Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Goggins Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I can confirm exactly that, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and her constituents. Her work in this area is clear evidence that a Back Bencher bringing a genuine constituency case to the Government can make a real difference. She did that, she has made a difference and the world has now changed for such businesses, so the impact will be known.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State indicated earlier that he was planning a consultation on mesothelioma victims. Does he accept that the review that his Department recently carried out simply did not fulfil the requirements of section 48 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012?
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Goggins Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) certainly has those qualities, and he will undoubtedly look at all the issues carefully. Another quality he has is that, when he needs to take a difficult decision in the interests of the country, he will do so.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The Justice Secretary intends all those who are given short prison sentences to be supervised on release. How many will be allocated to the national probation service, and what funding is he making available?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
The right hon. Gentleman will know, because the matter came up during last night’s debate, that the national probation service will carry out a risk assessment for all short-sentence prisoners. It will then decide whether to retain them because they are high-risk offenders or to pass them to community rehabilitation companies. So I cannot give him a figure, because each case will involve a judgment for the national probation service.
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]
Paul Goggins Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson). I am sure he will be pleased that he seemed to evoke a range of responses from different parts of the House.
Whether the Justice Secretary likes it or not, we are debating two issues here this evening. First, there is, of course, the Bill itself, whose central aim would, I think, be broadly welcome, although a number of important questions have been raised that the Minister will need to address in his response; I am sure he will. The second issue is the fundamental change to the probation service that Justice Ministers are bringing about. It is all very well for the Justice Secretary to say that all this is being done under legislation brought in by the previous Government. He cannot deny that some elements of what he proposes for the probation service relate directly to this legislation, not least to the extension of supervision, which is the principal aim of the Bill.
The link between the two issues has been made explicit in two ways—first, by the amendment tabled by Her Majesty’s Opposition and, secondly, by clause 1, which was thoughtfully introduced by the House of Lords, and under which there should be no reform of probation without the approval of both Houses. I was surprised by the rather dismissive attitude of the Justice Secretary towards clause 1. If, on the one hand, there is growing concern among those who lead and deliver the probation service, the police and crime commissioners and many others, while on the other hand Ministers have real conviction that their approach will work, what does the Justice Secretary have to be afraid of? If he cannot put his proposals with confidence to both Houses, subject them to scrutiny and gain an affirmative vote from both Houses, he should not be bringing these proposals before us at all. If he is so convinced that his proposals will be so successful, he should get behind clause 1 and be supportive of it.
We have a conscientious prisons Minister, but in truth Ministers must be becoming increasingly concerned about the implications of the scale of the reforms they are seeking to introduce. They know that their proposals are unpopular; they know that there is widespread concern about the changes they want to make; and, frankly, they are running out of road. This headlong rush to introduce a wholesale change to probation has to be achieved within a year’s time in order to fit the political timetable of getting it done before the general election. Frankly, I think this is a recipe for a car crash; even now, I would urge Ministers to reflect further on that.
Opposition Members are not the only ones making this point. As I have mentioned and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) mentioned in his speech, senior representatives of the probation service are making it clear that these changes could bring about a major threat to public safety. There are serious concerns, too, about this false separation between low and medium-risk offenders on the one hand and high-risk offenders on the other. That flies in the face of the professional experience of those who deliver the probation service. We know that risk is dynamic—it changes over time and there has to be a way of managing it—but it seems to me that the Government’s proposals do not cater for that level of dynamic risk.
It is interesting and instructive to look at the figures put out over the weekend by the Justice Secretary himself to justify the changes that he is making. In 2011, according to him, 356 adult offenders released from prison sentences of less than 12 months committed serious violent offences, while 2,482 offenders serving the same term came out and committed serious acquisitive crime, including robberies, which are serious crimes against people. Those are serious crimes carried out by people who sound to me as if they might be—no, must be—high-risk criminals. Unless the Minister is going to correct me, under these proposals, when such individuals come out after serving their short-term sentences of less than 12 months, they would be among the low and medium-risk group, not the high-risk group. It looks as if the Minister is going to correct me, so I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
Jeremy Wright
I can help the right hon. Gentleman and correct him on that. When those people are released, they will be subject to a risk assessment by the national probation service, and the NPS will make a judgment as to whether they are high, medium or low-risk offenders—and they will be allocated accordingly.
