Probation Reform

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

With regard to previous experience, there is always a balance to be struck between trying to deliver something in good time and waiting to see all the evidence emerge. On where we are now, we should move to a different model. We will lead with Wales, and by the end of this year, we should have moved to a unified model. England will follow in 2021. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of work. He knows that that is a key issue for me in terms of rehabilitation. Both paid and unpaid work have important roles to play. I do want to encourage innovation; I want to make sure that, in such areas, we have innovation and a diversity of suppliers who can play a role in ensuring that we try new things, learn from experiences and get things improving.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

This failed experiment was set to cost the taxpayer £467 million because of the early termination of contracts at the end of next year. It would be helpful to know what the total bill will be. My biggest concern as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee is that the Secretary of State has just laid out that there will be major local procurement processes over the next two years. It seems like a long time now, but that time will go very fast. How will he make sure that that procurement is done thoughtfully and sensitively and really reaches those small voluntary groups that were so cut out of the previous system?

[Mr Gauke]

First, let me make the point about costs. I come back to the point that I made earlier, which is that our expenditure with community rehabilitation companies has been considerably lower than had been forecast—£1.4 billion lower. That takes into account the £467 million to which the hon. Lady referred, which was there to ensure that we had operational stability. As we move on to the new system, she is right to say that 2021 will soon be upon us. We do need to focus very heavily on ensuring that procurement works well, that we make use of the voluntary sector and that there is proper competition so that those who can contribute to this process can do so properly, and we are very much focused on that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What estimate he has made of the proportion of offenders on probation being supported by community rehabilitation companies.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

The CRCs currently supervise just over 59% of all offenders and the National Probation Service supervises 41%.

[Meg Hillier]

The CRC contract has been a dog’s breakfast, so what is the Minister going to do to make sure that CRCs work better to support people, particularly those on shorter sentences?

[Rory Stewart]

First, I pay tribute to the Public Accounts Committee for its work in looking at exactly this subject. In order to work better, we are consulting on having a closer relationship between the National Probation Service and the CRCs. Secondly, we are making sure we put much more focus on the basics, by which we mean the risk assessment, the plan for probation and regular contact.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Dominic Raab)]

I think it is well known that the current test for denial of entry for people coming from the EU is that they must pose a serious, genuine and present threat, which has obviously created difficulties over the years.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last week the Public Accounts Committee published a report on the criminal justice system. One of our conclusions was:

“The criminal justice system is not good enough at supporting victims and witnesses.”

We also cited the fact that only 55% of witnesses, many of whom are of course victims as well, say that they would go through the process again. Does the Secretary of State agree with our conclusion?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, I do. It has sometimes been the habit in the past for people to be greeted with a report from the National Audit Office or the Public Accounts Committee and attempt to suggest that it is an exercise in—well, there have been criticisms in the past. I certainly do not criticise the PAC or the NAO. The report is a welcome wake-up call. My right hon. Friend the victims Minister will bring forward a Green Paper with details on how we can better help victims and witnesses, but there is much that we need to do to improve the criminal justice system, and our judiciary get it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Few know more about what happens in our courts than he does as a result of his work as a barrister. Yes, it is important to put an emphasis on rehabilitation, but it is also important that we give all our citizens the security of knowing that those people who pose a real threat to us are incapacitated behind bars and receiving the punishment they deserve for the most heinous crimes.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last week the Public Accounts Committee heard from the chief executive of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority. He was asked what three projects kept him awake and worried him most, and the courts programme was one of them. We can add that to the list: to the tagging and translation services fiascos, and the concern that has been expressed about the big probation and prison programmes. Does the Secretary of State fear that his Department cannot cope with all this change?

[Michael Gove]

I look forward to having a cup of cocoa with the gentleman concerned to help him sleep more easily at night, as I manage to do.

Safer Neighbourhood Policing: London

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing this vital debate. She clearly outlined why safer neighbourhood teams work, so I will not delay the Chamber by repeating that. I will just add that I fully endorse it. In my borough of Hackney, it was transformational in building relationships in the community. The community relations with the police were a byword for bad relations around the time that I was elected to the London Assembly. It was only with the installation of ingrained neighbourhood policing that we began to see a change. People felt that they were working with the police, rather than feeling that they and the police were on opposite sides.

