Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I beg to move Motion C, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 16A to 16G to Lords Amendment 16. These amendments need not detain us long. As the House will recall, Amendment No. 16 was added to the Bill during our deliberations in Committee. It gave effect to two commitments which I made at Second Reading. The first was to include in the general duty to consult a specific requirement to consult Welsh Ministers on probation provision in Wales. The second was to require providers to publish plans. Amendment No. 16 was subsequently amended on Report by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, as part of the series of amendments that we have already discussed, which proposed that the power to commission should rest with probation boards and probation trusts. Amendments Nos. 16A to 16G simply reverse the effect of those changes. Amendment No. 16B reinstates the very important original subsection (4), which requires the Secretary of State’s arrangements with a trust to include a requirement to publish its own plan for the following year. Hence these amendments ensure that the clause on annual plans and consultation is consistent with the rest of the Bill. Moved, Motion C, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 16A to 16G to Lords Amendment No. 16.—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.) On Question, Motion agreed to. 22: Insert the following new Clause- ““Procedure for orders under section 12 (1) The Secretary of State must not make an order under section 12 unless- (a) a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House; and (b) each of the resolutions for approving the draft was agreed more than 60 days after the day on which the draft was laid before the House in question. (2) No draft order under section 12 is to be laid before Parliament unless- (a) the Secretary of State has prepared and published a report containing a proposal for the making of such provision; (b) the report sets out the Secretary of State's reasons for making the proposal; (c) the report has been laid before Parliament and each House has approved the proposal contained in the report, either with or without modifications; and (d) the draft order gives effect to the proposal so far as approved by both Houses. (3) An approval given in either House satisfies the requirements of subsection (2)(c) only if it was given in that House on the first occasion on which a motion for the approval of the proposal was made in that House by a Minister of the Crown after- (a) the laying of the report; or (b) if more than one report containing that proposal has been laid before that House, the laying of the one laid most recently. (4) In reckoning a period of 60 days for the purposes of subsection (1), no account shall be taken of a day for which- (a) Parliament is dissolved or prorogued; or (b) the House in question is adjourned as part of an adjournment for more than four days.”” The Commons disagree to Lords Amendment No. 22 for the following Reason- 22A: Because the ordinary affirmative procedure provided for by Clause 33 is sufficient to enable Parliament to consider the reasons for making an order under Clause 12.