Women Offenders and Older Prisoners

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I will be relatively brief, Mr Amess. I want to ask a few questions about the Government’s response to the report, but first, as I raised the issue of detention centres earlier, I hope that the Minister will pass on to his Home Office colleagues the importance of addressing the report today from the chief inspector of prisons. I raised the Harmondsworth detention centre incidents in the debate on the Immigration Bill on 22 October, and referred to the visitors’ report published last year. I continue to be concerned; we need to deal with the concerns regularly expressed by the visitors. There was also a separate report on mental health in particular, published just before Christmas by Detention Action.

I have some questions about progress in relation to the Government’s response to the Select Committee report. The Secretary of State said:

“I have considered the Committee’s recommendation to develop a strategy for older prisoners. I accept the suggestion that a national, consistently applied approach is needed across prisons and prison staff.”

I am not completely sure what the difference is between a strategy and a consistently applied approach, but the Government’s response to the issues raised by the Select Committee seems to include action on a number of fronts, which is helpful.

As to the categorisation of older prisoners, the Government responded:

“We will not look to categorise prisoners as old by their age, but we will look at the possibility of automatic consideration of possible age related issues…We will undertake analysis of offender needs by age to help understand at which age it would be best to do this.”

It would be useful to have a time scale on that, and a progress report in due course. Perhaps the Minister can advise us what is happening.

The Government promised a review of the suitability of the prison estate. They agreed that

“a formal analysis of the estate is required”

and said they would

“develop a process for conducting an assessment of current accommodation”

to be completed by “the end of 2014”. I know it is early, but some form of publication of the way that is being undertaken, and in what stages—whether it is being done geographically, region by region, or category by category—would be helpful, particularly in the light of the reorganisation of the Prison Service under the Government’s new proposals.

The Government said:

“As far as possible, NOMS will ensure that older prisoners are not allocated to an establishment that cannot meet their needs. We are grateful to the committee for their recognition that this will be subject occasionally to operational difficulties”.

It will be useful to see how the Government will monitor the occasions when operational difficulties have an impact on the appropriate allocation of a prisoner to a specific site or prison.

On another matter of progress, the Government responded to what the report said about the health and social care of older prisoners, saying:

“We agree that better management of health appointments is desirable. To support this, NOMS will work with NHS England on the possibility and suitability of increasing the use of video link technology.”

It would be useful have information—not necessarily today, but perhaps in writing—about the programme and the time scale for implementation. Some idea of cost would be useful as well.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on what he is saying; I know how passionately he feels about the issue. As to social care, a similar point was made to me by Professor John Williams of Aberystwyth university. He said that one of the biggest obstacles for social care services for older people was the ordinary residence rule. What is the ordinary residence of a prisoner? Is it where they come from, the location of the prison, or where they will go after release? Local authorities can play that card to avoid responsibility. That needs to be clarified.

[John McDonnell]

I fully agree. I was going to come on to that point, but the hon. Gentleman has covered it for me. Local authority funding is a key issue, particularly for those with prisons nearby.

The Government responded to a proposal about the incorporation of awareness training with regard to the elderly. They said:

“NOMS will look to work with NHS England developing training packages.”

I should in due course welcome the Minister’s detailed response about how that is being approached, including the progress being made, the cost, and the consultation that is being undertaken, particularly with the Prison Officers Association and the POA’s involvement in designing and promulgating the package.

I am extremely concerned that we secure a clear financial base for local authorities in the new role that they will play in social care. As the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) said, we need clarity about who is responsible, and what the cost burden in the locality will be. The Government said that they were “currently refining” the estimates

“through a survey of prisoners.”

That obviously relates to scale of costs. They also said:

“Funding provision that recognises the additional costs will be provided to Local Authorities.”

It would be extremely helpful to know what progress had been made in the negotiations with local authorities, and the estimates that had been bandied about—I know those are a matter for negotiation, as that is something I did in another life. It would be useful to know how the consultation is being undertaken, whether agreement is reached in due course about the scale of the costs and how they will be administered. That will come down to a detailed formula at some stage, but it would be helpful to have early information and some understanding of how any difficulties will be resolved.

The Committee raised the question of the age trigger, and the Government said that they would re-examine it. They said that

“an assessment of the costs and benefits of an age trigger for health and social care assessments would be needed before any commitment to an automatic age trigger for either health or social care assessment”

would be entered into. It would be useful to know how that assessment was being undertaken and, again, the time scale for and manner of its report to the Committee or the House.

