I rise to support new clauses 1 and 4. I will not repeat the excellent arguments that my hon. Friends have made, but I am concerned about the impact that this big and sudden change to the probation service will have in my community and on offender rehabilitation, both of which are central to the aims of the Bill, which is why elements of it enjoy cross-party support.
I am not opposed to having specialist providers in the probation service. For example, there is a high incidence of mental health problems in my constituency, and in Hackney as a whole, and many of the people affected, if they get caught up in the criminal justice system, would benefit from more specialised services, so I am not opposed to the private sector or voluntary bodies coming in to provide certain aspects of probation.
However, the scale of this outsourcing, particularly when it is being done in such a hurry, poses a real risk. I believe that it will reduce standards. People will be taken on by large companies that have no track record in probation, and will be paid at much lower levels, as probation assistants, rather than full-blown and experienced probation officers. I call it probation-lite. Those people will be making very important decisions. They will decide, for instance, whether someone is a high-risk offender who needs to be transferred to a probation officer. There is a risk there.