Probation Service

Seema Malhotra Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend has answered the last intervention. What happened with the Work programme was that the big boys cherry-picked those who were easy to get into work, and those who were not had more chance of succeeding with Jobcentre Plus. He is right to remind the House that the probation service works with people who have done poorly outside prison. They might have problems with mental health, alcohol and drug-dependency, or with numeracy and literacy. Those are the people our professional probation service works with who will not be cherry-picked by the big boys that the Justice Secretary wants to give the contracts to.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend has talked about the importance of partnership working and its success lying in agencies working together effectively. Does he agree that the Government’s proposals go against the grain of everything we know and could not only create artificial divides between public and private providers but freeze out voluntary sector providers who have great and important areas of expertise—for example, in working with women offenders?

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend has paraphrased what the chief inspector of probation, the probation trusts and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations have said, which I will come to shortly.