise around 5% of its prison population of 10,500 against an ONS estimate—which may be on the low side—of 3% nationally. The 2011 scrutiny report produced a series of recommendations covering services for veterans, especially in the mental health arena, which play such a significant part in offending and reoffending. This is influencing the necessary development of a more co-ordinated approach between the relevant agencies. The potential clearly exists to build on this experience so that the MoD, NHS bodies—including health and well-being boards, clinical commissioning groups, the national Commissioning Board and trusts—councils with their responsibilities for housing and social care and the Department for Work and Pensions can, we hope, help to prevent ex-service men and women from offending in the first place. Together with the probation service and the voluntary sector, these bodies will help to prevent reoffending should they fall foul of the law.
Having discussed the problems in terms of policies and statistics, I should like to illustrate their nature by recounting the story of one individual who was helped by probation and About Turn. About Turn is a charitable organisation in the north-east which is headed by a former serviceman and supports veterans.
Mr A comes from a service background with a father who served for more than 20 years in the Army. Now middle-aged, Mr A served for nine years as a young man before leaving the forces at the request of his wife. Unfortunately they divorced and he began to suffer alcohol problems. He joined the TA and a few years ago was employed as a training team instructor but lost the job after a serious accident caused by drinking. Depression and increased drinking exacerbated the effects of medication to treat the ongoing consequences of his accident. He was arrested for a serious offence of violence and was himself severely injured. Thanks to the probation service he was put in touch with this veterans’ charity following a community rehabilitation order and a suspended prison sentence. Under their auspices, with mentoring and support, he has obtained permanent accommodation and recognised qualifications, reduced his alcohol consumption, drug misuse and self-harm, improved his physical health, increased contact with his children and ex-wife and has avoided reoffending. He has engaged in 969 hours of positive structured activities organised by the charity. In a moving letter he says:
“At present I’m on a Veterans’ Mental Health course and would love to get involved with the next one. I have attended meetings on Civic level supported charity events and am at present laying plans for charity events. All of this has played an important part of me not reoffending, self isolating and drinking and it has also given me reason to look to the future”.
He concludes:
“It is a crying shame that I had to get into trouble to achieve all of this”.
It is also a crying shame that men and women who have served their country in difficult and often dangerous circumstances should fall into a similar state as Mr A, at such great cost to themselves and to society.
By systematically incorporating approaches such as those Mr A has successfully undergone into our criminal justice system, we can do much to reduce the likelihood of such damage, and the veterans’ court concept offers a real prospect of achieving that goal. The Minister expressed sympathy with the idea when I floated it on Second Reading, and Mr Damian Green, the Minister of State for Criminal Justice in the Commons, has agreed to meet my honourable friend Dave Anderson MP and others—I hope to be one of them—in the near future. I hope that the noble Lord’s sympathetic response—I know that he wishes to see this carried forward—will be reflected in a positive response tonight. I hope that we can look forward initially to the establishment of a pilot scheme and subsequently to rolling it out in the interests of society and indeed of the ex-service men and women. Those who serve our country under arms deserve no less. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for tabling this amendment. I listened carefully to the very poignant story that he told of Mr A’s experiences and how we can build upon that. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who is extremely well placed and well qualified to speak with authority on this subject, with his background in the Armed Forces, as a former Chief Inspector of Prisons and as president of the Veterans in Prison Association.
As my noble friend Lord McNally said at Second Reading, we share the concerns that have been expressed by all noble Lords in this debate and by the House as a whole—indeed, by Parliament as a whole—that ex-service personnel are ending up in the criminal justice system and, even worse, at times ending up in prison.
However, we should not make our genuine concern, which we have heard today, about our ex-service personnel appear unduly alarmist about service in our Armed Forces. To keep this in perspective, there is some evidence that points to the fact that having served in the Armed Forces is a preventative factor in offending—that is, those who serve in the Armed Forces are less likely to offend than the general population. However, many of those ex-service personnel who offend—I fully acknowledge this, and I am sure that this sentiment resonates with everyone in your Lordships’ House—have served their country, and we owe it to them to ensure that we are doing all that we can to support them.