The Select Committee raised the issue of restraint, in relation to escorts in particular; some members have found restraint a difficult matter. The Government responded:

“NOMS’ escorts policy is currently under review and this issue will be explored further as part of that.”

It would be useful, again, to know the time scale for that and how it will be reported. Will there be opportunities to examine the policy in more detail as the Government develop it?

As to resettlement, there is guidance to be published with the new Bill, with respect to NOMS working

“with their partners in local authorities to see how prisons can support this.”

It would be useful to know from the Minister whether that guidance is in draft form already, when it will be published and how it will be agreed in due course. The relationship with local authorities will clearly be a key matter.

The Government response also stated that

“NOMS will explore the possibility of making some small-scale improvements to Approved Premises.”

It will be useful to have some details of the assessment undertaken and of the time scales for implementation.

Finally, the Government response also dealt with the transit of prisoners between areas and how that would be clarified:

“This work should be completed alongside the launch of the Care Bill in 2015.”

It will be useful to have some detail about how that is being examined—who has been involved in the consultations and discussions, and again whether some of the issues have been dealt with or are being overcome in those discussions.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Labour has argued for this, legislated for it and U-turned on it. The shadow Secretary of State has stated endlessly over the past few months that the Opposition now support the principle, but they are going to vote against it tonight. That is a sign of how poor an Opposition they are, how unfit they would be to govern, and how out of touch they are with the criminal justice challenges in this country.

It might assist the House if I started by summarising the issues facing short-sentence offenders. Many need housing; 38% of them need help finding a place to live when they are released. Many are out of work; only 30% have found employment within two years of being released, while 83% will have claimed out-of-work benefits in the same period. Huge numbers of them need help with education, with work-related skills. A fifth had a mental health or an emotional problem, a third self-report as having a drugs problem and 65% have used illegal drugs in the four weeks before going into prison custody. Those are the people who Labour Members want to leave prison with no support at all.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the reforms in the Bill will avoid what happened to my constituent’s son, who after serving nine months in prison was released with £16 in his pocket, a travel card and nothing else, putting him in danger of committing another offence because he lacks accommodation and the long-term support that he needs?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I cannot understand why Labour wants to vote against providing 12 months of supervision support for everyone who leaves prison, which should ensure that they do not reoffend.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Despite what the Justice Secretary tried to argue at the beginning of his speech, the Bill is part of a wider programme that changes probation services as well as how the offenders with which they deal are handled. As such, it is important to understand the background of the Bill in order to understand its intent, the provisions and the wider programme.

To do that, it is necessary to look at the policy routes of the consultation reports that precede the Bill. The coalition’s first criminal justice consultation—“Breaking the Cycle”—was in December 2010. It promised to open up probation services to the market. The second report, of July 2011, proposed six new pilots of a payment-by-results method and at the same time pledged not a comprehensive rehabilitation strategy for offenders, nor a comprehensive reoffending rates reduction strategy, but a

“a comprehensive competition strategy for…probation services”.

There is an obsession with the market, competition and privatisation. This is not the means to an end; it is the end. It is the purpose of the Justice Secretary’s programme—that and perhaps burnishing his credentials with the wilder right-wing of the Conservative party for the future.

If the policy end was to reduce reoffending rates for short-term prisoners, the means are in place—probation trusts, which have been responsible for overseeing falling reoffending rates for those they have supervised for 13 years.

[Rehman Chishti]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

I will finish my point and then give way.

If the end or purpose of the policy was better value for taxpayers without compromising professional standards or public safety, the means are in place with probation trusts, which have made savings of around 20% over the past five years and helped to reduce crime rates and maintain protection for the public.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

The Minister was in the Chamber for the Opposition day debate last week and will have heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who was the Minister responsible for the 2007 Act. In July 2007, he mentioned

“trusts remaining public-sector based and delivering services at a local level”.—[Official Report, 18 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 354.]

Essentially, the 2007 Act was not about abolishing local probation trusts, nor about trying to commission services from the centre from a desk in Whitehall; it was about using local partnerships and local professional expertise to secure the best mix of support that offenders needed and that the public required to keep them safe and protected from harm.

[Rehman Chishti]

I infer that the right hon. Gentleman would agree with rehabilitation being the end product. A key element of the Bill on rehabilitation and reoffending is clauses 12 and 13. Compulsory drug testing for class B drugs expands existing provisions, and clause 13 introduces compulsory attendance at appointments on licence for drug treatment and testing, which did not exist before. The key part is helping people who need help. The ones who are addicted to drugs are the ones who continue to go in and out of the criminal system. Clauses 12 and 13 deal with rehabilitation on that basis, and I think the right hon. Gentleman will at least agree with me that those clauses are the right way forward.