Paul Goggins
That is reassuring to an extent, but my point is that risk is dynamic—it changes—and that the assessment carried out prior to release might be different from that carried out a month after release or six months after release. There is not the fluidity in the system that would allow the management of that risk among the different groups. That is my point, which I hope the Minister will reflect on further.
Sadiq Khan
My right hon. Friend is an expert in this area. I would like to remind him that the definition of medium risk in the offender assessment system is that
“there are identifiable indicators of risk of serious harm. Offenders may include those sentenced for domestic abuse, violence, sexual offences, possession of firearms. They may be in gangs, have serious mental health problems and/or drug and alcohol problems.”
The Justice Secretary claims to be concerned about the small number of serious offenders with sentences of less than 12 months, but on the other hand he is allowing those sorts of offenders to be “supervised” by the likes of G4S, Serco and Uncle Tom Cobleigh.
Paul Goggins
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. The truth is, of course, that because the Justice Secretary started with a model of how he wants effectively to privatise 70% of what the probation service currently delivers, he has to squeeze all that risk into that larger majority of the work. This top-down model simply will not relate to or reflect the kind of risks that many offenders pose.
John McDonnell
The point made by probation officers —my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) identified it, too—is the issue of professionalism in identifying the trigger that takes place and pushes the risks to a higher level, even from those on shorter sentences.
Paul Goggins
I agree with my hon. Friend, who is a great expert on this issue. I am happy to admit that he and I have not always agreed on every point about probation over the years, but he well understands that service, what happens on the front line and the difficult judgments and assessments that probation officers have to make when faced with people who can often be dangerous and difficult in the context of the chaotic lives that many of them lead. I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention.
Reference has been made to the concerns of police and crime commissioners. This is interesting, because these are the new people elected under this Government’s reforms, yet they, too, are expressing concerns. They are doing so because they understand the importance of local partnerships for reducing crime and managing offenders. They are deeply worried that this Government’s proposals will erode those relationships, weaken them and put public safety at risk. That is why they are expressing their concerns.
Another major issue is that two of the major private sector providers, which are the most likely bidders for the work on offer from the Ministry of Justice—G4S and Serco—are under criminal investigation, following allegations of their over-charging for services that they are already contracted to provide for the MOJ. I give credit to the Justice Secretary, because when he found out about this, he came to the House to make a statement and has taken appropriate action since then. I commend him for that, but the implication of his robust approach is that these two companies should be sidelined from the process of contract allocation at this stage. I say that not as someone who is ideologically opposed to the private sector having a role in this sphere—quite the reverse.
Mr Burrowes
What the right hon. Gentleman has just said prompts me to suggest that it is important to have a sense of proportion. It is true that an investigation is taking place in relation to G4S and Serco, but both the right hon. Gentleman and I are firm advocates of restorative justice, and G4S has done great work in that regard at, for example, Altcourse prison near Liverpool. The 70,000 G4S employees who are involved in the programme there are likely to be concerned about their own future, but many of them are working extremely hard to provide support and rehabilitation, and, not least, restorative justice.
Paul Goggins
The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed those issues in Committee and in the Chamber, and I know that he speaks genuinely, but the crucial question relates to who commissions the service. If a local probation trust that understands the local need asks G4S to do the job, fair enough, but that is not what is on offer in this instance. What is on offer is that the Ministry of Justice down here in Whitehall will decide which private sector organisation should do the job, whether it be in Greater Manchester, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, or elsewhere. That is what concerns me.