I do not want to go into the specific wording of the amendment because I acknowledge, and I am sure that this was the intention of both noble Lords, that it was designed to highlight this issue so that we could discuss it further. The amendment raises some fundamental and important questions about the different approaches that could be taken. For example, should we be looking at a body designed to divert ex-service personnel before they get to the criminal courts? Should we be considering whether there is a case for ensuring that courts have greater knowledge and awareness in dealing with this group of offenders? Or should we be considering an oversight role, looking at the most effective ways to rehabilitate ex-service personnel? These are questions that we will look at in conjunction with the judiciary, my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and other government departments.
This is not to suggest that there is nothing going on in regard to veterans. It is true that some ex-service personnel will struggle to adjust to civilian life, but the Armed Forces do much more than other employers in retraining and reskilling staff who are leaving their employ. We are doing more to identify the particular needs of those offenders who end up in prison, including issues arising from their previous service. All prisons should now have a “veteran in custody support officer” to help with and co-ordinate the assessment and support of ex-service personnel offenders.
I should like to take a moment here, and I am sure that noble Lords across the Chamber will want to join me, to praise the excellent work that many voluntary sector organisations do both in prisons and in the community with offenders, notably the Royal British Legion and SSAFA, the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association.
Important work is therefore going on, and we will be looking at how that may be best developed. I should say that, as part of our plans to improve the rehabilitation of offenders, we will expect providers of probation services to provide flexible and tailored services to offenders, including addressing the particular needs of ex-service personnel. During meetings that we have had around the Bill with the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State and indeed with all Peers, I know that this issue was raised by other Peers. The noble Lord, Lord Reid, raised specific examples of what he had seen in Scotland. We have seen examples of this through the PbR pilots. For example, as part of the pilot at HMP Doncaster, ex-service personnel are being matched up with mentors who themselves are from service backgrounds to support their rehabilitation on release from custody.
I cannot say that we will bring back amendments in this Bill to create a new veterans’ court, and in fact legislation for a pilot may not be required. However, to pick up the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Slim, I fully acknowledge that we need to give this issue particular thought and much more careful consideration, and the department is already looking at it. I invite all noble Lords across the Chamber to work with us in this respect; I would welcome the opportunity. That will enhance and develop our discussions further, and I think that we will benefit a great deal from the expertise in your Lordships’ House.
While we will continue to ensure good practice is continued and developed among providers, we will also consider what further options may be required for the longer term. I noted in particular the comment by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, when he talked about the establishment of such a court and what surrounds that court—the need for support that goes much wider. It is important that the Government, and indeed the House in its contributions in looking at this matter, take a very holistic approach.
With those reassurances of our continued and passionate shared commitment, as expressed around the House today, to develop support for ex-service personnel, I hope that the noble Lords are able to withdraw their amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I express a sense of slight disappointment with the Minister’s reply. I am grateful to the noble Lords who have supported the amendment. I rather expected the Government to say that they would at least go forward with a pilot, whether or not legislation was required for that. I would have hoped that they would acknowledge that there would be space in the Bill to allow for the establishment of these courts if legislation were required for that, although maybe it is not—it will be interesting to find out on Report if it would require legislation to establish this system—and for the Government to allow for such an eventuality after a pilot. If the Government are not prepared to give an assurance that a pilot will be mounted, it will be necessary to bring this amendment or something like it back before the House and, perhaps, to test its opinion. Sympathy is welcome but, as we have heard already this afternoon, sometimes it only goes so far.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, this is a probing amendment drafted by the Prison Reform Trust, reflecting a great number of concerns put to it by practitioners. Although there is general approval of and welcome for the intent of the Bill, as has been voiced throughout this Chamber today and on the previous Committee day, there is concern that we do not know a great deal of the detail. Based on experience, those of us who have been involved in the criminal justice system in one way or another are concerned that it is the very lack of detail that it is likely to inhibit the advance of whatever is proposed. The amendment therefore does not aim to put a spanner in the works—far from it. Like many other noble Lords, I want to see the Bill come to fruition. I want something to be done about this terrible reoffending rate, if that indeed is the right term. What is more, I want whatever is introduced to be sustained and not a sort of one-day wonder.
