Live Debate: Lords Chamber

Oral questions: The clearance rate of Gateway 3 new-build applications by the Building Safety Regulator. Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party)

Second oral question Lord Elliott of Lord Marland.

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I beg leave to ask the question on the Order Paper standing in my

15:18

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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name. My Lords, we've acknowledged

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My Lords, we've acknowledged recent challenges within the the building safety regulator, and that's why we introduced a series that's why we introduced a series of reforms in June to strengthen it, including a new strengthened leadership team under Andy Rowe, steps to address operational challenges, and plans for a new independent body for oversight of the BSR, as recommended in the Grenfell inquiry. The Gateway 3 regime is still relatively new and few projects have yet reached this final stage. But early experience is helping developers and the BSR to refine the process to make sure it's consistent, efficient and firmly focussed on safety outcomes.

And the BSR are working with the Construction Leadership Council to publish a further suite of industry guidance on Gateway 3 this year.

15:19

Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (Ulster Unionist Party)

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My Lords, given the serious demand for housing in this country and the demand of those that are looking for housing, it's not appropriate that they're waiting for almost six months for the stage three application approvals. I'm very aware, and I'm being informed that on a number of occasions, inspections have been cancelled at the very last minute, with no indication of when those inspections will further take place. And I'm wondering what the Minister is doing to take that inefficiency out of the system and allow the progress in this particular issue.

15:19

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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As I explained, there's been a significant programme of improvement undertaken under the new leadership team within the BSR. Of course, waiting six months for inspections is not an acceptable way forward. We want to improve things, but there are improvements coming through in the system now, and some of the work that's been done by the new leadership team has already introduced this very significant improvement at Gateway 3. As I said, a relatively new procedure. There have been 72 applications so far which were received by November, and 59 of those have already been approved.

That's 82%. So things are beginning to improve. to improve.

15:20

Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated)

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My Lords, my Lords, many local councils in cities all across our country are building up to high rise housing development, even for families. So I welcome and in welcoming these milestones, in building advanced safety, in building infrastructures, can the noble Lady Minister assure the House further that she is doing everything she can to speed up the the process, but also ensure that strictest regulatory monitoring remains, once they are implemented, of the highest standard that you know, therefore not avoiding at all

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costs. Another Grenfell disaster. Well, the noble Lady is quite

15:21

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, the noble Lady is quite right to point to the balance that we need to have here, and I can do no better here than to quote from no better here than to quote from Andy Rowe, who said the BSR remains firmly committed to its core mission, which is keeping residents in their homes safe. Life safety critical defects cannot be ignored, and improvements to efficiency cannot be pursued at the expense of rigour. So we must get the balance right here. We've got to speed up these processes, get them working properly for the industry, but also make sure that in in doing that, we don't relax at all on the very clear standards that we must have to keep the building safe.

15:22

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Conservative)

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But, my Lords, great concerns about the standards which are being applied in the building industry nowadays, we don't we haven't got Walker Morris standards any longer to guide us. But but having had so many dangerous situations, such as Grenfell Tower, having had lack of quality in many of the builds, particularly in large estates, surely it's necessary to increase the resources available to the regulator in order firstly to deal with these matters quickly, but also make sure that the standards that people expect are maintained.

15:22

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, I, I think the noble gentleman might be referring to Parker Morris standards, but it is quite right to say that we do have to focus very hard on the keeping the quality of build up. That's what the building safety regulator is absolutely there to do. We are making sure that we support Andy Rowe and his team with what they need to do. And there's been, as I'm sure noble Lords will be aware, there's been an issue of capacity in the system.

But the spending review in June this year committed to an additional 1.2 billion a year for the skills system, supporting over 65,000 additional learners in key areas like housebuilding, remediation and building safety. I think that will be critically important and we've also invested 16.5 million specifically to recruit and train registered building inspectors who form a vital part of this process. And we're working with the Independent Building Control Panel to identify system wide improvements that I'm sure will help with the issues.

The noble Lord was concerned about.

15:23

Baroness Thornhill (Liberal Democrat)

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My Lords. recognise the the really significant progress that has been made recently, but sadly, much less progress has been made on the 253 applications for remedial work to existing high rise buildings, some of which actually involved residents having to move out but still paying their mortgage and their management fees for a property that they cannot legally access. Minister. Due to the arguably too broad definition of building work, relatively simple, straightforward work is being caught up in the gateway scheme and adding to the backlog what is being done to consult with the industry so that common types of work, such as the replacement of fire door sets, can be undertaken without resorting to the gateway application at all, so that they can get on with the serious job of removing dangerous cladding.

