Community Justice Centre: North Liverpool

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I hear the “hear, hears”, but of course cost does have to come into all these things. I do genuinely believe that this is being looked at. It is a freestanding experiment, as the noble Lord said, based upon the Red Hook Community Justice Center in New York. The truth is that we are looking at various experiments across the piece, some of which were started by the previous Administration, to find out about the effective administration of justice. I can promise that we are looking for legislative time for a justice reform Bill and that we are also looking at justice delivery in the north-west. The inquiry that the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about will be seen as a freestanding contribution without prejudice to the decisions that we have to make in that area.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, this is a unique and very innovative scheme. Can my noble friend, who has given quite positive answers so far, tell us whether the valuation is basically a statistical evaluation based upon reoffending rates, the cost per case and so on, or will the evaluation also involve discussions and interviews with offenders who have gone through the system and hopefully benefited from it, and with other people living in the community who have been affected by it?

[Lord McNally]

I would hope that it is the kind of more holistic inquiry that my noble friend suggests. That is what we are trying to do, obviously within budgetary constraints. We are examining various ideas and experiments in the United Kingdom, the United States and around the world, to see how best practice and best efficiency can be achieved. That is what we hope will be the outcome of this inquiry and future development of policy.