At the heart of a lot of what is being proposed is the introduction of payment by results. I declare an interest as chairman of the All-Party Penal Affairs Group. We have been involved with the drug and alcohol recovery pilots, eight of which are currently running. They went live in April last year and are being run by the NHS. There was a long two-year period before they were introduced and they are being academically evaluated over three years by Manchester University and Birkbeck University. I think that they are very relevant to what is being proposed for the criminal justice system because they involve practitioners in the field. Those monitoring these pilots in the National Health Service have looked at the payback mechanism straw-man proposal for this Bill which, like all the papers we have before us, was published only last month. Although saying that in some respects what is proposed looks promising, they point out that it raises questions, many of which relate to the absence of numbers or qualitative weighting—or, indeed pilots—which does not give one a great deal of confidence in what is alleged.
In addition, they are concerned that there is no mention of the overlap and tension for both users and providers involved with other payment-by-result schemes such as the Work Programme, the NHS alcohol treatment programme, the NHS dual-diagnosis programme, the troubled families programme and indeed, in the case of the Ministry of Justice, the drug and alcohol recovery programme, all of which are connected with the offender rehabilitation programme and some of which could impact on the plans made and payment claimed for an individual who is subject to more than one payment-by-results programme. There does not appear to have been any resolution of that.
Various concerns suggested by other payment-by-result initiatives do not seem to have been fully addressed. For example, there is considerable concern about what is referred to as gaming—the public’s private sector providers playing games with the payment, the assessment or the people they actually put forward for it. To get over that, the National Health Service has put in place a mechanism called the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System, which has treatment outcome profiles and local area assessment and referral services, because it found that unless it does that, there is a great danger of it being taken for a ride, which it cannot afford.
There is also something proposed called the learning-curve discount scheme that nobody seems to know much about because we do not know whether providers are going to be able consistently to reduce costs and/or improve performance and therefore come up with something earning a discount. Also, there is no mention of the significant transition costs of payment by results, which other people have found both in establishing the data management systems for managing the outcomes and the substantial bureaucracy required to manage them. If they are being managed by the current system, which is working flat-out to manage current offenders, I wonder how it will cope with the problems of the payment-by-results schemes. There is also the problem of verification of outcomes which when they are delayed can cause problems with cash flow and therefore the whole payment-based system. I mention those not to be a Jonah but to say that I hope that all these have been taken into account by the Ministry of Justice, which, not having pilots of its own does not have the advantage of practical experience. I hope that it is cashing in on the experience of others to make certain that it does not fall into the same trap.
I admit to two other doubts which I must voice. The first is about costings, and I refer to an answer given by the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on Amendment 7A when he said that,
“competing the community payback contracts in London saw a £25 million saving over four years”.—[Official Report, 5/6/13; col. 1214.]
It is true that the Serco bid undercut the probation service bid by £24 million for a four-year contract. However, that started only last year and that £25 million does not include the costs of running the competition which went on for more than two years and must have been substantial. We also have to consider, when looking at value for money, that the contract has only been running so far for less than a year with three years to go. The probation service is very sceptical that someone such as Serco will put in quite such a low bid next time when recompetition comes up based on actual experience of running the thing. It would regard its bid as being more realistic based on its experience. So the jury is out and I am concerned that too much emphasis is being placed on savings that have been made when a contract has cost less when we have not yet seen the outcomes. The Prison Service has a bad track record on this. I remember complaining once when it excluded central administrative costs from a competition bid with the private sector to run a prison and then claimed that it had won. When the National Audit Office looked at it on a level-playing field it found that the bid had not been put in correctly.
My second doubt concerns time. I refer to the chart on page 34 of the White Paper, which sets out the Government’s timetable. This says that the new probation service, which presumably will include the 77% of privatised elements, will be introduced by autumn next year, after which the new competed services will go live.
