My Lords, perhaps I may deal with that matter first. The Bill is now in this House. It will then go to the other place, which will also have views about an amendment which the noble Lord was told at the time was defective and which remains defective. I do not think I can go any further than that. We will see what the other House thinks about the amendment and in due course it will come back to this House to be dealt with.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his kind remarks. He will find that that gives him a warm glow and so I recommend that he continues to make a habit of it. As my noble friend Lord Marks has said, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has a good strike record on these Bills and I very much enjoy working with him and benefiting from his wisdom. On the question of the report on progress in dealing with women in the criminal justice system, we will be reporting to Parliament and we will be able to see the progress not only of these measures, but of others that we are taking.
With regard to the prison estate, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has drawn attention to an issue that we are currently looking at. We have a number of thoughts on this matter and a study is being undertaken of the prison estate. We will come forward with specific ideas about how released prisoners and the specific issue of women offenders will be dealt with.
On contracts, the contract specifications will set out the services that contracts are obliged to provide. The contract will contain specific outputs designed to meet the needs of female offenders. In order to comply with this new duty, the contract will state that the Secretary of State has,
“complied with the duty under section 149 of the Equality Act”,
and will also draw attention to the specific outputs. As my noble friend Lord Marks pointed out, we will publish these contracts and they will be brought forward with all possible transparency. I hope that this will give confidence and that the House will adopt the amendment.