My Lords, I share the frustration that has been expressed about this Bill not being about what we want to talk about and, indeed, diverting us from the important aspects of rehabilitation. I know we all share the objectives that have found this legislative form even if we do not all agree on the form they have taken in the Bill.
Being rather boring, I want to address the amendment as it is tabled and ask a couple of questions of the noble Lord when he comes to respond, if not of my noble friend. First, although this sounds quite counterintuitive, is there such a thing in legislation as the probation service? The Offender Management Act 2007, which is what I understand the changes which are being described are based on, talks about probation provision, probation purposes, probation service, but not the probation service. Secondly, again looking at the 2007 Act, have the proposers of this amendment taken into account the provisions within the Act for affirmative orders? Section 5(3)(c)—I know this is not the sort of speech that holds the House, certainly without me handing out programmes—provides for the purposes of a probation trust to include a purpose specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State. Those must be made, we find later in the Act, by affirmative resolution. Section 38(2)(a) is about amending, repealing or revoking an enactment and this again requires an affirmative resolution. As I said, being rather tedious, I am struggling a little with the form of the amendment and in understanding quite how it would apply in taking forward the points that have been made by the two noble Lords, given that I think we have to base what we are doing on the existing legislation.
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