Offender Management Bill

The noble Baroness has helpfully brought us back to the point, and I am grateful to her for doing so. She is right that we are talking about a narrow focus. I want to clear up the issue of training, because I thought I had been clear—perhaps I was not—and I want to make sure that the record is clear. The training is the same, and it is adequate in both the private and public sectors. I was talking more generally about our shared desire in your Lordships’ House to see standards rise at all times. It would be unduly restrictive to apply a legislative safeguard in the private sector that does not apply in the public sector; we need to have a level playing field. Perhaps because of its narrow focus, the amendment would achieve undue rigidity. We are at one in the Committee on the desire to raise standards and to ensure that safeguards are properly in place, whether a prison is operating in the public or private sector. I hope that with that clarification we can move on, because I have answered the core points. I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn and that the noble Viscount will feel able to reflect on what others have said in this debate and on what I have said in setting out how we see this working.