Offender Management Bill

had given notice of her intention to move, as an amendment to Motion D, leave out from ““House”” to the end and insert ““do insist on its Amendment No. 22””. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I assure the Minister that I shall have an elephantine memory or, if I do not, a marvellous team of whips who will make sure that I am reminded all the time. I tabled this Motion because I wanted to ensure that I had a backstop measure if, by any remote chance, the Government were not minded to grant the conflict of interest amendment that had returned from another place. It is a case of ensuring that every ““i”” is dotted and every ““t”” crossed. The fact that a definition of a conflict of interest and the principle behind it is in the Bill may resolve some of the objections to other aspects of this Bill and the difficulty that will pertain when they are rolled out. One difficulty is what will happen when the protection of core services in Clause 4 is withdrawn. The reason why I was so keen in the first instance to pursue the relative innovation of the super-affirmative procedure was to ensure that, if we did not have the assurance of a conflict of interest protection, we might have another lock elsewhere on the system. By granting the amendment on conflict of interest, the Minister has made it possible for me not to proceed on this matter. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for the way in which she set out the Government’s position. Of course, when the Government bring forward any affirmative order, they are required as a matter of course to set before the House the reasons for their so doing. That goes without saying. But it was helpful that the Minister made it clear that attention would be paid to any removal of the Clause 4 protections and the reasons why that might be appropriate. It is that kind of information that noble Lords on all Benches will thoroughly scrutinise. Throughout our proceedings, it has been clear that all parties—the Cross Benches in particular—have paid close interest to this matter. I had intended to move the Motion in case other noble Lords wanted to say one or two things, but with the intention of shortly withdrawing it. [Motion D1 not moved.] On Question, Motion D agreed to. 23: Insert the following new Clause- ““Probation report "(1) Within a period of six months of the coming into force of this Act, the Secretary of State shall lay a report before both Houses of Parliament containing-" (a) a review of the proposals contained within the report published on 11th December 2003 ““Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime: A New Approach””; (b) the collated responses to the consultation document ““Restructuring Probation to Reduce Re-Offending””; (c) a review of the responses referred to in paragraph (b); and (d) proposals for reform of the Probation Service. "(2) The Secretary of State must include in a report under subsection (1) notification of when he will exercise his power under section 38(1A).””" The Commons disagree to Lords Amendments Nos. 23 and 38 for the following Reason- 23A: Because the proposed report is unnecessary as Part 1 of the Bill has been fully debated in Parliament. 38: Page 24, line 15, leave out subsection (1) and insert- ““(1) Section (Probation report) comes into force on the day on which this Act is passed. (2) Apart from section (Probation report), Part 1 of this Act comes into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by statutory instrument, but no such order may be made until the end of a period of 60 days commencing with the laying of a report under section (Probation report). (3) Parts 2 to 4 of this Act shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may appoint by order made by statutory instrument.”” The Commons disagree to Lords Amendments Nos. 23 and 38 for the following Reason- 38A:Because the proposed report is unnecessary as Part 1 of the Bill has been fully debated in Parliament.