As I was about to say, I am not ideologically opposed to the provision of a role for the private sector. During the recent Opposition day debate, I referred to a report from Lord Carter of Coles which advocated greater contestability and a greater diversity of providers. I supported that report, and I still support it. I think that good work can come from the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector. What I am critical of is the straitjacket approach that the Secretary of State is imposing on the whole probation service.
Members in all parts of the House have already raised a number of important questions, even before we have dealt with the question of the untested payment-by-results model that the Secretary of State seeks to impose. I support innovation in the criminal justice system. We should be determined to lower reoffending rates, and we should be looking for new ideas in that regard. The Peterborough and Doncaster pilots are interesting pilots, but that is all that they are: interesting pilots. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) noted from a sedentary position earlier, they are voluntary. Only two thirds of those who are eligible to take part in them actually do so, and they are likely to be more motivated than others when it comes to cutting risks, stopping offending, and getting back on to the straight and narrow.
The Secretary of State has said that the results of the pilots so far are very encouraging, and we should take account of that, but I urge Ministers also to listen to the critics and experts who say “Let us be a little more cautious before jumping to national conclusions based on two local, voluntary pilots”—especially because those who have served short sentences often have the most chaotic lifestyles, are the most likely not to have jobs or homes, and are the most likely to reoffend. They are the most challenging group.
My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) made an interesting and wise observation earlier when, in an intervention, he spoke of the role of the voluntary sector in a payment-by-results system. Such a system ought to present an opportunity to voluntary organisations, but the danger is—and I have heard this fear expressed—that the context and culture of payment by results will deter and undermine the many voluntary organisations that are doing great work in helping to turn people’s lives around, and they will lose a role rather than gaining one.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting pointed out earlier, the Secretary of State has form when it comes to payment by results. I have looked at the latest payment-by-results figures relating to the Work programme. The September figures confirm that, even now, the system is not meeting even the minimum expectations of the Department for Work and Pensions. Indeed, three providers have already been penalised for poor performance.
It is instructive to look at what the Work programme has been doing for offenders, which is highly relevant to today’s debate. Of the 19,800 offenders who were released in 2012 and referred to the programme, only 360 had been found a job by June this year. I think that Ministers should be extremely cautious, rather than over-bullish and over-claiming, when it comes to the results of the Work programme and of payment by results.
There are obviously many questions to be answered, and that is before we have dealt with the practical issues of appointing staff, transferring cases, getting the IT up and running, sorting out the offices, renegotiating contracts, and ending existing contracts. All that must be done not in five years, but in five minutes; or, at any rate, in the weeks and months that lie ahead. Serious Ministers—and I include the prisons Minister in that class—should pause to reflect on precisely where things are at the moment. The prisons Minister should do what he has been asked to do—certainly by Labour Members, and, I suspect, by Government Members who have serious concerns—and organise a proper pilot that is properly evaluated. If he is right, that is fine, but if aspects of the model are not correct, he should think again. In other words, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting said, he should be led by the evidence and not by ideology.
As I have said, I think that the central ambition of the Bill is a good one, and in principle I support it. I said the same during the Opposition day debate a few days ago, and I was grateful to my right hon. Friend for quoting from my speech earlier. I wanted to implement custody plus, and I was frustrated by our inability to introduce it when we were in government, because—for all the reasons that have been given today—the people whom we are discussing are the very people who need help, supervision and support the most. The obstacle was the £194 million a year that it would have cost to introduce custody plus: I am happy to admit that, and to express my frustration about it.
Sadiq Khan
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend is aware that custody plus was still on the statute book until the former Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, the Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—who knows about finance—removed it via the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. He realised that the cost was exorbitant, whereas the current incumbent clearly does not.
Paul Goggins
Indeed. It is regrettable, in a way, that the Government took custody plus off the statute book rather than trying to build it up, and even work on a cross-party basis.
