Offender Management Bill

I, too, am mindful of the time and of the need to allow the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) the opportunity to speak to his amendments in the group. We have come to the substance of the Bill and to one of the primary objections to the Bill, which is that it is essentially a centralising measure—one that takes both power and accountability upward rather than downward. Many of us have difficulty with the lack of local accountability and even local consultation. I heard what the Minister said in response to his hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and we will examine the proposals closely, but I would prefer to see in this Bill explicit requirements for local accountability and local consultation. I take on board what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said in that respect and support his proposals. The hon. Member for Stafford is correct: no one would point to the Prison Service as a good example of local accountability and concern for maintaining proper relations with the local community. That might be excused by the fact that the people with whom the Prison Service deals are in prison, not in the community. Sadly, that is not always the case, but generally prisoners are in prison, not roaming the streets. However, when dealing with the probation service in the context of community sentences, we are talking about people who are not only within the community, but—one hopes—serving sentences within the community that relate to their effect on the local community. The key is confidence: confidence on the part of the local community that the service is doing a good job; confidence that the offender is being managed appropriately; confidence that the sentence reflects the concern that the community expresses about crimes that are committed locally; and confidence within members of the judiciary—especially the lay magistracy—that they can hand down a community sentence that will be properly administered and will have the desired effect in terms of rehabilitation and the other parts of the equation that the probation service deals with. It is hard to see how a small management board consisting, we are told by the Minister, of business people reflects the views of the community. It may reflect the views of local businesses and it may be very good at running the affairs of the service, but it does not reflect a genuine community interest. That is one of the reasons why I tabled amendment No. 18, which would ensure that every new trust had on its board a lay magistrate and a local councillor. I appreciate that those are two classes of person to whom the Government have a violent allergy, as they have demonstrated time and again, but there is no better representation of the local community than representation by those who are elected via the ballot box to play that role, and the lay magistracy continues to play an important part in our judicial system. In addition, both local councillors and lay magistrates are members of the existing probation boards, and it is hard to discern what difference has arisen since the last time the arrangements were changed to suggest that then it was right to include those individuals and now it is wrong. I accept entirely the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough that one councillor cannot truly be said to represent all strands of opinion within a community, especially one covering a large area; however, he can represent the interests expressed by the council on which he serves, which is representative of the community. In addition, it is entirely necessary for the probation service to have connections with many services that are in the hands of the local authority. That connection is therefore of value for utilitarian as well as for representative reasons. What is most important is that there is someone who is accountable to the public—the first point in the chain at which someone who is representative of the public can say that, as far as the community is concerned, the way in which offenders are being managed in the community will not do because they are not undertaking tasks or being managed in ways that are appropriate to that community. That is the representative voice that should be heard at that level. I have already made the argument applicable to the presence of the magistracy on probation boards. It is important that magistrates have confidence in community sentencing. Their being represented on the board is one way to establish that confidence. For all those reasons, I hope that the Minister will accept amendment No. 18. He has suggested that the Local Government Association supports the Bill because it meets the association’s requirements. I have to say that his reading of the LGA briefing is very different from mine. I might have to declare an interest at this point, because I might be an honorary vice-president of the LGA. I was once, but I am not sure whether I still am. I was certainly a councillor of long standing. In its briefing, the LGA suggests an amendment in similar terms to the one that I tabled and says:"““If the Bill is amended in this way, the LGA believes that it would address our concerns about local accountability.””" Reciprocally, if the Bill is not amended in that way, it will not address the association’s concerns about local accountability. That is why I commend my amendment to the House.