Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I deliberately asked if I could speak late in the debate as I wanted to hear people who were enthusiastic about this proposal, because I have to say that in my sheltered life I meet very few people who are. In particular, I wanted to hear people talking about outcomes. I must say that I was strongly impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, who unfortunately is not in his place. There we had a vision of what a truly co-operative realm of partnership might be like. But, as I listened, I found myself remembering the visit of Stephen Prior, the former prison governor, to our penal affairs group in the diocese where I work, when he introduced a booklet on what volunteers might do in the Prison Service. It was a wonderful booklet with all sorts of opportunities. The only problem was that when you finished reading it you wondered whether you needed prisons in order to make all that valuable work possible. I found myself wondering whether this vision of partnership required this amount of legislative provision in order to make it possible. I am probably too mentally elderly and past it to adjust myself to the extensive use of mechanical metaphors in discussing a topic of this kind. I find that the language of management and end-to-end, of structure and all the rest of it, very rapidly becomes quite remote from the actual and very demanding business of relating to people whose lives are likely to have always been in chaos, and which probably show very little sign of order at any point. The debate, with great respect, needs some articulation. Perhaps the only contribution I can make is to give some articulation of what undoubtedly lies behind what many noble Lords have said, which is actual experience of working with the people about whom we are talking. I do not think that they need management; it is something to do with a demanding kind of friendship. We need to keep that vision in front of our eyes because it is the vision that lies behind the Probation Service. In its centenary year that is exactly what we need to be celebrating. I do not understand the reasoning that says, ““You have been really successful, you are doing wonderful work and so we are going to change you.?. I would understand it only if I were persuaded that those most creative members of the Probation Service whom one meets all felt that their work was being obstructed by a lack of opportunity to co-operate with partners in the private sector. In fact, the level of co-operation is extremely high. What worries me about the enthusiasm of some of the larger parts of the third sector for this Bill—and that enthusiasm is real—is that they may well imagine that their resource problems are likely to be solved by a greater involvement in contracting for the public service. I need to remind the House, since it has not been mentioned so far in the debate, of the grave suspicions recently voiced by the Charity Commission about the extent to which charities become dependent on public service contracting and therefore lose both their independence and stability. That is something we need to think about very seriously before we ask for a development of a strategy based entirely, or very largely, on the third sector. It is important that we should bear in mind that all is not wonderful and rosy in the voluntary sector. My colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, will shortly discuss in this House the very serious resource situation of voluntary sector hostels. There are also very serious questions about the experience of chaplaincy in the Prison Service. I do not dispute the good intentions and the deep personal commitment of the Minister—how could I? —but all the things that I have mentioned above lead one to ask why we need the Bill and what itch it is designed to scratch. In that respect, I have noticed that the worst feature of the current environment is its effect on the morale of probation officers. We have been presented with a catalogue of their official representatives, and it is easy to say that they are defending their interests as you would expect. In fact, they represent a very serious situation in the service in which it is widely felt that quite insufficient credit is given for the results that they achieve with some very unpromising material, and that headlines and news stories grossly over-emphasise the occasions of failure. We could achieve much of what the Government intend without engaging in the kind of restructuring that is having such a serious negative effect on morale. Everything that I have experienced in conversation both with members of the Prison Service and with members of NOMS leads me to believe that the Government are very set on this route of change. However, the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the dreamlike quality of some of the Bill needs to be remembered. A senior member of NOMS spoke to a group at the General Synod of the Church of England about the marvels of end-to-end offender management. At the end, a member of the audience, who had not quite understood what had been said, asked how many offenders had end-to-end management at this point. Of course, the answer was: extremely few. I want us to root whatever we decide about the provisions in the Bill in actual contact between human beings with human beings, between probation officers with private sector volunteers, and between voluntary sector professional people with offenders. Let us hold before our eyes what it is actually like to work with someone with such a background and such a record. Let us hold before our eyes the need for heart-to-heart communication if there is to be real personal change. And let us subordinate our structural ambitions to the actual activity that we are trying to support.