We are told repeatedly that the cost of supervising the 50,000 offenders who leave prison having served short sentences will be met from the savings generated by the competition that will take place for the rest of the work that has been allocated. I said two weeks ago that I did not believe that, and I say the same today. The maths itself tells the story. The Government propose that the private and voluntary sectors should be given 70% of the current probation work load: that is to be the deal. Some 220,000 offenders are currently being supervised by the probation service; 70% of 220,000 is roughly 150,000—and the private and voluntary sectors must find the resources to supervise another 50,000 on top of that.
When I go to the supermarket, I am used to seeing “Buy three, get one free”, but I am not used to seeing that when it comes to planning and paying for the supervision of some problematic offenders. It just will not wash. Ministers keep saying that they will not give us the figures because the information is commercially confidential and is all to do with competition, but they know that the figures will not add up, and they really ought to come clean about that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) made an important point about the potential for an unintended consequence in the sentencing of offenders. There is a danger that, as a result of the Bill, more people will be subject to short-term prison sentences and the value of community sentences will be undermined. I am not saying that that is what Ministers intend, but there is a danger of it, and it is spelled out in the impact assessment: Ministers accept that there is a risk of so-called uptariffing—that people will get a more severe sentence than might otherwise have been the case.
We know that there will be 600 extra prison places as a result of the numbers of offenders who will be recalled to prison, but there is a risk of a change in the behaviour of sentencers, too. It is common sense that if a sentencer is being offered a choice between a package of community activity and supervision and, as an alternative, that package plus some prison beforehand, they will be tempted to go for the belt-and-braces approach. I would appreciate it if the Minister would tell us in his winding-up speech what discussions he has been having with the magistrates and the Sentencing Council to make sure that we do not see an overuse of short-term custody as a result of his changes, and an undermining of community sentences.
There is also a real risk that certain vulnerable groups will not be helped if the Bill’s provisions are interpreted in, as it were, an automatic way, because that will lead to more supervision and stronger sanctions. A higher proportion of female than male offenders receive a short custodial sentence, and many of them come out of prison to chaotic lives and with abusive relationships to deal with. If things break down, it may not be appropriate for them to go back to prison automatically. That worries me, and I would like the Minister to say more about the flexibility in the system he is introducing, so people do not too automatically go back to prison when their needs are rather different.
Kate Green
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for mentioning women offenders. Does he agree that there is a problem with payment-by-results contracts in that, because there are fewer women offenders and unit costs are therefore higher, and because their needs are often more complex, they are often more expensive to supervise and therefore may be particularly unattractive to private providers?
Paul Goggins
That is a very real concern and I am glad that my hon. Friend has had the chance to put that point on the record and introduce it into the debate. Groups with specific and additional needs—vulnerable female offenders or mentally ill offenders, for instance—will not be an attractive proposition to people who are looking to do things at the lowest possible cost.
Sir Alan Beith
I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the voluntary sector has done some extraordinarily good work in giving opportunities to women offenders, and if we can integrate what we are talking about here with women’s centres around the country, there is a possibility of real improvement?
Paul Goggins
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who is an excellent Select Committee Chair. I hope Ministers will still be listening to him and his Committee colleagues when they produce their report following the inquiry they are currently conducting. Many women’s centres are facing cuts at a time when we need them more than ever, so there is a very real difficulty, but I think all the points that have been made about women offenders are well made. I hope Ministers are gradually getting the message that they have to do something specific and different in relation to women offenders.
I mentioned offenders who are mentally ill. The Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health have made a very impressive commitment to do more to try to help people with a mental illness who get caught up in the criminal justice system. The national liaison and diversion scheme, which was introduced following a recommendation by our noble Friend Lord Bradley, who has done some fantastic work in this area, is very welcome. Again, however, I put it to the Minister that there are real dangers of the policy he is trying to introduce in this Bill running headlong into the more positive policy towards people with mental illness that he and the Department of Health are trying to introduce. Again, I am looking for reassurances about flexibility in the way people with mental illness are treated at the point where consideration may be given to returning them to prison, which might not be the most appropriate thing.