15:24

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Yeah.

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Well, there are two things underway. One is working with the industry to identify those issues. industry to identify those issues. It's very important that the remediation programme is well underway, underway, and the BSR has underway, underway, and the BSR has established a dedicated external remediation team responsible for addressing, sorry, assessing all addressing, sorry, assessing all building control approval applications relating to cladding remediation. So that's underway remediation. So that's underway already. But the other work that the team have been doing is to make sure that where there are sure that where there are applications that are not dependent on some of the work that can go on in the interim, that work can progress so that we're not holding up the final approvals.

We're letting people get on with what can be done in the meantime. And I'm sure that will help unlock some of the the hold ups that have been in

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the system so far. But, my Lords, if this was one isolated regulator that was falling

15:25

Lord Spellar (Labour)

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isolated regulator that was falling down on the on the job, that would be one thing. But right the way across these quango regulators, one after the other is is failing. Is it time not just to look at an individual regulator, but actually to look at this whole model and also at the sort of people who are

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appointed to the jobs? Yeah. Well, the noble Lord may be

15:26

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, the noble Lord may be aware that one of the recommendations of the Grenfell report was to have a single regulator for building, and progress is being made towards that. There is a single body being set up to, with oversight of the building safety regulator. So I think progress is being made here and we we do need to move this forward very quickly. But it's very important. As we do so we get this right and working.

We need to work with the industry to deliver the single construction regulator in a way that's going to work effectively for everybody. The the new body has been now established through a Statutory Instrument that was laid on the 11th of November. So progress is being made and we need to make sure we move this along as quickly as we can.

15:26

Lord Jamieson (Conservative)

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My Lords, we have seen a significant drop in the delivery of housing starts in London. Has the government analysed the impact of delays and uncertainties of the BSR process on the viability of apartment blocks above 18m, and thus the development of those apartment blocks? And if so, will the Minister share that analysis with the House?

15:27

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, the one of the benefits of the changes to the BSR is that there is regular data now being published on a monthly basis. The November data has been published that's available online for all all interested parties to look at. As I said, we accept that the delays have been unacceptable. About 15 to 25% of the new dwellings we want to build will be the responsibility of the BSR to improve. The new team have introduced an innovation model to deliver significantly reduced processing times, not just for London, but for everywhere else as well, for all new build applications and most cases, under the previous model, we expect to be unblocked by the year end.

There's been a dramatic improvement already, with reductions of 20 weeks or more in some of the approval processes.

15:28

Lord Inglewood (Crossbench)

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My Lord. The building control, one of. Not the regulator, but the builders. Too many builders seem prepared to cut corners, and that's where the fundamental problem behind the whole thing starts. Yeah.

15:28

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government) (Labour)

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Well, I think this is the important work that's being done working with the construction industry and the BSR to make sure everybody understands what their responsibilities are in this process. And the construction industry have worked incredibly closely to both develop the guidance of what's needed to be submitted to the building safety regulator regulator, but also to ensure they're working with them to understand how we make sure that buildings are safe. I come back to Andy Rowe's words again.

It's very important that people can be reassured that buildings that they move into are going to be safe going forward, and our job in government is to make sure we get that balance right between the safety and not blocking the whole of the industry up, so that it can't move forward with developing the homes that we know people need. I'm very confident in the new team, in the BSR, in their ability to

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take this forward. Urgent Question Baroness Hayman.

15:29

Oral questions: The supply of blood and blood products this winter Baroness Hayman (Crossbench)

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Urgent Question Baroness Hayman. To ask the question, standing in my name on the Order Paper. My

15:29

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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my name on the Order Paper. My Lords. NHS Blood and Transplant has expanded donation. Capacity to meet the nation's needs, opening three new donor centres and additional mobile sessions, adding 3900 weekly appointments. However, blood stocks do remain fragile and we urgently need more donors, with 71,000 appointments still to fill over the festive period. I urge everyone, including noble Lords, to donate and to noble Lords they have the opportunity at tomorrow's dedicated parliamentary session in portcullis House to help ensure a resilient

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and reliable blood supply this winter. I'm very grateful to the Minister for. That encouraging reply, and

15:30

Baroness Hayman (Crossbench)

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That encouraging reply, and particularly for the reinstatement of the Parliamentary Donation of the Parliamentary Donation Service. But, as she says, this is a very heavy winter season for the NHS. It's a heavy flu season and it's a heavy holiday season, all of which put pressure on donors. So is she confident that she will fill those extra donor slots and security of supply will be there for the winter? And is she looking at specific campaigns to those of black heritage and for younger people? Because it's important to get people early.