It is important to remember that the police police us by consent and, for that to work properly, they need to know their community in a granular way and people need to know their police officers. As others have, I could highlight many local examples of times when people have passed on intelligence to the police, but I will give just one example. When I was out knocking on doors for one of my regular weekend surgeries, in two households in a row I spoke to parents who did not want to speak to the police or for me to report something, because they were afraid that an officer in uniform appearing on their doorstep could mean their teenage child being targeted by gangs. If they want to report something as simple as drug dealing going on in their area—simple in that it is easy to identify and relatively easy to police—I can act as a third-party reporting mechanism, but so can neighbourhood police teams, many of whom go around out of hours, not in uniform, to talk to people or find safe places for people to talk to them.

Along with other London colleagues, I recently met with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, and we raised some of our concerns about this topic. He understandably raised competing challenges and his challenge with the budget, as my hon. Friend highlighted in detail, and he reminded us that much of modern policing is not visible. Of course, dealing with historic child exploitation or cybercrime is important to our constituents, but it is important that we see police on the street and that they build relations with their community.

The hidden policing—the stuff that is not seen—should not take away from the vital community policing that we know works. The improvements in Hackney underline the importance of that regular, steady relationship. Every year there is a commendation ceremony from the borough commander, where we hear stories of the deep community engagement that others have highlighted.

We should be clear that, in political terms, this is an ideological battleground. The Government want to shrink the state and they hide that under the veil of austerity. We all want to see taxpayers’ money spent wisely, because every pound saved is a pound to spend on something else or to provide benefits to our constituents, but there is a point at which shrinking the state so far, under the guise of austerity, goes too far. I believe it has gone too far in the realms of neighbourhood policing. This is in area where the public want the state to be present.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady and I agree on many things, and we have worked together as neighbouring MPs on broadband and the like, but it really is nonsense to suggest that the Government are trying to shrink the state to any great extent. We are still living miles beyond our means—we are borrowing at the rate of £75 billion to £80 billion a year—and the notion that the Government have taken a slash-and-burn approach is quite wrong. I accept that, with some of the austerity agenda, there has had to be some reduction in public spending, particularly in the area we are discussing, but the notion that this is a state-shrinking Government is very far from the truth.

[Meg Hillier]

I think my constituents would beg to differ: this is an area where they do want to see the state visible and active on the streets.

Over the past five years in Hackney, crime has continued to drop. However, Hackney has lost 173, or more than a fifth, of its police officers—in October 2010, it had 770, but there are now 597. It has also seen a dramatic cut in PCSOs, from 100 to 37. There were recently plans to axe all our PCSOs, but thankfully those have been dropped. I echo the really important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North that safer neighbourhood policing was a vital recruitment line for the police—the police in Hackney still do not look like Hackney, so that was really important. It is important that our overstretched officers are supported by good PCSOs.

Let me just highlight how our officers are overstretched. For more than a decade, Operation Bantam has provided an effective response to gang violence in Hackney, which is sadly still a scourge and a challenge for the police, the community and local authorities. There used to be a team of 40 dedicated officers; now there are six, and that is a real concern. I back Hackney Council’s campaign to bring 100 officers back to Hackney to make sure we deliver for the people of my constituency and my borough.

PCSOs were introduced under the last Labour Mayor of London, and I look forward to having a future Labour Mayor of London who recognises their importance. Previously, seven different uniformed officers and wardens patrolled my constituency. Many were funded by the Home Office or the Department for Communities and Local Government, while some were funded by the police or local authorities. There was a crazy mishmash—a multi-coloured rainbow—of different uniforms and different powers, and it made sense to bring those officers together. As a result, however, they were then at risk from these cuts and changes, because of the other pressures on the policing budget, and that is a regret.

There are two key benefits from safer neighbourhood policing. First, there are people on the streets, and having more PCSOs on the streets saves vital police officer time. Those three PCSOs in the ward also really got to know their area, and they often stayed longer than the police, unless they planned to become police officers themselves.

The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) mentioned the National Audit Office report on policing, which the Public Accounts Committee has looked at. We visited and had evidence from forces around the country. The hon. Gentleman rightly said that many forces do not have good enough data to know the impact of the cuts coming down the line or the needs of policing locally. What is really crucial and really unforgivable, however, is that when the Home Office makes a cut and sends it down the line to the police, it does not have the data to know what the impact will be. I would like the Minister to address that directly.