Finally, I have a concern about care leavers. Some young people in care might go into prison as a child and come out as an adult and a care leaver. That could produce additional difficulties, because who will have the prime responsibility? Will it be the private provider of the supervision that comes after a prison sentence, or will it be the local authority which has continuing responsibilities for those who leave care beyond the age of 18?
These are matters of detail, but they are important matters which must be addressed if the Minister is to get this legislation into the best shape possible. Then again, if the Minister does get this Bill into the best shape possible, he still cannot walk away from the context in which he is seeking to deliver it. Even though I agree with the core aim of the proposed legislation, I am deeply worried that introducing it into the turmoil of change that he and the Justice Secretary are planning is a recipe for disaster, and that is why, regrettably, this Bill is unsupportable at this point.
Mr Burrowes
The hon. Gentleman comments from a sedentary position, but I ask him to allow me to finish. If the number of people going into an institution is in decline, one must reconsider the question of value for money. I encourage him to consider the consultations on secure colleges, with the opportunities for us to upscale what has been lost in Feltham. We talk about training and education, and we should try to ensure that we have more intensive rehabilitation that, although it takes place in custody, does not take place in custody on the same model as at Feltham. I agree that Feltham is another example of an institution that is past its sell-by date and needs change and radical overhaul, but that is why we recognise that we cannot go on with the status quo of the Felthams of this world or with the status quo for those people who come out of Feltham and other institutions and do not get the rehabilitation they and the public need.
Project Daedalus was very much focused on such a goal and was able to reduce reoffending, as I understand it, to 53%. That was an encouraging rate. The lessons learned from that project, which I saw from an early stage, are important. The brokerage system is important, but so are the connections back to the London boroughs. That relationship is important. I recognise that some partnerships are working now, such as the offender management programme in London, which brings together the offending management teams. Those relationships need to be continued under payment by results. We learned from the drug recovery pilots that the way to do that is to ensure that the co-design process brings local authorities along with it. It is important that there is accountability, too.
The importance of LASARs lies in their independence from providers and, in some cases, commissioners. They provide some accountability in the system, independent of the provider, and ensure that there is an advocate. We know that offenders will not all go in one direction; when they go in different directions, the advocate will make sure that there is a proper referral system that works all the way through a reoffender’s rehabilitation.
Paul Goggins
I have been listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I will give him the benefit of the doubt—perhaps he can clarify this—but I hope that he is not suggesting that he and his colleagues are in favour of change and innovation, while Opposition Members simply want the status quo. If he is, I urge him to reflect on that. He has just spoken in great detail, and with great knowledge, about the complexity of local relationships. Given that complexity, the introduction of the new model of payment by results needs to be done carefully. It might help to have a proper, thorough pilot, and to evaluate it properly and thoroughly, before rolling the model out across the country.
Mr Burrowes
I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I am not suggesting that he is completely on the side of not having innovation and progress, but the reality is that we have to make a decision in this place. The Bill sets down the principle of mandatory supervision of those sentenced to under 12 months, and that is an important marker. There are issues relating to implementation and the timetable—much concern has been expressed about that—but they can be worked through; they are not good enough reason for voting against the Bill on Second Reading.
Clause 1 tries to create an artificial dividing line when all of us are very much on the same side in wanting rehabilitation. It has been so many years since we last had the opportunity to put centre stage the rehabilitation of offenders, particularly those with short sentences; we should not let down the public.
We have heard a number of interesting speeches. Concerns were raised about justice reinvestment. Justice reinvestment does not go completely against the principles of the Bill—far from it. There are different models of payment by results that can ensure that, as I suggested, we continue local links and partnerships, and make sure that savings are reinvested in the local area. The more we involve local groups—small and, yes, large—in this enterprise, as I believe we will have to, the more the local area will benefit. I look forward to the contracts that are awarded involving a partnership of private sector bodies—large or small—the voluntary sector and the public, and ensuring that reoffending rates are driven down.
