Offender Management Bill

Before the Minister responds, I thank him for attending to my question and kindly offering to write to me. It may be helpful if I draw attention to an experience I had when visiting a prison for adults. I spoke with a senior wing manager who had a specialism in drugs training. He told me that, unfortunately, as he was working in a private prison he had not had time to train people in this specialism of drugs. There seems to be a widespread problem that it is harder to release custody officers in private prisons to get the training they need than it is to release officers in public sector prisons. One can understand the commercial reasons for that. I should say that some of the private prisons for children I have visited have put great emphasis on training. However, given the commercial pressures that the private sector is under there might be a danger that this sort of thing might slip. Recently, I tabled a Written Question to the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, about supervision for officers in an immigration detention centre. She answered that she could give no response to my particular question about supervision of custody officers in that centre because that was done within the setting and the Government only checked for the outcomes. In some ways that might seem satisfactory, but to my mind it is crucial when working with vulnerable children and families that officers have that supervision, so it is very disappointing to learn that it is not possible in that case. My worry is that this could slip by and vulnerable children could be put in an unacceptable position.