The funding formula is one issue, and we do not need to dwell on what a mess it was; that is now fairly well acknowledged, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), who speaks from the Front Bench, will touch on that. However, there is also cost shunting, which is a consistent concern on the Public Accounts Committee. We see police officers, as the providers of first and last resort, picking up the pieces for other services, but that is not recognised in the funding formula or in cross-Government working. It is really important—I challenge the Police Minister on this—that the police service should not be picking up the pieces because Departments have cut funding and do not recognise the impact on the police. I would like the Minister to tell the House how he will challenge that.

[Mike Penning]

If the hon. Lady had heard any of the speeches I have made in the House or outside it, she would know that that is exactly what I have been saying since I have been the Police Minister. All too often, the police are the first port of call, rather than the last port of call, for other services, which is fundamentally wrong.

[Meg Hillier]

Well, I hope the Minister actually has the power in Whitehall to bang heads together and to get this sorted. We will continue to see problems in London if its policing budget is squeezed because the police are having to pick up ambulance calls and to deal with mental health issues—for example, by tracking down mental health beds at weekends. There is a long litany of such issues. The Minister speaks the words, but if he could talk in more detail in his response about what he is actually going to do about this, that would be very helpful.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in the new year, Mr Bone; I am sure we will have plenty more encounters.

It is good to see the shadow Policing Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), in his position, and I hope that, as things progress, he stays in the job, because he is passionate and cares an awful lot—he knows me well enough to know I mean that.

I was wondering if I was on one side of a hustings for the mayoral election at one stage of the debate. I fully understand why the debate was called; in many ways, it was called prior to the announcement on the funding—[Interruption.] If I am wrong, I apologise, but it felt that way. This issue has certainly been part of the mayoral election campaign, and I would probably have done the same thing had I been on the other side. However, I would not be saying what has been said today, because anybody who is listening to this debate from outside the Chamber or outside London would think that crime in this country is rocketing and that terrible situations are happening across our country, but they are not.

Let me touch on some of the points that have been made. What was the cut in the number of police officers in London? It was 4%. That was the loss in the number of police officers, yet crime in London has fallen. Recorded crime has fallen by 11%—[Interruption.] The shadow Minister has said from a sedentary position and previously, during his speech, that things have changed. Absolutely: crime in this country is changing dramatically. Police officers and chiefs, and in London the Mayor, must make the operational decisions on where to put resources.

We asked the 43 police forces for which I am responsible around England and Wales to look at whether they could make 25% savings or more. Some, including London, said they could make 10% savings over this spending round. The Labour party and its spokesman said they could save 10%. No one listening to this debate would know that the Labour party had said that before the spending round, but it did. We looked carefully at how we could police in this difficult situation going forward—not only local policing and making people feel safe in their homes, but dealing with terrorism and so on.

That must be put on the record, because no one will have heard during the past hour and a half that the Labour party wanted to cut spending on the police in this country by 10%.

[Meg Hillier]

I think the Minister has misunderstood some comments from Opposition Members. We acknowledge that there are issues with funding. We are saying that one priority should be ingrained, neighbourhood community policing because, for all the reasons outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), that has a beneficial effect all round.

[Mike Penning]

I respect the hon. Lady a lot, not least in her role as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, but that is a policing decision. It is for the police to decide how they police the community, not for politicians in this Chamber.

Transpeople (Prisons)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. We should all spare a moment to think of the prison officers who daily try to prevent these tragic events and have to deal with them when they happen. When such tragic events happen, it has a huge emotional impact on prison officers. We should do our best to ensure that we look after prison officers in such circumstances.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his fulsome answer; I have no doubt about his good faith in relation to the review and the work being done. However, is not the root cause and problem that there are not enough prison officers to support all prisoners, and particularly those who are vulnerable to attack or suicide?

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend and the PET make extremely good points. I know that the Secretary of State was very impressed with the prison entrepreneurship programme he saw in America recently, and last week I was in a prison talking to Sue Ryder staff who were very keen to help prisoners set up their own bicycle repair businesses. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to go further.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

A constituent of mine is seeking an appeal against an immigration refusal but has been waiting six months. Another has a family member who was given leave to appeal this June and has a date for a tribunal hearing next May. What is the Secretary of State doing to reduce these unreasonable waits?

[Mr Vara]

As a consequence of the Immigration Act 2014, we anticipate the number of appeals going down. We are keeping an eye on the numbers and at the moment we do not see a particular concern, but if there is one, we will make sure that there are more sittings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

No one can doubt the comprehensiveness of the hon. Gentleman’s response, for which we are extremely grateful.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Select Committee on Justice have been critical of the Government’s lack of understanding of the knock-on costs of their reforms to legal aid. Is it not now time that the Government reviewed them to ensure that cost shunting does not happen and that effective justice is available to those who need it?