Today, having raised concerns, our task is not to argue unnecessarily about implementation points. We have a simple choice tonight. We can do nothing. We can follow the path already set as regards short-term sentences —they were legislated for once under custody plus—and do nothing as regards implementation. We can allow that 58% rate of reoffending to continue, without any idea of change. We can decline to give the Bill a Second Reading. Or we can grasp this opportunity to get to grips with what has perhaps been on the too-hard-to-do pile, and give the Government credit for being willing to tackle the issue. We do not have everyone in our constituencies saying to us, “Please, please, do this,” but we know that the issue affects our constituencies through crime rates. We should give offenders a second chance of getting through the gate, having a mentor, getting into employment or rehab, and getting back in contact with their family. We should be on the side of victims and taxpayers. For those reasons, I urge hon. Members to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Probation Service
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I, too, would like to congratulate you on your election to your new position, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I do not criticise the Justice Secretary for wanting to change, improve or reform our prison and probation services. That is something that we should all want. However, I absolutely reject his assertion that nothing happened during the 13 years of the Labour Government, and I want to explain, drawing on my own experience, some of the things that did happen during that time.
Ten years ago, almost to the day, Lord Carter of Coles presented my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and me with a report, “Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime: a new Approach”. And it was a new approach. Three outcomes from that report were significant. The first was the creation of the National Offender Management Service, which brought together prison and probation services in a way that had not been done before and institutionalised the end-to-end management of offenders in a way that has underpinned everything that has happened since. More controversially, there was a clearer separation between commissioning and providing services, and a greater emphasis on contestability—a belief that by bringing more players into the system, we could get efficiencies and innovation.
Some of that got me into hot water with some of my colleagues, and I make that clear now because I want the Justice Secretary to know that I am not afraid of bringing in competition or of private sector or third sector players coming in to help to reduce reoffending. I share many of the objectives of his transforming rehabilitation strategy. I am deeply concerned, however, that what he is doing is not reforming the probation service, but destroying it. This is a Secretary of State who wants both to nationalise and to privatise the probation service at one and the same time. He wants to end local probation trusts, but to create a new national probation service run out of Whitehall and to award 21 new private sector contracts that will be drawn up and awarded by his Ministry of Justice.
Why is it that successful and effective trusts such as the Northumbria and Greater Manchester trusts will not be allowed to bid for low and medium-risk offender work? Why is it that Greater Manchester trust, which has been commended from the Dispatch Box by the Justice Secretary on more than one occasion and has introduced innovations such as the intensive alternative to custody, cannot be trusted to bid for and to run these services? The only conclusion I can reach is that his motivation is ideological and not practical.
Let me say something about the costs and the lack of transparency—my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) alluded to this—especially in respect of the new arrangements that the Justice Secretary proposes for the supervision of offenders who get short prison sentences. I support the Government in trying to introduce this innovation—I make no bones about that—but let me be absolutely candid about custody plus. Along with many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I wanted custody plus and we legislated for it in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The obstacle—the Secretary of State referred to it—was the cost. But at least I can put a price on what custody plus would have cost. Ten years ago, it would have cost £194 million a year. Interestingly, that was based on an estimate of 50,000 offenders who would have been in the system—precisely the same number as those in his impact assessment report. I can put a figure on it, but he cannot. All we are told is that it will be paid for by the savings generated by the competition for low and medium-risk offenders. Frankly, I just do not believe it. Either that supervision will be inadequate or the existing provision will be weakened and reduced in quality.
I cannot understand the pace of change on which this Secretary of State seems hell-bent. Within one year from now, he will have to award contracts, appoint staff, transfer cases, set up IT, sort out premises provision, renegotiate or even end existing contracts and organise 70 resettlement prisons. Well, I wish him well. If he succeeds in that, I will be the first to congratulate him, but he is setting himself an impossible target that could produce tremendous dislocation within these important services.
I do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to trial and test the sort of approach he is taking. We may disagree about the approach, but he should at least trial and test it. How can he work out the balance between risk and reward when he has not tested his own scheme? How can he know how much money to offer as an up-front payment? How does he know how much to pay for the results? Even by his own lights, he is found wanting in his thinking.