If it took two years to compete the London community payback, and if it took two years for the National Health Service to set up its eight pilots for the drug and alcohol recovery schemes, I wonder whether it is realistic to expect that, in the one year between now and then, the Ministry of Justice will be able to complete all the contracts, all the recruiting and all the training of all the people who are needed to carry on with what is proposed while, at the same time, with the same staff, conducting the essential work that has to be done now with offenders. As I say, it is not that I doubt the intent but I question the practicability. I therefore wish that we would be given a more realistic timetable based on actual possibilities rather than the allegations we have been given on page 34.
My last request is that the Minister, who said that he hoped to have the new impact assessment with us by Report, will make certain not only that it is with us by Report, but that it is with us in plenty of time for us to consider it before Report, to make Report a more meaningful exercise.
That is why I am asking the Secretary of State to produce an annual statement of how all this is working out. Certainly, if I were the Secretary of State, I would want such a document on my desk every year anyway. Therefore, rather than asking for something additional, I am asking for something which I presume will be produced to be shared with both Houses so that we can keep abreast of what is going on in this hugely important venture which, in intent, enjoys the support of the whole House. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the noble Lord has fired a salvo of questions and critiques of the Government’s proposals. It will be interesting to see what defence the Minister can put up to them. The noble Lord has made many telling points, not least the question of the timetable, which looks ridiculously short. The Secretary of State in his previous capacity introduced the markedly unsuccessful Work Programme, which was also rushed through with pretty abysmal results. There must be some danger, particularly if the exercise is rushed, that we will see repetition of that. It occurred to me to think as the noble Lord was talking about this transition that one can envisage staff members being involved in that transition. Does that mean that they take, for example, their caseload with them? Will the cases of those who are being supervised and who will transfer into the payment-by-results system remain with probation or, if the probation officer in question is to be moved over—presumably some of that will happen—will the case go across to the payment-by-results providers? Or will they be excluded? It all seems highly mysterious.
Lord McNally
Deary, deary me. If the best we can do is some anecdote about paint not turning up on time, that must be a sign of some pretty thin paint. Of course, we are at the very start of the Bill’s progress; it is the second day of Committee in its first House. I am perfectly happy to acknowledge that noble Lords can ask all kinds of questions about what is done—“Give me firm answers now”. However, the truth is that we are doing something extremely radical, which the previous Government tried and backed off from. Let nobody doubt that payment by results in this area is exciting.
By the way, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, should take full responsibility for that paint story. I cannot imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who is a gentle soul, would attempt such a malicious intervention. It has Beecham fingerprints all over it. Let us be clear on that.
Lord McNally
Yes. I have never suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is trying to throw a spanner in the works. I know that he wants this to work as much as I do. One of the values of the parliamentary process is that legitimate questions are asked about how this or that will be done. As the process unfolds, I will do my best to make sure that the House is informed.
We are working at this moment, not in advance of legislation but within the department, on how contracts and competition will work. We are not entirely flying blind on this because, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has said, payment by results has been tried in other parts of Whitehall. Of course we are taking advice and learning from both the successes and the failures of other departments. That is being built into our process. The noble Lord referred to gaming in the NHS experience. That will certainly be looked at. He mentioned transition costs being built in, and verification. We are working and consulting with other departments on these matters. It is very interesting. I can remember the first prospects for privatisation of prisons and a lot of the debates that went on. Even the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would acknowledge that with the privatisations of prisons lessons and efficiencies have been shown and standards set which have been to the benefit of the prison system as a whole. We anticipate that a similar process will take place in this case.
The Government are very clear that we are trying to carry through quickly a very radical programme, addressing a problem which defeated the previous Government. As earlier debates today have shown, our attempts to address it have widespread support across the House.
We will need to have a good understanding of the support that probation providers give to short-sentenced offenders during licence and supervision. We will need to keep a very close eye on the proportion of offenders breaching supervision, and on how magistrates decide to respond. We will also need to watch very carefully for any changes in sentencing practice.
