Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, the system we are putting in place is not simply to deal with the situation today, but the whole framework we wish to have in place for the criminal justice system as a whole. We are moving to a situation when it will not just be the period in prison, but will also extend to the period in the community. We are determined to reduce the unacceptable level of recidivism. That involves the seven pathways—which the noble Lord will know about—the work we must do across the piece, and the link between the juvenile estate and the adult estate and making sure they dovetail. We are not prescribing a framework for what is now, but what will be. That is an important issue. We believe that we have fully registered the concerns about dilution of prisons inspectorates. The Bill preserves the existing remit of the Chief Inspector of Prisons as a special duty. It places a statutory duty on the chief inspector to maintain expertise in inspectorate staff. Transition will be managed to ensure business continuity. On the date, we have of course made plain that this will take time. We said that we would only abolish the prisons inspectorate when the new chief inspector is fully able to take on the role. To facilitate a smooth transition, the appointment of the current Chief Inspector of Prisons has been extended until April 2008. It is hoped that the timetable will encompass such a smooth transition before then. However, it is of course open to Ministers to review a further extension if the timetable proves not to fit into the April 2008 framework. That is what we intend, and how we propose to deal with it. There has been a suggestion that this could be a cost issue—my noble friend Lady Quin was concerned about costs. I assure her and the House that we expect a one-off cost of setting up the inspectorate of about £2 million. Over time, there should be some efficiency savings, but we expect to maintain total annual funding at broadly existing levels: approximately £20 million per year. Those costs will be met by the business areas in the Home Office, the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the office of the Attorney-General, who are responsible for funding the existing five—