[Michael Gove]

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. Lady on her election as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. I know she will do that job brilliantly. She is absolutely right: changes to legal aid touch on the very heart of the principles of equal access to justice that we all hold dear. That is why I have been in intense talks with representatives from both the Bar and the solicitors’ profession in order to ensure that we can maintain access to justice and enhance the quality of advocacy in our courts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

In response to the hon. Gentleman’s first point, I can tell him that it is a simple matter of fact in Government that this issue is looked after by the Home Office. As for his second point, I do not believe that any past Government have done more than the present Government to tackle human trafficking. Work is being done across Government and across the public sector to deal with a crime that we all believe is abhorrent, and that we all want to see stamped out.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State says that the issue of human trafficking is not his responsibility, but the issue of convictions is, and one of the key challenges is gathering evidence. In my constituency, I often meet victims many years after the trafficking offences have been committed. The Home Office may be responsible for some of these matters, but what is the right hon. Gentleman’s Department doing to improve the evidential chain and ensure that the evidence is there in court to secure convictions?

[Chris Grayling]

The securing of evidence to bring prosecutions to court is a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, but our Department will always do all that it can to facilitate their work. I expect our reforms of the court system to improve the process in both those organisations, but we depend on the very good work done by our police service and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that people are prosecuted.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

I will come to the 2007 Act later, but since the hon. Gentleman has mentioned it now, I shall comment on it briefly. The 2007 Act created probation trusts, and they have now been in existence for several years and actually become quite good—I am sure even the Minister would concede that they are performing very well—but they could perform an awful lot better if challenged and supported to do so. We strongly believe, however, that the 2007 Act should not be being used to abolish the very entities it was set up to create.

On piloting, we have tabled new clause 4 to address the Government’s complete lack of evidence for their proposals. When we ask for evidence for how well the model might work, why it was picked and how much it will cost the taxpayer, we are told that the Secretary of State just believes it is the right way to go about things. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I do not think he is a particular fan, reported its concern that the Government did not appear to consider any other policy options before alighting on this one. It seems that he has had his heart set on this from the very beginning.

Previous Ministers in this Government believed that the proposals should be piloted. In early 2012, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) announced two “ground-breaking” probation pilots to

“help develop…Payment by Results policy”

and to

“test how…public, private and voluntary…partnerships…could”—

“could”, he said—

“drive…reductions in reoffending”.

Had these pilots gone ahead, we would have had more than a year’s experience of this sort of model, but unfortunately the current Secretary of State cancelled them as soon as he took up his post. When we ask, as Opposition Members rightly do, how well these proposals work, there is no evidence with which to answer the question, because the Secretary of State has not tested them, and does not intend to do so, to see whether they work. If he were here, I hope the hon. Member for Reigate would be tempted to vote for new clause 4, because he seemed to support the principle when he was a Minister.

We are left, then, without any evidence and without a pilot, and we have lost the opportunity to test the details of these plans on a much smaller scale and with a manageable level of risk. Inevitably, there will be teething problems and inexperienced providers, there will be failures in communication and there will be glitches in the new IT system. We have just had an hour’s urgent question on the difficulties of introducing a new IT system, yet here we are implementing one at the same time as a wholesale upheaval and sell-off of the service. All this will have to be contended with all at once and on a national scale.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is no doubt aware of the fiasco of the IT service for interpreters in courts, which, dare I say it—ironically—is another Ministry of Justice success story. Does that not underline her point?

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend is completely right. Serving on the Public Accounts Committee, she will be familiar with the manifold problems that the MOJ has with commissioning and procurement. I will refer later particularly to the court interpreters contract and the inclusion of small mammals, which hon. Members might find surprising.

We have recent experience of the fallout from a botched implementation. At the end of last year, universal credit was slowed down, for its own good, after being poorly managed and heavily criticised and after wasting what was predicted to be millions of pounds of taxpayer money. The Work and Pensions Secretary assured Members that the programme would eventually work because under the timetable they were

“testing the system and learning first, and then finally implementing it.”

When I asked him, he said that I needed

“to understand the difference between an approach that rolls something out at every stage and learns from it”—[Official Report, 10 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 139-144.]

and an approach that rushes something in and sees it fail. Well, I think he is right, but I am well aware of the difference. It is just a pity that he has not had the same discussion with the Justice Secretary.