As I have made clear, it is not the Government’s intention that this Bill will result in changes in sentencing practice, and nothing in the Bill alters the existing custody threshold. However, let me reassure noble Lords that we will be monitoring this and other issues extremely closely. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is quite right that there are a lot of other initiatives. This Government are exciting and radical, and are doing things across the piece. Of course, progress we are making in other areas will impact on the criminal justice system, just as our successes will impact on other parts. That is what happens when you have a radical Government.
We will also make sure that we are open and transparent about sharing data and information wherever we can. There are already well established mechanisms for making available many of the types of information that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has highlighted in his amendment. On changes in sentencing trends, for example, we publish every quarter a Criminal Justice Statistics bulletin that includes detailed information on sentencing outcomes and trends. This is a national statistics publication, so it is subject to the appropriate checks and safeguards. Any changes in sentencing practice will be clear from this report. In addition, the Sentencing Council has a duty under Section 130 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 to publish a report every year on the impact of changes in sentencing practice on prison and probation costs. Any changes to sentencing practice as a result of this Bill will fall under that duty. The independent council, with all its expertise on sentencing, is best placed to carry out that analysis.
Similarly, on breach we already publish licence recall statistics every quarter in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly Bulletin. Again, that is a national statistics publication. We want to make sure that, in the future, that includes recalls of prisoners released from sentences of less than 12 months, and includes committals to custody for those proven to have breached a supervision requirement. Likewise, we publish proven reoffending rates every quarter, broken down by type and length of sentence. That is also a national statistics publication.
I hope this makes it clear that we are not starting from scratch. I also take pride in the fact that this has been one of the most proactive Governments in putting out their statistics and information, allowing various parts of the Government to be checked on performance. The Government have worked hard over the past three years to improve the transparency of the criminal justice system, and we would look to make available much of the information that Amendment 34 details through the existing mechanisms we have.
The Secretary of State is already subject to a duty to publish information of this sort. As I suspect the noble Lord is aware, given that his amendment follows some of its language very closely, Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 requires the Secretary of State every year to publish such information as he considers expedient on a range of topics, including information that allows those working in the justice system to become aware of the financial implications of their decisions and information that allows those working in the justice system to understand the effectiveness of different sentences in preventing reoffending.
We already consider it expedient to publish not just annually, but quarterly, much of the information that Amendment 34 mentions. That will continue to happen if the provisions of the Bill receive the agreement of both Houses. Therefore, while I understand, welcome, and agree with the intentions of the noble Lord in tabling this amendment, I hope that what I have said reassures him that the Government are committed to understanding and sharing the impacts of this Bill and to being as transparent as possible in delivering it forward.
In doing so, I remind noble Lords that costs for extending supervision will ultimately be dependent on the outcome of competing offender services in the community. If we were to give figures at this stage, it would put at risk our ability to agree value-for-money contracts with providers. However, I hope that my commitment last week to take away the impact assessment for the Bill and to consider how we could expand it will provide some additional assurance. Work is under way to revise the impact assessment as I speak, and I hope to be able to bring back a revised version soon. I know what has been said about the value of that on Report. In the light of these assurances I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, provokes a vision in my mind. I see him as a sort of parliamentary Caliban, proclaiming constantly: “Oh brave new world, that has such legislation in it”. I cannot say that he is altogether persuasive in the claims that he makes for this legislation, well motivated though it is, let alone the rest of his Government’s exciting and radical agenda.
In these amendments I look at two exciting and radical parts of the Bill. Amendment 35 addresses the provision in Clause 18 that empowers the Secretary of State to make an order that may,
“make different provision for different purposes, and … amend, repeal or revoke legislation”.
These are probing amendments only, but it would be helpful to know what the Minister envisages by, to quote the preceding subsection,
“consequential, supplementary or incidental provisions in relation to any provision of this Act”.
Can he exemplify the sort of thing that might be covered by the order-making power conferred by Clause 18(2)?
