Offender Management Bill

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. My worry is that this Government’s general movement is toward allowing the criminal justice system to retreat from local accountability. We had it with the proposals for regional police forces and for the court system. All the time, the leverage that the local community has on the criminal justice system is becoming more and more remote. It is becoming a distant service, administered from Whitehall, and that is of great concern. The criminal justice system needs more local accountability and understanding of how to deal effectively with crime and the punishment of offenders in the community. All the factors that the Government bring into play tend to have the reverse effect. I am not trying to be clever with the Minister, but he talked about the public sector being given freedom from being responsible. I do not want the public sector to be given freedom from being responsible. I want the public sector to be responsible, but that does not mean that it has to provide every single service itself. The prospect that remote organisations, and I include the Secretary of State in that, should be given the power to offload key responsibilities for the delivery of the criminal justice system in our communities to businesses or nationally organised non-profit-making companies, is an entirely regressive step. That is why it is important that the Bill is fundamentally amended. We voted against the Bill on Second Reading. Unless there is serious movement now, we will vote against it on Third Reading. The Government have a last opportunity to accept the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, but I am given no confidence by the amendments that they have already tabled. As the hon. Gentleman says, they have tabled a partial concession, but they do not have confidence in it. They are not prepared to say that they are persuaded by the arguments put by Labour Members and others, have rethought the issue and are now putting forward a new model. Instead, the Government give with one hand and take back with the other. They propose a unique system under which a provision would be put into the Bill, but the very next clause is the capacity to repeal it. However, that repeal would not be by this House in primary legislation, but by Order in Council. That is not an illustration of good faith or of a Government who have listened and changed their mind. It suggests that the Government think that the application of a bit of sticking plaster will get them through today and see the Bill on to the statute book. I have fundamental objections to key parts of the criminal justice system being privatised and I make no pretence otherwise. I am happy for the private sector to be involved in peripheral activities where it can add value to the operation, but dealing with offenders involves core issues that should be performed by operatives of the state in the form of the probation service. That is why I will support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow. If I were concerned about a paedophile on the streets of my constituency, I would want a properly trained probation officer dealing with him, not an accountant or a business man. I do not want business people producing contracts for other business people to fill: I want people who know the business of criminal justice. I want the reassurance of having properly trained officers who know about the probation service doing that job on the streets of Somerset. I suspect that many other hon. Members feel the same way and will illustrate that in the way that they vote this evening.