After the recent track record of the Ministry of Justice in mismanaging procurement processes, the PAC recommended that the Ministry

“should draft and implement future contracts so as to minimise transitional problems, for example through piloting and rolling-out new systems gradually.”

The NAO agreed and reported that steady regional roll-outs would allow the Ministry to limit the effect of poor performance. But rather than learning from past mistakes and introducing his reforms at a sensible pace, the Secretary of State is instead opting for a national roll-out at breakneck speed. The operating model for the reforms was published only in September, yet if it all goes to plan trusts are supposed to be abolished by April. Lord Ramsbotham described the timetable as a party political time frame

“that pays no attention to practical reality.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Jenny Chapman]

We would probably go a little further, but I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says. The new clause merely requires companies to respond in a way that helps the MOJ to meet its own freedom of information requirements.

Opposition Members are becoming increasingly concerned about the blind spot that seems to be developing in relation to outsourced contracts. Given the rate at which the Secretary of State is issuing invitations to the likes of Eddie Stobart to take over justice contracts, more and more information is being put out of the taxpayer’s reach.

Responding to amendments tabled in Committee, the Government argued that the status quo, whereby a contractor is considered to hold information on behalf of a public body, was working well enough. We disagree, and the Minister knows that, in practice, there is information that private contracts choose to keep to themselves while public providers are rightly held to account. That is not a level playing field, and it does not give us, our constituents or, indeed, the press enough power to scrutinise those who are wielding large public budgets and providing front-line public services.

[Meg Hillier]

The heads of some of the big private sector providers recently appeared before the Public Accounts Committee. They expressed a wish for more openness, and some of them told us that they were being constrained in that regard by their contracts with the Government rather than by their own desires.

[Jenny Chapman]

I was not aware of that, but I am very pleased that some of the big providers are taking that attitude.

We have pledged to expand the scope of freedom of information requirements if we win the next election. We should have liked the Government to make a start with probation providers, but, unfortunately, it seems that so far they are unpersuaded. We hope that, as a compromise, they will agree to monitor the extent to which providers respond to their duty to release information to assist the Ministry of Justice with its FOI duties. That will allow us to establish whether the current provisions are indeed sufficient, or whether more needs to be done to make companies accountable to the public.

Finally, new clause 5 requires an update on what measures were included in contracts to ensure that poor performance can be dealt with properly. We are very concerned about that. The Government refused to assure us that break clauses, which allow the taxpayer to walk away if a provider consistently fails to perform to national standards, would be included in all contracts. Instead, the Minister has given his word that underperformance will not be tolerated, and that contracts will include a number of safeguards to protect the quality of the service and the cost to the taxpayer. The new clause would simply allow Members to hold the Minister to that welcome assurance.

The Government’s proposed reforms are ill thought through, risky and, in our view, reckless. We believe that the Government should slow down the process and take the time to get it right. In fact, they may well be right, and if they organised pilots and obtained some evidence, we would be the first to support them. However, if they press ahead with their gamble with public safety, the bare minimum that our constituents must be assured of is that providers will be expected to perform exceptionally well.

New clauses 1, 4 and 5 are intended to build safeguards into the process. They would allow plans to be properly scrutinised, tested, and made fit for purpose. The Secretary of State is taking a gamble with public safety. He is rolling out an untested model in the hands of unqualified providers, and he expects us to be reassured by his inner belief. It is a great pity that the Government are not willing to proceed slowly, to do things properly, and to work with the professionals, and even the Opposition, to arrive at a result on which we could possibly all agree.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier]

I rise to support new clauses 1 and 4. I will not repeat the excellent arguments that my hon. Friends have made, but I am concerned about the impact that this big and sudden change to the probation service will have in my community and on offender rehabilitation, both of which are central to the aims of the Bill, which is why elements of it enjoy cross-party support.

I am not opposed to having specialist providers in the probation service. For example, there is a high incidence of mental health problems in my constituency, and in Hackney as a whole, and many of the people affected, if they get caught up in the criminal justice system, would benefit from more specialised services, so I am not opposed to the private sector or voluntary bodies coming in to provide certain aspects of probation.

