Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Judd for setting out with his usual eloquence his thinking on these issues. He did so very expertly in Committee. I acknowledge readily that the issues he raised are important and deserve careful consideration. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, echoed some of the noble Lord’s concerns in his comments about professional development, and I will come to some of that in a moment. There are two areas of concern here. Amendment No. 18 proposes that the Bill should make clear that payments made under Clause 6 can be made to any other organisation as well as to any other person. I share the noble Lord’s conviction that organisations involved in the serious work of managing offenders should collectively take legal—and, of course, moral—responsibility for the work they do. However, the amendments he has proposed are not the best way to achieve that. The term ““person”” has been used because it has an established legal meaning that covers a wide variety of bodies with which the Secretary of State might wish to make arrangements, and the term ““organisation”” is covered by that definition, as is the term ““institution””, which my noble friend proposed in Committee. As with his earlier amendments regarding arrangements for co-operation, the way that we will achieve the outcomes I think we all want will be through the contracting process and—to go back to the point I made on the co-operation amendments—through guidance when the Bill is implemented. That is where it is best left. Those definitional terms can be explained in a way that gives clear meaning to the process. Amendment No. 19 deals with training. We have had a lot of debate on that. Since tabling this amendment, my noble friend will have seen Amendment No. 24, to which noble Lords referred. My argument is that Amendment No. 24 goes much further than the noble Lord suggested. I trust that that will ultimately meet his concerns. I would very much like noble Lords to consider Amendment No. 19 in the light of what we are trying to do with Amendment No. 24. We will debate that on another occasion; that will be the right place to explore the issue in depth. We tabled Amendment No. 24 explicitly to meet the concerns expressed by noble Lords about training. It requires the Secretary of State to publish guidelines on the qualifications, experience or training required of probation officers working directly with offenders—that picks up the point of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. It makes it clear that the guidelines will apply to all providers from all sectors as appropriate. I hope that it will be widely welcomed. I hear what my noble friend says and I understand what he is trying to achieve with Amendment No. 18 but the way in which legal description is required is as I have set out. On Amendment No. 19, my noble friend should take careful cognisance of Amendment No. 24, which deals with his central concerns. I hope that he will feel confident if not happy to withdraw the amendment.