Privatised Probation System

Debate between Rory Stewart and Crispin Blunt

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

As hon. Members would expect me to say, these things have more nuances and complexities. The basic idea that it is impossible for anybody except the Government to deliver good probation services was disproved, in fact, by the Labour pilot—the Peterborough pilot—which by bringing in the voluntary sector and social investors was able to reduce reoffending by a staggering 9%, particularly by providing something that we are developing at the moment and that does not fully exist yet in Scotland: a fully integrated through-the-gate service linking the prison officer in the prison with probation in the community. We need to take into account that this is not a binary choice.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I am very slightly disappointed that my hon. Friend referred only to the Peterborough pilot, which we inherited when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and I arrived in the Ministry of Justice in 2010. By the time that we were moved from the Ministry of Justice—for me, that was to spend more time with the Kaleidoscope Trust and with you, Mr Speaker—we had at least 20 different pilots, putting responsibility for the rehabilitation of offenders on the probation service in Wales and Staffordshire, three police services, three local authorities and eight health authorities dealing with issues such as drug addiction. We were waiting to see what was going to work best when all these pilots were swept away and the probation service was broken up. Will the Minister look at trying to make the system more coherent by establishing a link between the probation service and police and crime commissioners in the community to make the justice system rather better joined up across the community?

[Rory Stewart]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. and gallant Friend for the work he did on piloting many of these ideas. We can learn a great deal from those pilots. Central to our reforms will have to be co-ordination—having the right relationship between the national probation service and the community rehabilitation companies, and thinking about the geography—and part of that will be thinking about how the CRCs work with the police and crime commissioners.

Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report

Debate between Rory Stewart and Crispin Blunt

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

May I join in the general welcome for the inspectors’ report in this extremely difficult area? I acknowledge that this is a growing area of criminal justice interest because of the public anxiety behind the nature of these offences, for all the reasons the Minister gave about the growing burden on the service. In order to understand the nature of the cause of the offending behaviour—for the probation officers overseeing it and for offender managers generally, but also for the offenders themselves so that they can manage their behaviour in future—it is critical that the investment in forensic psychology is appropriate to the demand placed on the system. Is he satisfied that sufficient resources from the national health service and from elsewhere are going into the criminal justice system in order for it to manage the scale of the problem that it is having to manage?

[Rory Stewart]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was a prisons and probation Minister. The connection with the NHS is central. Additional funding has gone into the NHS, and we need to ensure that that focuses on the most vulnerable offenders in terms of mental health, addiction and the need for courses provided by the national health service. Getting that right will be essential in dealing with violent crime, sex offences and short-sentence offences. The NHS connection is vital. The most important thing, from my point of view, is ensuring that we have the treatment provision in the community for addiction.

Privately Financed Prisons

Debate between Rory Stewart and Crispin Blunt

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

The right hon. Gentleman has enormous experience of the issue, having been the prisons Minister responsible for managing private prisons. He is therefore aware that one reason we can stand up in front of the House and say we are confident we can do this is that we have been doing it for 25 years.

Some 14 private sector prisons are operating, with good reports from the inspectors. We have a lot of experience of how this is done. This is not a new area of Government activity; the right hon. Gentleman himself managed exactly these prisons. The key is balancing proper competition, which brings in diversity and innovation, with the right key performance indicators to make sure that we stay on top of that performance.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Unsurprisingly, I add my congratulations to the Minister to those of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke); I absolutely endorse his non-ideological approach. In considering what he will put in place in future, will he look carefully at prison maintenance contracts? I think it would be better if the prisons themselves had greater control over such contracts, rather than there being one contract let centrally to maintain very many prisons.

[Rory Stewart]

Getting the balance right on maintenance will be central. We are talking about three different kinds of maintenance: big structural maintenance, the daily replacement of fittings and so on, and the basic cleaning and facilities management. We need new approaches to all three, but in relation to the last, I pay tribute to the governor of Leeds prison, who is showing that prisoners, by focusing on such things, can get qualifications themselves, improve living conditions for prisoners and prison officers, and take those skills back into the wider community to find employment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rory Stewart and Crispin Blunt

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman has made those points on a number of occasions. We are listening very carefully. Indeed, two members of our Department travelled to Port Talbot, to a very lively public meeting where those points were made repeatedly. We are listening very carefully to him.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Would there be an answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question on the industrial estate if any new prison fully incorporated the work of ONE3ONE Solutions, which was designed more than six years ago to increase the productive and commercial output of prisoners? The numbers given by the Justice Secretary just now suggest that we have not made much progress in the number of prisoners who are working. Will any new prison include ONE3ONE Solutions, and how are we getting on with prisoners working overall?

[Mr Speaker]

Particularly if any prospect of their working is in Port Talbot, upon which the question is focused.

Defence and Security Review (NATO)

Debate between Rory Stewart and Crispin Blunt

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very significant question. It is definitely worth thinking about in the next SDSR. As the hon. Gentleman points out, many of our assumptions are based on the fact that we will operate with the US coalition, but in relation to the Falklands we cannot be so confident that that will happen.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

The figure of 2% is just a number that has been dragged out of the air, but it happens to be the level of our defence expenditure—about 2.07% of GDP. The conclusions of the summit in Wales seemed remarkably similar to the British posture of what NATO’s targets should be. The fact is that Russia has taken a disappointing divergence from the path that we had hoped it was on after the end of the Soviet Union. That is now beyond contradiction, and we are back to where we were in 1977. Regrettably, we should now be preparing for conflict, and 2% does not cut it.

[Rory Stewart]

I am very supportive of the idea that we should be spending even more.