Pat Glass
Main Page: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)Department Debates - View all Pat Glass's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe issue is not about the original convention, which contains a sensible balance of rights and responsibilities. The issue is about how far we have moved over 60 years from the original intentions of those who wrote the convention. That is why a change is desperately needed.
11. What plans he has for the future of the probation service; and if he will make a statement.
12. What plans he has for the future of the probation service; and if he will make a statement.
The transforming rehabilitation consultation closed on 22 February 2013. Our proposed reforms will help reduce reoffending by opening up the provision of probation services to a wider range of providers and by extending rehabilitative provision to those serving less than 12 months in prison. We will respond to the consultation and bring forward detailed plans in due course.
As I said, we will provide the detail of the proposals when we have had a chance to look in detail at the responses to the consultation, but we expect a progressive year-on-year reduction in reoffending as a result of the improvements that we want to make.
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are already obliged to provide education for such young people, whether they are in custody or not. He is right that literacy and numeracy are a huge issue. That is partly because there are very high rates of exclusion from school among young people who eventually end up in custody. We need to do more to take advantage of the period of stability, which for many young people is unusual, that they have while in custody. We must do more to educate them in custody and to ensure that that education continues when they leave it.
T7. What is the minimum percentage that the Justice Secretary thinks needs to be in a contract for it to be considered a payment-by-results scheme?
I have been very clear that I find it profoundly unsatisfactory that people who get sentences of less than 12 months are not provided with supervision post-prison. The changes that we have put in place will include that group and people who receive community sentences. We must remember that 80% of those who end up in our prisons have completed a community sentence, so that part of our system is not working either.