Transforming Rehabilitation

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I thank the Justice Secretary for giving me advance sight of his statement.

It is universally agreed that we need to do more to reduce reoffending. Preventing offenders from going on to commit more crimes and create more innocent victims should be a priority for us all. Our probation service is the Cinderella of our criminal justice system. It has a low public profile, but is staffed by dedicated professionals who help keep our communities safe. In 2011 it was awarded the British Quality Foundation’s gold medal for excellence, and the performance of every single probation trust was rated by the present Government as either good or exceptional. The service has done all that the Government have asked it to do.

Let me begin by asking the Justice Secretary what he means by saying that he wants to professionalise the probation service. The probation service has been working in partnership with the private sector and voluntary groups for some time now, and I am sure the Justice Secretary will have seen some of the excellent work being done in partnership around the country from Avon and Somerset to Doncaster, and from Peterborough to Manchester. There is a place for all in our justice system, bringing in outside experience and innovation, and working together in partnership to reduce reoffending.

It is always worth looking for new ways to address the serious problem of reoffending, and that was the motivation behind the pilot that the last Labour Government began in Peterborough, which is a payment by results model. I suspect it is also why the Justice Secretary’s predecessor launched two PBR pilots in probation trusts. It is right to test and try out properly any fundamentally new way of working, and there is no history in criminal justice of payment by results. The Justice Secretary has chosen to cancel the two probation PBR pilots set up by his predecessor. Can he explain why? Did he do so because he has already made up his mind that PBR works, despite there being no evidence at present to support that view?

We know, however, from where PBR has been used in the provision of other public services—the Work programme—that it has failed to hit its targets, and the Justice Secretary knows all about that programme, of course. Out of 800,000 people who started the Work programme, only 3.5% were still in work after six months, and not a single provider hit the target. That is bad enough in the context of the Work programme, with people not getting jobs or failing to keep jobs, but in the context of criminal justice, failure could lead to offenders walking the streets without the necessary supervision and support, with the risk that poses to public safety. We are also seeing in respect of the Work programme that it is not the small and local charities that are delivering. They have been crowded out by the big multinationals such as G4S and A4e. How will the Justice Secretary ensure that that pattern is not repeated in probation services? The Justice Secretary is proposing that only low and medium-risk offenders will be dealt with by private companies, but can he confirm that medium-risk offenders include those who have committed burglary and violent crimes, including domestic violence?

One in four offenders’ risk levels fluctuate during their time on licence. How will the Justice Secretary ensure the PBR model will be able to take that into account? In that regard, how does he propose the police should share their sensitive information about offenders under their supervision with the private sector?

The Justice Secretary has also announced a 25% expansion in the number of offenders who will be subjected to mandatory supervision, at a time when his budget is shrinking by 25%. Is it not therefore inevitable that resources will have to be stretched ever more thinly to cover that increase in offenders, and can he assure the House that high and medium-risk offenders will get the appropriate supervision and support?

We are willing to work with the Government to reduce reoffending. We will carefully consider the Justice Secretary’s consultation document and the answers he gives in the House this afternoon, and we hope that the detail given will provide greater reassurance than his statements have so far.