Offender Management Bill

As has been stated on many occasions during our debates in Committee, the restriction of court work to the Probation Service is important and necessary. Among other matters, there is a potential conflict of interest. Just to rehearse that argument, should a person be giving information or advice to the court on, say, tagging when he works for a company involved in the provision of electronic tagging equipment, there would be a clear conflict of interest, which would be challengeable under Section 6 of the Human Rights Act. Since the Probation Service currently provides nearly 200,000 reports annually for the courts, it is clearly essential that the Government should ensure that there is no such conflict. Given the importance that we have attached, in all our discussions on the Bill, to the restriction of this area of work to the Probation Service, Clause 4 should not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, be able to be repealed by the Secretary of State without that first being given the fullest consideration and debate in both Houses of Parliament. Indeed, it is no wonder that there has been so much concern about the way in which the Bill and its provisions are presented out there in the community at large when the powers of the Secretary of State are such that he can give with one hand and take away with the other by statutory instrument under one of the shortest clauses of the Bill. We therefore particularly support the introduction of the super-affirmative resolution procedure, with its safeguards, to ensure that the exclusion of court work is not reversed merely by statutory instrument. The safeguards are that a draft order would have to belaid before each House, the report containing the proposals would have to be published, the Secretary of State would have to give reasons for the proposal, and the report would have to be approved by each House. Anything less would simply not be acceptable.