However, the scale of this outsourcing, particularly when it is being done in such a hurry, poses a real risk. I believe that it will reduce standards. People will be taken on by large companies that have no track record in probation, and will be paid at much lower levels, as probation assistants, rather than full-blown and experienced probation officers. I call it probation-lite. Those people will be making very important decisions. They will decide, for instance, whether someone is a high-risk offender who needs to be transferred to a probation officer. There is a risk there.

[Jeremy Wright]

It might help the hon. Lady if I clarified two points relating to what she has just said. First, in all contracts we will expect those taking on the work to employ properly skilled staff—not to do so will not be permitted. Secondly, those who decide whether someone is a high, medium or low-risk offender will be public sector national probation service employees, not contractors.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the Minister for that clarification, particularly the first point, which is indeed good news. I was not a member of the Public Bill Committee and so might have missed some changes that have been made.

[Mrs Moon]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Meg Hillier]

Yes, but I will just finish responding to the Minister’s intervention.

On the Minister’s second point, I hear what he says, but there is always a risk that someone might be miscategorised and dealt with by an employee who is of a lower grade. The Minister says that they will be qualified, but they will be of a lower grade than fully qualified probation officers, and that decision might need to be made in the other direction. Perhaps he can reassure us on that point when he responds.

[Mrs Moon]

I should have waited for my hon. Friend to finish responding to the Minister before seeking to intervene, because she has just covered the point I wanted to make. It is not about the level of skills, but the qualification, because the qualification provides a background of knowledge that enforces and informs the way in which a probation officer acts. Someone who is deemed to be skilled might actually be unqualified, so it is important to have the qualification and the experience and skills.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments.

I am also worried about some of the companies that might come into this. I serve on the Public Accounts Committee, and I challenged the big public sector providers that appeared before us recently on whether they would bid for contracts in areas where they had no experience. They all denied that they would, but we have seen, in the Public Accounts Committee, in other Committees and on the Floor of the House, example after example of companies that bid for contracts because they are good at bidding but that do not actually have a background in delivering the relevant service. They then have to backfill by recruiting people to take on those jobs. I have dealt with the Minister on constituency matters and know him to be assiduous, and I am sure that he will bear that point in mind, but I think that it is worth reiterating that it is a very serious matter. Companies should not be bidding for huge contracts in areas where they have no experience because that fragments the service.

Fragmentation can be good where there is specialism, where there are smaller contracts, perhaps run by specialist voluntary sector groups, or indeed by private companies if they have the necessary level of expertise, but they have to work together. We are in danger of seeing another approach whereby the MOJ and the Government put out big contracts and the smaller specialist providers simply do not get a look in. They might get the odd crumb from the big contractors’ table, but they will be squeezed out. That is particularly true in mental health, one of the local concerns in my constituency.

There is an important concern about local accountability. I am a great supporter of extending freedom of information in the first instance, even with limitations, to private sector companies that deliver public contracts paid for by the taxpayer. It should be the tax pound that determines whether there is freedom of information, not the nature of the delivery body. Most parties in the House support some degree of contracting out, but we need to ensure that transparency is built in. Companies have told the Public Accounts Committee that they are in favour of a much greater degree of transparency, so perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to challenge them to stand up for what they say and make that part of the bidding process.

New clause 4 is important—I will not repeat all the arguments Members have made—because we need proper scrutiny. If we look at reoffending as a whole, we see that there are other ways of looking at it, for example by looking at mental health support or the Work programme. We know that offenders who come out of prison with a job are less likely to reoffend, but does the Work programme, which is provided by another Government Department, go into prisons to ensure that offenders have jobs for when they leave? Perhaps we should be challenging them to step up to the mark and provide job opportunities as a major plank of what we all want to see: less reoffending, particularly by offenders given short-term sentences.

In summary, the Public Accounts Committee has seen far too many poorly managed large Government contracts. The Cabinet Office is pushing hard to see that procurement is done in a different way that allows smaller companies a bite of the Government contract cherry and to stop the big companies being able to snaffle public money without being held properly to account. This is an opportunity for the Minister to consider, even at this late stage, allowing something in the contract to ensure that the big companies are required to work effectively with the small companies and not, as many of them do, to dodge their responsibilities later by saying, “Actually, we can’t quite deliver what we promised, so we’ll do it differently, but we’ve taken it all on.” That is often how they get around that. That will need constant monitoring and an audit of what happens with the contract. If this is to go ahead, I urge the Minister to tell us how the Government plan to audit the impact and the delivery of the service.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

I begin by echoing the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) about our late colleague Paul Goggins. I followed him as a Justice Minister, doing the job he did when he was in the Home Office and had responsibility for probation, and I know how well respected he was in the sector, by officials and the community at large. I also had the pleasure of sharing time with him as a Northern Ireland Minister, where he was also well respected. This is my first opportunity to put that on the record in the House. I will attend his funeral on Thursday, along with many colleagues across the House, to pay my final respects to Paul for all his work.