Amendment 36 relates to Clause 19, the substance of which goes even further in giving the Secretary of State power to,
“make other transitional, transitory or saving provision in connection with the coming into force of any provision of this Act”.
Such an order may,
“make different provision for different purposes”,
and so on, and,
“An order … is to be made by statutory instrument”.
Would that require the affirmative procedure or only the negative? The power is potentially so wide, as is the power in the previous clause, that it should require the affirmative procedure rather than merely the negative procedure. Will the noble Lord elucidate the position?
Lord McNally
The noble Lord beat me. I have been racking my brains for a suitable Shakespearean quote to come back at him. I suppose we could say that this is a “Government of wonders”. I am reminded of the late Lord George Brown, who, when he was Economics Minister, stood up at the Dispatch Box, banged it and said “This Government are running the economy in a way that it has never been run before”, and was then surprised when the Opposition cheered him to the echo.
In this last group of amendments, we turn to the provisions on consequential and transitional arrangements. The provisions in Clauses 18 and 19 are mainly technical, and are also fairly standard constructions, which can be seen, for example, in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, seems to be saying that these amendments are designed to ensure that Parliament has a say before order-making changes are made.
Clause 18 allows the Secretary of State to make provision that is consequential, supplementary or incidental to the provisions of the Act by an order that is subject to the negative procedure. This clause mainly amends other statutory schemes, some of which are complicated and technical in nature. It is therefore eminently sensible for there to be a power to make the consequential or other changes needed to ensure those provisions work well with the provisions of this Act.
Those changes should be subject to the negative procedure where possible. Clause 18(6) makes it clear that where an order under Clause 18 is made that amends another Act, it is subject to the affirmative procedure. Amendment 35 would remove Clause 18(2), which makes it clear what the power can be used for. The power itself is conferred by subsection (1), so the amendment makes it unclear what the power may be used for: it would not remove the power. There will be an opportunity to scrutinise the technical changes made by any order made under Clause 18. I do not believe that these have to be affirmative orders, and where the order is not subject to the affirmative procedure it will be subject to the negative procedure.
Amendment 36 is more specific in that it would make any order made under Clause 19 subject to the affirmative procedure. Clause 19 makes arrangements for transitional provisions and introduces Schedule 7, which sets out in what circumstances the changes made by the Bill apply. For example, it sets out how the new supervision changes apply to different sentences in different circumstances. The power to make transitional, transitory or saving provisions can be used only if those provisions are related to a commencement order. Under this Act, commencement orders are, as is usual, not subject to a parliamentary procedure. It would therefore be odd for the power to include transitional, transitory or saving provisions on commencement to be subject to the affirmative procedure.
Clauses 18 and 19 are needed to implement primary legislation flexibly, and they are often technically complicated. I do not think that noble Lords would particularly welcome a detailed debate on affirmative orders. I do not know: I could think of one noble Baroness who would relish a detailed debate on affirmative orders. Oh, she has gone. We teased the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, earlier. I am not convinced that such a debate is a good use of your Lordships’ time, or is what this amendment actually intends.
In asking the noble Lord to consider withdrawing these amendments, I take the opportunity to say that this has been very useful and productive Committee consideration of this Bill. We will return to detailed points on Report and we have already had a few Mafia-like warnings—you know where we live—that there will be consequences if we do not respond. However, I have appreciated the general support on all sides of the House for what we are trying to do in tackling the problem of reoffending, which has proved very difficult for successive Administrations. We claim no genius in our solutions, but we are genuinely trying to find both the resources and the flexibility to tackle this problem. The contribution of this House to getting it right is enormously appreciated.
Lord Beecham
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his reply and his essentially good-humoured approach for most of the time we have been discussing the Bill. I made it clear at the outset that these were probing amendments only, so he perhaps went a little further than he needed to in responding. Nevertheless, I am grateful. I echo his words about the proceedings having been useful. How productive they have been will very much depend on the Government’s response on Report. I hope it will be a little more positive than he has indicated, or has been allowed to indicate, so far. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.