My concerns and those of other hon. Members and probation officers are shared by police and crime commissioners, and I know that the Justice Secretary has received representations from them. They criticise him for reducing the local partnerships that probation trusts have been able to develop and they are critical of the fragmentation that will come from this flawed approach to risk assessment. The probation service has evolved much over the last 100 years, but this Secretary of State runs the risk of destroying it.
Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Sir Paul Beresford
My hon. Friend goes halfway towards putting the case. He is right, but the police tell me that they do not really use that Act. They need this one tiny change in the legislation to add to the opportunities for prosecution and to use when they bring these individuals to court.
I was told that I needed to tweak the wording, so I did something absolutely outrageous: I invited the Attorney-General for a cup of coffee, not even a glass of wine, and he ran a cursory glance, if Attorney-Generals run cursory glances over anything, at the wording and seemed to feel that it was satisfactory. I am not going to hold him to that, as it would probably cost me a glass of wine.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman has given the House a valuable insight into how, for at least 10 years, he has followed these issues through with successive Ministers and very persuasively engaged them in the merits of his argument. I would be very happy to support his new clause, because graphic and extreme written material about child abuse is every bit as abusive as an image of child abuse. He is absolutely right to try to ensure that this loophole in the law is closed so that this is a very clear and separate offence.
Sir Paul Beresford
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I am delighted to have his support. When he was a Minister he was receptive to many of the changes that I suggested. He tweaked them so that they went through to another place without my name attached, but the effect was still the same.
Some have questioned whether genuine, legitimate literature such as “Lolita” would be covered by section 62(5) of the 2009 Act. To be completely clear, the written material that I am targeting can be as shocking as images described as level 5 based on the classification used by the courts. The section refers to prohibited images that it describes as
“pornographic…grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise…obscene”
and
“of such a nature that it must be reasonably assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.”
In certain cases, that description, which is applied to photographs, can, as the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) said, be applied equally to the written word. Such material is quite different and it is horrific. Its distribution is prohibited, and so should be its possession.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Jeremy Wright
We believe that this is a better way of resolving matters in the prison system than spending money on legal aid, but I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State has met the ombudsman to discuss precisely the issues that he has raised, and we will work with the ombudsman to ensure that his office is capable of dealing with any additional demand that may be generated.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
May I urge the Minister to extend the ombudsman’s powers to include investigation of the deaths of transferred prisoners who are moved into secure mental health units for mental health treatment? At present, such deaths are subject only to internal NHS review rather than the full scrutiny that would be required if the death occurred in a prison.
Jeremy Wright
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point. If he will forgive me, I would like to reflect on it. I will come back to him.
Electronic Tagging
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. In fact, we are about to launch a revolution in tagging generally. The arrival of GPS tagging will enable us not simply to monitor whether an offender has left their home, but to understand whether they are breaking a curfew or, for example, whether a paedophile is going close to a school. That will transform the way in which tagging works and will do so—I can assure him—at a much lower price than we have paid up to now.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I join others in commending the Justice Secretary for the action he has taken and the statement he has made today. I say that as the Minister for prisons and probation in 2004, when the contracts were awarded. If there has been wrongdoing, he is right to root it out in the way that he has set out.
May I press him a little further on his plans for the probation service? I can only ask him to accept my word that I do so not in a partisan way, but because, like him, I care about the protection of the public. Given that two major players are facing serious questions and are likely to be out of the game, does it not make sense to look at having a more limited competition for certain services in one part of the country, rather than moving so rapidly to a national roll-out?
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
5. What progress he has made on his plans to reform the probation system.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
6. What his plans are for the future of the probation service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
We will open up rehabilitation to a diverse range of organisations and introduce new payment incentives for providers to focus relentlessly on reforming offenders. We plan to commence the competitive process for our new providers at the end of this summer. We will also create a new national public sector probation service, which will work to protect the public.