I wanted to speak in this debate for several reasons. Nobody disagrees with the Government’s general premise for dealing with offenders sentenced to 12 months or less in prison. They are often prolific offenders who go on to reoffend. They are often tomorrow’s serious offenders. It was an aspiration we had when I served in the Ministry of Justice to try to reduce their reoffending. We need to involve the voluntary and private sectors in supporting rehabilitation work for individuals who go to prison and come out within 12 months. Housing associations, voluntary providers and employers all have a role to play. That can be done in a positive way by the voluntary and private sectors.

Let us therefore not have a debate today on the difference between the Government and the Opposition on the need to involve some elements of the voluntary and private sectors. Instead, I want to raise my concerns about the issues addressed by new clauses 1 and 4. New clause 1 would ensure that we put a parliamentary brake on reorganisation, pending proper parliamentary scrutiny, and new clause 4 would put in place a pilot to test some difficult and serious matters in relation to which mistakes—they will be made, because that is the nature of the business the Minister deals with—will have a real impact on the community at large.

New clause 1, which I fully support, would prevent the Government from selling off or restructuring the probation service unless the proposals had first been laid before, and approved by, both Houses of Parliament. It is no secret that if the Government did that this year, they could put a Bill before Parliament and get it through before the general election. They could have it scrutinised and probably, because of the votes they have in this House, get their way. I object to the Government using the Offender Management Act 2007 to achieve that objective. I declare an interest, because I was the Minister who took that Act through the House. At the time I was pressed strongly by many Members on my own side, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), on whether it meant the privatisation and break-up of the probation service. I was pressed very hard about whether it meant, in practice, the abolition, ultimately, of probation trusts.

I gave assurances during the Bill’s passage through the House and I want to repeat them today, not because they have not been heard here before, but because they support what my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington says in new clause 1 and are worthy of repetition. On 18 July 2007, I, as the Minister, said from the Dispatch Box:

“There will be a mixture of commissioning. Some will be at national level, because in certain cases and with certain contracts that will be the best way of securing a strong and efficient service. There will also be a strong role for those commissioning work at regional level. As my hon. Friend surely accepts, economies of scale will sometimes be necessary, and some services will be best purchased and commissioned at that level. However, there will also be a need for local probation trusts to act not just as service deliverers but as commissioners of services from the voluntary sector, or from others, providing a proper service to help prevent reoffending at local level.”—[Official Report, 18 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 352-53.]

I said that in support of what my noble Friend Baroness Scotland and the then Lord Chancellor, my noble Friend Lord Falconer, said in another place when introducing the Offender Management Bill. I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that. I am very pleased that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) is present, because I said it in response to a Lords amendment that he supported and that sought to do exactly what the Minister is seeking to do now to the probation service. We rejected it and I put it on record that the Offender Management Bill would not be used for that purpose.

I would be grateful if the Minister reflected on Pepper v. Hart from 1992. Legislation can be interpreted according to what a Minister said at the Dispatch Box about what they thought about a particular interpretation of a Bill. My assessment is that during our deliberations on the Offender Management Act, I, on behalf of the then Government, rejected from the Dispatch Box an amendment that sought to do what the Minister is now doing; supported the aspirations of my noble Friends Lord Falconer and Baroness Scotland; and spoke in support of retaining probation trusts to commission at a national, regional and local level. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington has said, it is an abuse of this House for the Minister to try to use that legislation to secure his objective.

Will the Minister—just for me, so I can sleep easy in my bed—put on public record the legal advice he has received that says that he can do what he is doing, so that we can test his interpretation against the potential interpretation of lawyers outside the House under the terms of Pepper v. Hart?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I shall speak briefly to new clauses 2 and 3. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) on their work. I have no personal experience in the matters raised, but I am aware of some of the issues and problems of ex-military ex-offenders from a particular project run in my constituency, so I shall speak briefly about that.

As the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) said, this is a hugely complex issue, and other Members have made it clear that there are multiple needs when people end up leaving the services and going into prison. It is clear that, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd said, we are not supporting those people adequately when they leave the services and go back to civvy street. Perhaps that should be the starting point. When they end up entering the criminal justice system, we need to ensure that their very specific needs for exiting prison are dealt with properly, too. That is why we need a joined-up approach.

