Offender Management Bill

I cannot give my hon. Friend any assurances about what will be commissioned at national, regional or local level. What I will say is that it is—I hope—self-evident that certain services need to be provided at national level, and others at regional level. I hope and believe that a considerable amount will be provided at local level, but, for reasons I think my hon. Friend will understand, I am not in a position to assure him of that today. We need to examine in detail some of the services that will be provided. I can say today that, in the case of most services, regional commissioners will make arrangements with lead providers, who, in turn, will act as both providers and commissioners for the probation area. Provided that their performance meets the required standard, as I believe it will in most cases, the lead providers will be the probation trusts. They will concentrate on delivering core offender management work, while commissioning interventions at local level. I believe that they will welcome that, and that it will help the Bill’s passage through the House of Commons. The Government oppose the Lords amendments because they seek to undermine the entire basis of our proposals to improve the delivery of probation services. When they were debated in another place, their supporters were unequivocal in their backing for greater involvement of providers from other sectors, particularly the voluntary sector. Speaking to the amendments on behalf of the Opposition, Lady Anelay said:"““We have no philosophical or political objection to probation services being provided from outside the existing public provision.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 May 2007; Vol. 692 c. 552.]" That was consistent with what the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) said when summing up for the Opposition on Third Reading. It is therefore hard for me to understand why the Opposition have tabled their amendments, as those who support them claim that the Government proposals in part 1 are centralising—but, as I have explained, they are not. They allow the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor to determine what needs to be commissioned, as is his responsibility. There will therefore be clear accountability and responsibility in respect of what he at the national level asks regional commissioners to commission, and there will also be clarity in respect of what they in turn ask of local commissioning boards. The amendment would destroy that clear accountability and that focus in national, regional and local commissioning by removing completely the local element and not sufficiently clarifying the relationship between the Secretary of State and the local trusts.