I rise to speak in support of new clause 4. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) mentioned ideology. It might surprise her to learn that I am a great fan of ideology; I think that people should have clear political beliefs. There is at least one clear ideology on public services, which states that government services are best delivered not by a Government agency but by private bidders trying to satisfy the Government. There is a general view that Government agencies are necessarily incompetent, inflexible or naturally the prisoner of Government employees and unions, and that outsourcing is always the best and first option.
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A known technique is used, as we have seen in connection with this Bill, which is to discredit the existing service; propose restructuring and reform; argue for appreciable haste; reduce the Government’s role, where possible, to that of a commissioner rather than a provider; and then, if necessary, to talk up what has been referred to as “bid candy”. That involves talking about mutuals or charities, rather than private providers, which will be the big players in most scenarios. In addition, savings are promised, as are a reduction in bureaucracy and greater efficiency through competition. The ideology is always clear, although the political manoeuvring is sometimes less than transparent. Critics legitimately claim, as they have done in this debate, that a loss of institutional memory occurs and a less integrated service results, just as the demoralisation and de-professionalisation of existing staff results too. There are other attended risks, such as the risk of putting profit before service or cost before quality. An ideological view would, however, assure us that we can have all the upside gains from this approach and none of the downside risks if we are clever enough, plan right, commission wisely and so on. I am sure that is what the Government will say.
That is where the debate goes, and it is where we are now, but for one thing: ideology, or what we think should happen, is always trumped by evidence—by what actually happens. Regardless of what we think ought to work, we have to look at what actually does work. So far, there is no evidence that the suggested demarcation and division of work load projected by this legislation can work; that clients can be permanently labelled either “high risk” or “low risk”, or move effortlessly from one category to the other; that the savings—this does worry me—can be guaranteed; that there are enough good bidders in all markets to provide a good and equitable service, which should worry the Minister; and that it is necessarily a good thing to have mandatory 12 months’ supervision of all people in all circumstances, with that being the most efficient and effective way of using the probation service, which it might be, but the evidence is not there so far to support that. There is no evidence to suggest that the current system is not working as well as can reasonably be expected or that payment by results is likely to work better.
On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that staff are demoralised and unconvinced. We do not need to be persuaded of that; it is the case. Plenty of evidence
from previous restructurings in the NHS shows that wholesale restructuring absorbs time and resources, and reduces efficiency, and that there are still lingering communications systems issues to address—we have mentioned the IT system, too. Enough evidence is available to make an ideologue—though not perhaps a Minister—think that a smart move in this case would be to have a pilot, because we are talking about a precious asset, the probation service of this country, and we need to handle it carefully. One way of doing that is to pilot things first and then, when we are totally satisfied that everything is working, to put it in place nationally, if need be.