[John Healey]

There are some useful provisions in the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has said that the Opposition do not object to some of the Bill. Additional requirements as part of supervision orders are sensible. Extending the supervision requirement to those who are released from custody after short-term sentences is sensible. My argument is that the legislation is part of a wider programme, the policy purpose of which lacks evidence and justification, but not the ideology that drives the Justice Secretary. That purpose—that end—is the privatisation of our probation services. It is not about the means to a better probation service or better protection for the public.

Let me develop my argument. I have mentioned the first and second coalition consultation reports. To be fair, the third report—“Punishment and Reform: Effective Probation Services”—which was published in March 2012, restated the intent to open up the market for the supervision of low-risk offenders. However, it also proposed a stronger role for probation trusts and a stronger emphasis on partnership working. The report states:

“We intend that there will be a stronger role for public sector Probation Trusts as commissioners of competed probation services…We will devolve to Probation Trusts the budget for community offender services”.

At that time, the Government said:

“Trusts are best placed to work with courts and with local partners to design and commission services jointly…We will support the joint commissioning of services for offenders between probation and key partners such as local authorities, health and the police.”

Probation Service

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We intend to use the same systems across the public, private and voluntary sectors—that is enormously important—so that there will be no question of people using different systems. It will be part of the contracting structure that what the public national probation service, working with the most serious offenders, uses will also be used by contractors.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the Opposition have no right to lecture us on the criminal justice system, as they released tens of thousands of prisoners early, which undermined the public’s trust in the criminal justice system?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, what we hear is a party that has changed completely. When Labour Members talk about the outsourcing agenda, they tend to forget that they were the people who drove the outsourcing agenda. They were the people who said that prisons could and should be run in the private sector. They were the people who said that electronic monitoring could and should be run in the private sector. A volte-face has taken Labour back to being an old-fashioned left-wing socialist party, and they are now pretending that none of that happened, but I can assure them that it did.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to prisoners having access to legal papers relating to their cases. This is a difficult problem because, as he will recognise, prisoners have certain rights of access to their legal papers, but it is a cause for concern to us, and to him, that they might have access to materials that they can keep in their cells and show to other people. That is clearly inappropriate, and we are looking into how we can best restrict that access. He can rest assured that we are seeking to do that.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

8. What progress he has made on the digitisation and modernisation of the criminal justice system.

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

The criminal justice system strategy and action plan that I launched in June sets out a clear path for the modernisation and digitisation of the criminal justice system. To drive this work forward, we have secured investment of £160 million, which supports three tranches of transformation: the second phase of the CJS efficiency programme, which will deliver the “digital courtroom”, a new CJS common platform programme and a programme to digitise policing.

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but will he clarify what key improvements can be expected for victims and witnesses from this modernisation?

[Damian Green]

There are a number of individual actions within the programme that guarantee that. My hon. Friend is right to identify these groups as key people who need to see improvements. I shall pick three examples. First, it will be easier for witnesses to give evidence by video link, which is particularly important for vulnerable witnesses. Secondly, we will extend the successful TrackMyCrime system, which has been developed in Avon and Somerset to give victims the opportunity to follow the progress of their case online. Thirdly, we will pilot section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, which provides for pre-recorded cross-examination for vulnerable witnesses—again, particularly welcome in child sexual exploitation cases.

Justice

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Ministerial Corrections

Fines: Surcharges

[Rehman Chishti]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the victim surcharge.

[Official Report, 26 March 2013, Vol. 560, c. 1106W.]

Letter of correction from Mrs Grant:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) on 26 March 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mrs Grant]

Since its introduction in 2007, the victim surcharge has raised £41.2 million, which has funded vital services for victims and witnesses of crime. The reforms to increase and extend the surcharge, introduced by this Government, will see more offenders take responsibility for the harm they have caused. They will contribute up to an additional £50 million per year towards the cost of victims' services.

The correct answer should have been:

Police Cautions (Young People)

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

I very much agree. We are often talking about people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. As a country, we are crazy to hold them down, as we do in some cases. They need support, not perpetual criminalisation.

Although not entirely down to the actions of our Committee—it would have been a swift move by the Minister if so—I am pleased that the Government plan to lay before Parliament a statutory instrument to amend the exceptions to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, so that some spent convictions and cautions do not have to be disclosed and cannot be taken into account in employment decisions. Nevertheless, that development still leaves us with several questions.

