Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I am in danger of striking a discordant note as all this harmony starts breaking out, but, having listened to the previous two or three speakers, I feel bound to point out one or two things that come from a different direction. It is worth bearing in mind why we started with the Bill in the first place: there had been a failure under successive Governments to get the Probation Service to drive an agenda of bringing in outside providers from the public, private and voluntary sectors that might provide a wider range of services that would benefit offenders and, by association, the public themselves in trying to prevent reoffending. That is where we came from. In my view, the reason we found ourselves in that position as a Government was well expressed by one statistic, which my right honourable friend the Minister of State in the Ministry of Justice, David Hanson, gave in a debate in the other place on 18 July. He drew attention to the fact that 96 per cent of probation services are now provided on an in-house basis. My understanding is that that is a national percentage figure, so the figures in some places may be even higher. The Government are entitled to have a degree of scepticism privately about the lack of progress in this area over a long period of time. It is worth bearing in mind that the previous Conservative Home Secretary, Michael Howard, tried to shift those percentages in the right direction but was, if I may put it this crudely, seen off. There is a great deal of scepticism in the voluntary sector—here I have to declare my interest as vice-president and former chair of Rainer—about whether people will deliver. The voluntary sector has been in this territory for a long time and it wants, and is able, to do more. We should pay attention to some of its concerns, not just to those of Napo and the Probation Service. There are people out there in the voluntary sector who want to see this work but have undoubtedly to take account of some previous practices in this area. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, will not press the amendment. The Government have come a long way and are committed to local commissioning, but are entitled to hold some things in reserve should the need arise in particular places. I hope they will not and that that will not be necessary, but we cannot altogether ignore some of the lessons of history.