Oral Answers to Questions

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Despite record spending on prison and probation services, reoffending rates are still far too high. Will the Minister give an assurance that the new probation reforms will seek to address that issue, while also delivering value for money for the taxpayer?

[Jeremy Wright]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. She is right to say that reoffending rates are far too high; 50% of those released from custody reoffend within 12 months. That is unacceptable, and people within the probation service know that. We need to bring those rates down, and the best way to do so is to unlock the innovation I spoke about a moment ago and to have a system where, if people succeed in driving down reoffending rates, they receive the maximum reward and if they do not, they will not.