On 29 January this year, the Court of Appeal ruled that the system of Criminal Records Bureau checks constituted a breach of article 8 of the European convention on human rights and of the Human Rights Act 1998, and that requiring the disclosure of all convictions and cautions relating to recordable offences is disproportionate to the aim of protecting children and vulnerable adults. Why, therefore, did the Government feel the need to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court?

The statutory instrument that the Government will lay before Parliament will help my constituent and many others, so I welcome it. It is proposed that cautions and equivalents administered to a young offender will not be subject to disclosure after two years, and that a conviction received as a young offender resulting in a non-custodial sentence will not be subject to disclosure after five and a half years. May I press the Minister, however, to implement the measure as quickly as possible? How long will it be before the order is laid before the House? Will he confirm that any changes will be applied retrospectively?

Finally, my constituent highlighted two other important issues, which concern other Members as well. First, on the role of local constabularies in removing or retaining a caution on a young person’s record, my constituent contacted Hampshire constabulary in the hope that it might be able to remove the caution from her record, but she was told that nothing could be done in that regard. However, in certain circumstances, do not chief constables have the discretion to prevent the disclosure of cautions? Where does the truth lie?

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate and the work that he does on these issues. He is talking about certain constabularies approaching the matter in certain ways. I understand that the Government have piloted initiatives to examine dealing with cautions in a different way, as he has discussed. Has he made any assessment of how effective the pilot scheme has been so far?

[Steve Brine]

No, is the honest answer, but I am aware of the pilot, so perhaps the Minister will be kind enough to refer to it. I am grateful for that point, made by a fellow member of the Justice Committee.

Other people want to get in to speak and we want to give the Minister time to respond, so I shall draw to a close. To make the second point, there is no requirement to consent to receiving a police caution for young people. Many of them do not appreciate the impact that a criminal record will have on their life and career prospects, which means that they can be burdened with a record without fully understanding the consequences. Can more be done, therefore, to ensure that young people are aware of the consequences of receiving a caution, which is more than just a ticking off or what used to be a clip around the ear?

In summary, many of the young people who receive cautions immediately regret their actions, but they soon discover that the consequences severely jeopardise their job prospects and opportunities. Many of those youngsters come from underprivileged and unstable backgrounds, so is it not counter-productive to criminalise them further and to destroy what opportunities they might have in our society?

I welcome the steps that the Government are taking to prevent disclosure of old and minor offences to potential employers. I hope that the reforms make a significant difference to the life of many constituents, such as mine and many others.

Police Community Support Officers

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Damian Green]

I welcome that for two reasons. First, I am committed to trying to improve the diversity, not just of warranted police officers but of PCSOs. I think it was the new president of the Police Superintendents Association who made that point; the police have not moved as far as some other institutions in developing diversity and they need to do better. I am extremely supportive of practical steps to make that happen.

Secondly, the kind of local initiative that the hon. Lady describes is precisely what I want to see. I do not want to sit here—nor have any other policing Minister—dictating to different forces around the country what their priorities must be. Initiatives that come from the bottom up through the forces themselves at the behest of the PCCs will be the best way to ensure that each force is responsive to the local needs of its community. I am happy to welcome that initiative of the Gwent police. I had a good visit there a few months ago, seeing what they were doing to engage with the community in Newport. It is clearly an innovative force.

Providing visibility on the streets is also a key strength of the role of PCSOs. According to the results of the recent crime survey for England and Wales, over half of all adults say that they see the police or PCSOs on foot patrol in their local area at least every month. There are some very inspiring stories of what individual PCSOs are doing to engage with and respond to the individual needs of their communities.

In the Isles of Scilly, PCSO Bev Faull has been awarded a citation for her work with migrant workers. For the past three years, she has focused on helping the county’s eastern European migrants, effectively planning and running multi-agency operations to tackle exploitation of workers in west Cornwall.

In Shinfield, near Reading in Berkshire, Suzie Carr was awarded Thames Valley’s PCSO of the year, in recognition of the excellent community relationships she built while launching her “Wrong place, wrong time” youth project. It is interesting to note that the award scheme is by public vote, so she was praised by the local residents of the community in which she patrols for the positive impact of her work.

I have one final example from Solihull. Riccardo Gambino was named the region’s PCSO of the year for setting up 13 neighbourhood watch schemes during 2012. What is interesting about Mr Gambino is that he was a police officer for 11 years but gave up his warrant to become a PCSO because he thought that he could better serve his community as a PCSO, specifically because what was most important to him was the emphasis on engagement.

