Probation Service

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, we are not satisfied with the telephone form of probation but, as I said, contact with offenders has to be proportionate to the risk they present.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I assure the Minister that when these proposals were put through by the coalition Government they were ideologically driven, and some of the flaws that have emerged reveal the kind of compromises that were created in the probation service. Before these reforms, the probation service had an excellent report; we now have this disastrous report. If the Minister is approaching this ideologically, I put it to him that there is now a strong case for handing probation over wholly to the National Probation Service.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

My Lords, I am not approaching this matter as an ideologue. I am approaching it as a Minister with responsibility for the implementation of the existing system of probation, in which we continue to have faith.