Offender Management Bill

I certainly hope so. Although there is a regional commissioner, I hope that we can lock in the guarantee of accountability below the regional level—not just in Teesside, but further down the geographic scale. Let me tell my hon. Friend about one or two of the things that we have agreed to do since our previous deliberations on the Bill. First, there will be a duty on probation boards to co-operate and share data with local authorities, so local accountability representation will be locked into the data sharing. Secondly, there will be statutory provision for probation trust boards to include councillor representatives. I understand that, given those and other assurances, the Local Government Association is now happy that the Bill addresses its concerns about local accountability. I have also written to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) to say that we will look sympathetically at some of his proposals, including the amendments that would require probation trusts to publish annual plans and that would require the Secretary of State to consult local trusts about national and regional offender management plans.