Those are three very good examples of the work undertaken by PCSOs. As of September 2012, there were nearly 14,500 PCSOs, and I am confident that each of them is taking positive steps to engage with their community, having an impact on people’s lives. It is a back-to-roots role, unique within the police service for its emphasis on accessibility and engagement, acting as a complement to, not a replacement for, the enforcement role of sworn warranted officers. That gets to the heart of the hon. Gentleman’s point, because we are determined to maintain the difference of the role.

Of course, there might well be changes and there have been changes in the past. We believe strongly in delegating local funding decisions, for example, to PCCs, which is why the neighbourhood policing fund, which historically funded such officers, is subsumed into the police main grant from next month. It will then be for police and crime commissioners, in consultation with individual chief constables, to take decisions on resourcing and deployment of PCSOs based on local assessments of need and risk. That is right, and I anticipate that this will make forces even more responsive to local concerns and priorities.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The Minister says that it will be up to police and crime commissioners to make decisions about the needs of their communities. Will he pay tribute to the Kent police and crime commissioner, Ann Barnes, who is increasing PCSOs by 60 as well as having an extra 20 police constables on the streets of Kent?

[Damian Green]

As a fellow Kent MP, I am delighted that we will have more PCSOs and police officers on the streets of Kent in the coming years. I am happy to join my hon. Friend in his remarks.

I will now move on to the powers available to PCSOs, which are, as the hon. Member for Wrexham said, set out in the Police Reform Act 2002. All PCSOs are issued with 20 standard powers that enable them to deal with antisocial and nuisance behaviour in neighbourhoods. In addition, there is a list of discretionary powers that can be designated to PCSOs by chief constables in response to local requirements. The discretionary nature of the additional powers is important and goes to the heart of the notion of neighbourhood policing, which, at its core, is to ensure that policing responds to the needs of local communities. Discretionary powers ensure that PCSOs are flexible, as they bestow on chief constables the authority to take the necessary steps to ensure that their PCSOs are suitably empowered to deal with the issues that are of most concern to local residents. The Government believe that these limited and flexible powers are one of the key strengths of PCSOs, providing them with the time and space necessary to get to know their local area and actively to engage and build relationships with communities.

I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that the powers available to PCSOs remain under constant review, and we are always willing to look at ideas, but we need to ensure we strike the right balance and do not overburden them. The Government welcome consideration of revisions to the powers where it is clear that they will enhance, rather than undermine, this important role. The draft Anti-Social Behaviour Bill, for example, proposes the introduction of a new dispersal power for PCSOs. That will replace two existing powers and will allow uniformed police officers and PCSOs to direct a person who has committed, or is likely to commit, antisocial behaviour to leave a specified area and not return for a specified period of up to 48 hours.

We must be cautious not to overburden PCSOs with powers that could introduce bureaucracy to the role, taking them away from providing the visible presence on the streets that we want. Extending the scope of existing PCSO powers could introduce to the role an unwelcome element of confrontation that is associated with the power of arrest and is outside the PCSO’s unique role. Many, in fact, see the power of arrest as a last—not a first—resort, preferring instead to focus on being proactive and preventive. Therefore, we need to ensure that we give full consideration to the issues around extending PCSO powers.

That lies at the heart of what might fall between the hon. Member for Wrexham and me. He quoted selectively from part of the letter that I wrote to him last November, so it falls to me to read the rest of it. He is right that I said that

“the principal role for PCSOs is as part of neighbourhood policing teams, connecting and engaging with their local community, as opposed to managing parking restrictions which is a matter for the Local Authority.”

He generously acknowledged that that is indeed the role of the local authority. I continued by saying that extending PCSO powers risks undermining that central role. From the letter he wrote on its behalf, I appreciate that Offa community council would want that power, but I said in my letter that that

“may not be true for all communities and legislating for such a change at a national level would not necessarily be uncontroversial.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

The Government are absolutely committed to looking after victims and witnesses of crime. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we currently spend £66 million on victim services. Not content with that, we want to raise even more money for victims—up to £50 million—through the victims’ surcharge. We are also raising money through the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996, giving victims a louder voice through the appointment of Baroness Newlove as victims’ commissioner and clarifying victims’ entitlements through reform of the victims’ code, on which we will consult in due course.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

On the victim surcharge, what is being done to ensure that all the fines are being collected so that they can be used to support victims?

