Privatised Probation System Debate

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Department: Ministry of Justice

Privatised Probation System

Tom Pursglove Excerpts
Monday 4th March 2019

(5 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Rory Stewart Portrait Rory Stewart
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The first thing is to absolutely reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are looking very carefully at the responses to the consultation and listening carefully to what is being said around the House. Our response will address many of his fundamental concerns. We should see a better resourced, more unified and higherquality probation system at the end of this.

Tom Pursglove Portrait Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
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The Minister’s reply seemed to mention a £700 million underspend in the system. Will he redirect just a small part of that to Care after Combat, whose work in prisons is working and is reducing reoffending?

Rory Stewart Portrait Rory Stewart
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I pay tribute to Care after Combat’s work, and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), and I have met the organisation on several occasions. Unfortunately, as my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) will know, when we have a £700 million underspend in the Department, that does not necessarily mean that we have £700 million available to spend on anything we like.