Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)

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The petitioners urge the Government, and in particular the Ministry of Justice, to think again about their proposals for the privatisation of the probation service. Megan Elliott, of the National Association of Probation Officers, and her colleagues have collected a petition of 2,138 signatures from the catchment area of the Northumbria Probation Trust. It is not surprising that feeling about this issue is strong in the north-east of England—the Northumbria Probation Trust received an exceptional rating in 2012-13. Indeed, the wider probation service received the British Quality Foundation gold medal for excellence in 2011.

The petitioners firmly oppose the Government’s plan to privatise up to 70% of probation service work. They defend a publicly accountable probation service in the public sector. They oppose the Government’s plan to abolish the 35 separate probation trusts and oppose contracting out through a competitive process that excludes the probation service but includes 70% of their current work. At the heart of the petitioners’ objection is the risk to the public that the Government’s proposals so obviously pose. It offends against common sense to proceed with these untested ideas without, at the very least, piloting them first and learning the lessons of the pilot. I side with the petitioners and believe we should heed their warning.

The petition states:

The Petition of residents of the UK,

Declares that the Petitioners oppose the Government’s plan to abolish the Probation Service in its current form and to privatise up to 70% of work currently undertaken by it. The Petitioners believe that those convicted by a Criminal Court should be supervised by those employed by a publicly accountable Probation Service such as currently exists; further that the Petitioners oppose the Government’s plan to abolish the 35 public sector Probation Trusts replacing them with one Probation Service that only supervises those deemed to be of a high risk of harm to the public. It is envisaged under the current plan, 70% of probation’s work will be subject to a competitive process which excludes the Probation Service. We believe that such a plan is “high risk” in that it could place the public at a greater risk of harm.

The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to stop the planned changes to the Probation Service.

And the Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

[P001225]