My Lords, as the noble Lord has made very clear, this amendment addresses issues both of form and substance. I entirely concur with his devastating and magisterial critique of the way the Government are seeking not merely to impose massive changes on a highly successful—indeed, award winning—public service but to do so without an evidence base, proper costings or any parliamentary scrutiny. The farce of the impact assessments has been compounded by the revelations of advice given to Ministers by Ministry of Justice officials on the risks attendant on the implementation of their policies and by the recently leaked document showing that the residual probation service dealing with high-risk offenders that is envisaged by the proposals will face further cuts in funding of 19% by 2017-18.
When the Government drove through their controversial, some of us would say disastrous, reorganisation of the National Health Service, they at
least observed the proprieties and made the changes the subject of a Bill that was itself subject to scrutiny. In this case, as I have previously observed, the future of this service, so vital a part of our system of criminal justice and so important in maintaining the safety of the public, would not be being debated at all were it not for amendments emanating from the Opposition and Cross Benches in your Lordships’ House. It is astonishing, indeed disgraceful, that we read today that in their risk analysis Ministry of Justice officials have apparently stated that this Bill has been deliberately kept slim to “minimise the dependence of the reforms” on the passing of the legislation. I do not blame officials for this, nor do I blame the Minister in this House. The blame lies with the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State Mr Grayling, whose only reaction so far, I understand, is to have ordered a leaks inquiry.
Lord Randolph Churchill famously described Gladstone as an old man in a hurry. The Lord Chancellor is a relatively young man in a hurry, but he, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord McNally, would agree, is no Gladstone. If anything, he more closely resembles Randolph Churchill and if he continues on his present path, rushing on with eye-catching gimmicks and policies which have attracted the deep concern of the senior judiciary, such as those on criminal legal aid, judicial review and court privatisation, his political career is likely to end in the same way as Churchill’s.
It is characteristic of this Lord Chancellor that he proposes to begin to implement the changes he seeks as early as the end of August this year. What answers does he give to the questions raised by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation in her response to the consultation? Many of these relate to the payment by results scheme to which we will turn when we debate the next amendment, but what is the Government’s reply to Liz Calderbank’s concern that the process of advising the court and Parole Board on sentencing and licensing conditions will require increased investment because more full pre-sentence reports will be required where cases will be referred to the private sector for supervision?
She suggests that a more mediated approach to supervising short-sentence offenders, which all of us welcome as a proposal in the Bill, would facilitate the better use of scarce resources. She is concerned that the proposed move to national commissioning instead of by 35 probation trusts,
“could be at the expense of the local perspective”,
cutting across promising developments in partnership work and disrupting successful partnerships with probation trusts. She refers to an issue raised in Committee about the position of small voluntary organisations in a commissioning framework dominated by large private sector providers, the fragmentation of responsibilities and a duplication of work. As she points out, the changes will effectively be irreversible once implemented. Do the words and warnings of this highly experienced public servant count for nothing?
The Lord Chancellor is promoting this agenda in the spirit of the promoters of the South Sea bubble, one of whom, it will be recalled, advertised a project,
“for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage but nobody to know what it is”.
Well, we know what it is, but we do not know what it will cost or whether it will work, and neither do the Government.
Under the Government’s appalling proposals for criminal legal aid a defence advocate will be paid the same fee for a guilty plea as a not guilty plea. The salary of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, I am happy to say, will be the same whatever the outcome of this debate. Nevertheless, I advise him to plead guilty, accept the amendment which would allow a proper consideration of the Government’s proposals, their benefits certainly alongside the risks and costs, and get it over with.