We need to ensure that people coming out of the services do not find themselves misusing various substances, that their financial and housing needs are dealt with and that they are given support into employment. If they find themselves in the criminal justice system, they need to be given similar support. As we know from other aspects of people’s experience of leaving prison, something as simple as not having a bank account can be crucial. If they do not have a bank account, they might not get paid for the work they are doing and they might end up entering the criminal justice system much more quickly than those who do have a bank account. We need to think of this issue from an incredibly wide perspective.

It is good news that my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) has been appointed to look at these issues. I hope he will notice the degree of party consensus and the wide and varied expertise that exist; he will, of course, take submissions from all parties and all those who have taken an interest in the matter for some time.

Let me focus specifically on people’s employment needs and on how the third or voluntary sector can help. I have seen this for myself in my constituency. Chatham and Aylesford are very different parts of the constituency and have very different needs, but on this particular project, they have combined and are working as one. Chatham has a long history and association with the military, while Aylesford is home to the Royal British Legion Industries. The RBLI has done a fantastic job over the last couple of years in trying to support ex-military ex-offenders into employment, which we know is a key part of successful rehabilitation from a custodial sentence.

The Victor project is a small-scale employment programme that assists ex-military ex-offenders into sustainable employment. The Secretary of State came to Chatham to meet people involved in the project, and I think that he thoroughly enjoyed himself and found the experience fascinating. I extend an invitation to any other Members who may wish to come down and see the work—especially my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border, who could include it in his review.

Victor began as a partnership between the RBLI, Blue Sky and Medway council, with funding from Forces in Mind. It has been co-ordinated brilliantly by the Shaw Partnership. The project, which has been operating for nearly a year, has provided six placements for ex-military ex-offenders undertaking grounds maintenance work at Medway council’s main offices in Chatham, and eight others with Veolia Environmental Services in Kent, Surrey and Essex. The grounds maintenance work would normally be undertaken by the council’s own contractor, Quadron, but Quadron has agreed to give part of the contract to the project, which is absolutely fantastic. Most of the participants are from the local prison at Elmley. This is the first initiative involving the partnership, and I believe that it is a pump primer for wider work for that group.

I think that there are initiatives out there that can really help ex-military ex-offenders to return to sustainable employment. Those whom I have met in connection with the project have described it as life-changing. They are getting up every day, and they have a routine. People are saying to them, “What you have done is fantastic: the grounds look amazing.” They are receiving the positive feedback that they need—something that they may have had when they were in the Army, or in other parts of the services—and they are being given support by a wider section of the community. I think that that is absolutely essential. If we are not giving such people the initial support that they need when they are coming out of the services, we must ensure that we give them support when they come out of prison. Very few former members of the armed forces go to prison, but they are an important few.

I am proud that the Victor project is operating in my constituency, and I hope that it will go on to greater things. I know that the Ministry of Justice is well aware of it, but I should like others to come and see it, and to think about whether it could be helpful to other initiatives. I think that, while we need to review this issue regularly, we can draw on the work of the voluntary sector.

[Meg Hillier]

I rise to speak with far less authority and experience than has been displayed by those who have spoken so far, but I am delighted to have added my name to new clauses 2 and 3, which were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). I speak with some experience, as someone who, as a schoolgirl, grew up in Portsmouth in the 1970s. I saw at first hand how little support was often given to people leaving the armed forces in those days. I also saw the aftermath of the Falklands conflict, when those returning from it were having to readjust to life.

I want to tell the House a story. In September, I had the privilege of meeting Harold. Harold served in the Australian air force during the second world war, and saw action in the Pacific. Harold is 90 years old. Ten years ago, he began to receive support and counselling for the experiences that he had had in the 1940s. One of my main reasons for adding my name to the new clauses is that I remember speaking to Harold and being very impressed by him, and impressed by the service that the Australians provide their armed forces. They recognised that, even so many years later, Harold still needed support.

Harold has no criminal record. He has been an upstanding member of his community throughout his life, both in the armed forces and since. However, if people like Harold are still facing problems, that explains a great deal about why ex-members of the armed forces form such a large proportion of the prison population, and why my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central and other members—I welcome the Government’s review, which is to be led by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart)—want to ensure that these problems are nipped in the bud in the case of other veterans.