[Mrs Grant]

The victims surcharge is potentially a large amount of money that will be raised for victims and witnesses. As Minister with responsibility for courts as well as for victims, I assure my hon. Friend that Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service will continue to prioritise collection of financial penalties, including the surcharge.

Budget and Structure of the Ministry of Justice

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

As I understand the system, there will be payment by results. If the results are not achieved, there will be a financial consequence for that company. We will be able to say, “If there are no results, the taxpayer will not have to shoulder the full burden.” To draw an analogy, we would not expect the Ministry of Defence to pay for guns that do not fire, so why should we expect the MOJ to pay when anti-reoffending programmes do not work? We should pay for what works, not for what does not work.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the MOJ that we should consider other means of resolving disputes, such as mediation, rather than going down the avenue of tribunals and courts, which cost a lot of money?

[Gareth Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There is more scope, particularly in family courts, for the increased use of mediation and perhaps non-judicial disposals. We want to see court processes in appropriate cases, but nevertheless we could consider ways of avoiding them, if it is correct to do so.

I was reassured by the Secretary of State’s comments to the Justice Committee last week, when he confirmed that the probation service could also tender for contracts to work with offenders. That is right. The public want less crime; what is less important to them is who achieves it. Whether it is the probation service, a charity or private company matters little; what is vital is that whoever helps offenders to stay on the straight and narrow is successful in that important quest. Payment by results is potentially groundbreaking for the MOJ, but I concede that the devil will be in the detail. We need to ensure that cherry-picking cannot prevail, for example, and that the system recognises tangible improvements in a repeat offender’s behaviour, rather than progress towards good behaviour.

Successive Governments have tried to tackle the so-called revolving door of reoffending—the tendency to come back into the system time and time again, particularly following short-term custodial sentences. There are two approaches to the problem. We can either curtail short prison terms, letting people off without custodial sentences and not having any short-term prisoners, or we can work with such offenders, both in custody and on release. I support the latter approach. It has not been done in the past, but the commitment now to ensure the supervision of such offenders on release is the right approach and very much to be welcomed. The involvement of charitable and private sector organisations in such work has made it affordable. I believe it will be more successful for their presence.

However, it is not just the work of prisons that we need to review; it is also the courts. I worked in the Court Service and saw a very changing environment. In fact, three of the five courthouses I worked in are no longer courthouses, but restaurants, accommodation and so on—I think one is a Zizzi. They have changed beyond all recognition. Although it is sad to see that happening to old courthouses, it is right for the Department continuously to assess the value for money it provides for the taxpayer. It has a difficult balancing act to perform, between the value for money it provides on one side and the interests of justice on the other. Witnesses cannot be expected to travel long distances to vast super-courts. Justice delivered locally is still an important doctrine.

The virtual courts system has been highlighted as a good way for the Department to save money. However, I would urge caution on this approach. Virtual courts can actually cost more. We therefore need an intelligent and targeted use of the system, rather than a blanket approach. I am probably the only Member of Parliament who has used the virtual courts system—I guess I should declare an interest—and I have seen not only its strengths and weaknesses, but its expense to the Department. I am pleased that the Department is also looking at different ways in which magistrates courts can operate. It makes sense to allow them to keep more cases for themselves. That will enable savings to be made without compromising justice. In limited circumstances, magistrates can already sentence adult offenders to 12 months. If we trust them to give such sentences for some cases, why not for all cases? In some courts, the same magistrates who can sentence a 14-year-old to up to two years cannot give an adult more than six months. That needs to change.

The challenges for the Department are substantial. In playing its part in tackling the country’s debt, it needs to find savings, yet they have to be made without compromising justice or the safety of the public. The first job of every Government is to protect the public. I pay tribute to the Department for the enormous strides it has made of late in doing just that, while at the same time finding significant savings in its budget.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I fully understand and sympathise greatly with what the hon. Lady has said, and I agree with her that concerns can affect a witness’s willingness to participate in the criminal justice system. That is why the Ministry of Justice is embarking on a strategy to improve efficiency and the effectiveness of the system. That work will look at the entire process, from offence to completion of the case. I have recently written to her about a case in her constituency. I hope she has received that letter and I am happy to meet her to provide further reassurance.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 provides the right special measures to support vulnerable and intimidated witnesses so that they can give the best evidence possible?

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would also add that the special procedure measures that are now available in the form of pre-trial familiarisation visits, support from the witness service, separate entrances, exits and waiting areas, and access to a live link can help to reduce the stress and anxiety of going to court. We are considering what more we can do to improve support, including using new technology to change how evidence is given.