I want to come to the timetable. Without wishing to get into too much detail on these probing amendments, there are deficiencies within them that would require further legislation in any event. I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but I want to answer the question of the hon. Member for Darlington about what my hon. Friend’s review will be covering. First, we will ask him to consider the rehabilitative needs of ex-service personnel convicted of criminal offences and sentenced to a custodial or community sentence, and the current rehabilitation available to them. Secondly, we want him to consider the process whereby ex-service personnel are identified following conviction, and that goes very much to the point that the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) was making. Thirdly, we want him to consider best practice relating to the rehabilitation
of ex-service personnel offenders, including evidence of effective interventions in other countries. Fourthly, he should consult with the cross-government military reference group, which already exists, and report to the Secretary of State within six months. That is an important time frame, because we want to ensure that our reforms are informed by what my hon. Friend and those working with him can tell us. We will publish my hon. Friend’s report and place it in the Library of both Houses so that it is available for all to see. If we were to wait for the conclusion of the Bill process, as the new clauses suggest, that would delay the beginning of the review. We do not want to do that as we want to get going as soon as possible and I hope that that will meet with the approval of the House.
In view of what the hon. Member for Darlington has helpfully said, I do not think that I need to go through the deficiencies we believe that there are in new clause 3. I recognise the intent behind it and we very much support that. We want to ensure that the review produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border can assist us in producing solutions and suggestions that we can make use of in the course of our broader reforms.
Let me say something about new clause 12, tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). He is right that it is hugely important to ensure that domestic violence is treated seriously and that the programmes he has described are implemented effectively. He knows that those at highest risk of serious harm will in any event be the responsibility of the national probation service, and the NPS will also manage all offenders who are subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements. That will include all offenders convicted of sexual and violent offences attracting a sentence of more than a year and all those whose offending leads them to become registered sex offenders.
On the specifics of the programmes that the hon. Gentleman described, I entirely agree with him on his enthusiasm for a consistency of approach. I hope I can offer him some reassurance, as such programmes would have to be accredited. Accreditation is overseen, as he will know, by the National Offender Management Service, which ensures that the programmes are evidence-based and have therefore demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing reoffending. The programme requirement will continue to be available to sentencers, and the NPS will have a key role in assessing offenders and providing advice to courts on their suitability for such programmes. CRCs will be mandated to deliver the sentence imposed by the court, and that will include the provision of accredited programmes. All offenders, whether they are managed by the NPS or CRCs, will be able to access accredited programmes and other interventions provided by CRCs.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured by those points. I understand that he would prefer all those programmes to be delivered by the public sector, but I think that he and I would agree that what is crucial is that the standards and quality of those programmes are maintained. We will achieve that by virtue of accreditation and, of course, the accreditation process will still take place within the public sector.
I am grateful for what the hon. Member for Darlington and others have said about Government amendment 5, which I will move at the appropriate time. I am also
grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the issue initially in Committee. I also want to take the opportunity to pay tribute, as she did, to Paul Goggins and the contribution he made not only to the amendment but to the restorative justice agenda over a considerable period of time. There are few who can say that they have contributed more to the agenda than he did. I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her support, and I hope that there will support on both sides of the House for amendment 5.
The final amendment in the group is amendment 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). As he has outlined, the amendment would remove clause 10, which was added in the other place, rightly, by the Government. I am sorry to disappoint him, but it would not be right to remove the clause at this stage. I know that he has a healthy disrespect for consensus, but the fact that almost everybody disagrees with him does not automatically mean that they are all wrong. In this case, I do not think that they are. We should recognise that this is not a sentencing question, as he says that it is—I agree that there is no justification for treating female offenders per se more leniently than male offenders. We are discussing not the sentencing process but the process of rehabilitation that takes place after sentencing. It seems to me that the evidence is clear that how one approaches rehabilitation for female offenders must be materially different, if one expects it to be successful, from how one approaches it for male offenders. That is what clause 10 sets out.
The experience of female offenders is different in a number of ways, whether that concerns the abuse that they might have suffered before committing offences or the rate at which anxiety and depression are suffered. As my hon. Friend said, female offenders have different rates of child care responsibilities from male offenders, so a one-size-fits-all approach will not, in all likelihood, be successful. Let me be clear again that this is not about advocating preferential treatment for women in the criminal justice system or a different sentencing regime for female offenders; it is about ensuring that our reforms remain responsive to offenders’ needs in order to ensure that we turn their lives around and end reoffending.
On that basis, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley will see fit not to press his amendment and that Opposition Members will see fit to withdraw new clause 2 and not press their other amendments.