Jeremy Wright
It is a myth that there is no learning already available to the Government on payment by results; learning is available across government activities, and a number of pilots within the probation field have begun. Not all of them have been completed, but, as the hon. Gentleman will recognise, it is possible to learn something from a pilot even if it is not completed. We are confident that payment by results is the right way to approach this matter. It is also the right way, of course, to release the savings we need to pay for an additional 50,000 offenders who currently receive no supervision. If he has a better way of doing that, we look forward to hearing it.
Paul Goggins
The Minister is in the unusual position of wanting to both privatise and nationalise the probation service at the same time. Will he explain to the House why the probation service is to be trusted with the supervision of the most dangerous, but will not be allowed to bid to work with less serious offenders?
Jeremy Wright
We think that a combination of approaches will work best. We think that the probation service has particular skills in dealing with the most dangerous and high-risk offenders, so we want to give it the opportunity to concentrate on those offenders. We also think that there is a huge range of innovation and good ideas among bodies of all sorts, in the voluntary sector as well as in the private sector, and we want to bring those ideas to bear on what has been an extremely intractable problem—driving down reoffending rates.
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeremy Wright
I agree that mentoring is likely to play a significant part in what providers choose to do in order to turn lives around. I also agree that involving ex-offenders is a good way to start to find the mentors whom we will need. A great deal of very effective mentoring already takes place in prisons, with older and more established prisoners mentoring younger and newer ones. We want that to continue outside the prison gates, so that we can provide the kind of support that my hon. Friend has described.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Dealing with alcohol misuse and dependency is a major problem for many ex-offenders who need to find work. What discussions is the Minister having with the Department of Health, and indeed with those who are likely to provide probation services in the future, about improving alcohol treatment in prisons and after prisoners have been released?
Jeremy Wright
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this is a hugely important issue. Given his knowledge of the subject, he will recognise that a consistent approach is also important. As I said a moment ago, the work should start while prisoners are in custody and continue as they go through the prison gates and out into the community, so that supervision and support for those with drug or alcohol problems can be maintained throughout the process to ensure that they do not relapse and go back to their old ways. We will certainly think about how we can engage with not just health service providers but rehabilitation providers, and do so over a longer period.
Jeremy Wright
I am very happy to discuss that matter further with my hon. Friend. I hope that she will be reassured that all offenders who leave custody or receive a community order will be allocated to a provider and will be expected to undergo whatever rehabilitation is appropriate.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
T8. I welcome the extension of supervision to short-term prisoners, but I am concerned that Ministers continue to refuse to give an estimated additional cost for that provision, claiming that it depends on competition. Ministers must have made an estimate for the fixed fee that will be paid up front before any bonus for success. Will the Minister say what the fixed fee is likely to cost?
Jeremy Wright
I understand why the right hon. Gentleman finds our position frustrating, but we cannot give a specific figure because it depends entirely on what price the bidders tell us they can do it for. I can tell him that the cost of providing for the additional 50,000 offenders will be covered by the savings that we make through competition. Opposition Members who dislike the idea of competition in this field must tell us whether they support the extension of the provision to short-term offenders. If they would not pay for it through competition, how would they pay for it?
Oral Answers to Questions
Paul Goggins Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
T8. During the Report stage of the Crime and Courts Bill, there was unfortunately insufficient time for Ministers to speak to Government amendment 110, which provided for statutory guidance on the use of restorative justice. Will the Minister take this opportunity, given that there was extensive discussion in Committee and outside on this issue, to explain to the House how that amendment will extend and strengthen the use of restorative justice in the criminal justice system?
Damian Green
First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks on Third Reading of the Crime and Courts Bill last night. The Bill gives judges explicit powers to defer sentencing to allow restorative justice to take place between a victim and an offender. The amendment provides that restorative justice practitioners must
“have regard to any guidance that is issued”
by the Secretary of State, with a view to “encouraging good practice” in the delivery of pre-sentence restorative justice. That is a significant step forward for restorative justice and I know that the right hon. Gentleman will welcome it.