Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, as I have tabled amendments in this group I shall speak at this point rather than wait until the end as I would otherwise have done. I support the government amendments, but with the reservations that have been so clearly set out by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. We hope that they might form part of the refinements to which the Minister referred, and we understand that these matters had to be rushed because the Government were pressed for time in producing a different approach to the way the inspectorates are going to run themselves. I am also aware that there are significant rules about what amendments may or may not be part of the process when the Bill reaches another place, but we have shown goodwill over the past 24 hours and I know that we will do our best within the rules to continue to show that goodwill. However, it is right that I put on the record a comment about the difficulties that the Opposition and other Members around the House have faced as a result of the nature of the process we have all been going through. We were unable to signal our disquiet on the matters referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, because the 20 pages of government amendments were made available to noble Lords just minutes before the 5 o’clock deadline for tabling Third Reading amendments. We therefore could not see them before the deadline for tabling our amendments expired. Noble Lords will be aware that manuscript amendments are not permitted at Third Reading, and therefore noble Lords around the House were prevented from tabling any amendments to the government amendments today, and that has actually prevented some of the refinements being brought forward today, which could have been a very practical way of progressing. It is clearly not a satisfactory process—I am talking about the process, not the government amendments—and perhaps the Procedure Committee might take note of the problem for future discussion. This could well be an example of where our Third Reading rules are too restrictive rather than not restrictive enough, as some have argued in the past. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, was right to set out in detail the three issues on which he has some difficulty within the government amendments, and I support him on all of them. The main point today is that it is clear that the Government have abandoned their plans to create the mega inspectorate that we believe would have threatened the independence and authority of the prisons inspectorate. That is most welcome. It has been a rocky road to this destination but the Government have listened to the arguments put to them in this House at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report. Not one Member of the House spoke in support of the Minister on any of those occasions. Passionate and informed opposition came from around the House, including from the Minister’s own Benches. It came from those who are very loyal to Her Majesty’s Government and for whom it must have been very hard indeed to express their dissent. I suspect that their contribution was very influential. I spoke at some length both at Second Reading and in Committee, but I recognised at Report stage, at the end of a long debate, that others had expressed views that covered the whole gamut of the subject so forcefully and persuasively that it was not the time for me to go on at length—so I did not. That meant that I did not speak to the amendments that were in my name at that stage. I said that I would bring them back, and here they are. In fact, they have been tabled by both the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and myself. Again, however, I do not need to speak to them because the Minister, in her wisdom, in her amendments today has adopted the approach that I had hoped for. My amendments are there to probethe wisdom of going ahead with the whole of the organisational structure, and I homed in on the questions about the constabulary—but that all now goes by the board. I can therefore be very brief today and add just a couple of points. The result of the Division last week indicated the strength of feeling in the House onthis issue. It showed that this House believes that the Government’s choice of structural change for the prisons inspectorate was simply wrong. The Minister referred in her speech to her feeling that perhaps some questioned the principled stand that the Government were taking and the motives behind it. We were not questioning motives; we were questioning the outcome of what the Government were trying to achieve. I do not know what the Government’s intentions were—that is entirely for them—but the noble Baroness has steadfastly presented them as being to improve the management structures. Whatever the intentions behind the original proposal, there was agreement that it would have damaged the authority and independence of the inspectorate. I argued in Committee that there are alternative, preferable options for improving its operation within the criminal justice family without damage to the inspectorate itself. In particular, like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I record the work done by the chief inspectors back in 1999 to have a joint secretariat. Like him, I am very pleased that today the Government have accepted that it is right to go down the alternative, more appropriate route of reform, which should focus on strengthening and improving joint working but will not involve organisational merger. Finally, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on his eloquent and determined leadership throughout this long process. All the inspectorates will have a stronger future as a result.