But as she said, she might perhaps remind members of this House that you can start being a blood donor in your 60s, and if you start earlier than that, you can go on for a long time. Longer.

15:31

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Well, I would certainly echo the noble Ladies comments, and it is with thanks to the generosity of donors, including the noble Lady herself, who I know is approaching her 50th donation, that overall blood stocks are at target levels. But it is true, as the noble Lady says, about extra pressures coming through because of winter. So the launch of the national campaign to highlight the constant need for blood in this season and to recruit new donors was set underway last month.

And I also would say to the noble Lady, we have targeted media campaigns, for example, in areas of the country that have larger black heritage communities, to highlight that urgent need for more donors from that group. from that group.

15:32

Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative)

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I confess to 120 donations, and I thank the noble Lady, the Minister, for all the work she's doing on this, particularly for tomorrow's session. But the noble Lady is absolutely right. It's a tiny proportion of the population are blood donors. And talking personally, it's not always straightforward for working people to get those appointments. And the noble Lady is exactly right that we're very short on black and ethnic minority donors. With that thought in mind, would it be possible to look at artificial intelligence to see how it makes it easier for working people, particularly from ethnic minorities, to make those appointments during the working day?

15:32

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Well, the noble Lord is also to be congratulated, of course, and as the noble Lord said, actually, despite having some 790,000 regular donors, actually only 2% of the population gives blood. So we're not full up. We look forward to more donors and to the point the noble Lord raises, which is a very important one. We're increasing capacity for appointments to donate, but we're also looking at additional digital and logistical improvements, including how people can book appointments.

And we're also piloting a new appointment reminder and better communication. So there is room for improvement. And we're taking that. And the noble Lord makes very good points in this regard. last. last.

15:33

Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat)

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Question, to address the major barrier of donor inconvenience, will the government look at urgently consulting with employers and unions on a national campaign to encourage the adoption of a donate time policy, offering a flexible blood break for employees to attend donation sessions during the working day?

15:34

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Well, I do think that's part of the potential solution. In addition to where donors go to how they communicated with, how easily they make appointments. So we will certainly put the suggestion of the noble Lord into the mix. It's certainly something I've discussed in respect of the civil service, and it varies across departments. Currently.

15:34

Lord Watts (Labour)

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Lord Tyrie are seeing reductions. I think this gets to a serious situation where the government needs to think of how it can increase donation to historic levels.

15:34

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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I'm not sure I'd agree with the reflection of my noble friend, although what I would agree with is we do have a shortfall of some 200,000 donors to actually shore up and grow our blood supply. And as I said, the situation remains fragile and that is why we need we need more support. But perhaps if I could also say that we are also currently working and constantly working to identify gaps and opportunities to strengthen and diversify the donor base through a donor based resilience programme, which was just launched this year.

So it's not just numbers, it's also the range of people, as we've heard in earlier questions.

15:35

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (Crossbench)

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noble Lady, the Minister, update

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us on where we are on the. noble Lady. The Minister agree

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noble Lady. The Minister agree that during Covid we used non-traditional venues in order to non-traditional venues in order to encourage vaccination. I use, for example, something we talk about a lot, football clubs in Plymouth that resulted in people who'd never been able to see the football club been able to see the football club go and get their vaccination. I believe that if we invested heavily in similar approaches, we would get a lot more young people giving blood. And I wonder if the noble Lady, the Minister, would like to

15:36

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Lady, the Minister, would like to comment on that. The noble Lady is quite right. We have to go to where people are, not just expect them to come to us, and using a whole range of venues is important, as are mobile donation facilities which allow the facility to go there, but this is constantly kept under review and the service is, as I say, constantly reviewing where the most successful places are and looking at new venues and new opportunities to take up.

15:36

Lord Kamall (Conservative)

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My Lords, I wonder if I could continue on the line that the noble Lady Baroness Watkins mentioned. I remember when we were looking at vaccine hesitancy. We looked at how we could reach those communities. They don't like being called the hard, hard to reach. They feel they're being patronised. But actually, how do we get to those communities? Quite often it was through faith organisations. Sometimes it was through community leaders. I just wondered what work was being done, the lessons learned from the vaccine hesitancy campaigns to encourage more people to give blood.

But also I really want to ask about guidelines, because I was speaking to a noble friend of mine who said that she'd volunteered to give blood, but she was told because she had passed the age of 66 and had never given blood in the UK before. She was not allowed to give blood or donate. I wonder whether we could have some clear guidelines for those who are willing, especially members of this House, who would like to give blood.

15:37

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Of course, is the answer to the noble Lord. And on his point about reaching certain groups, we have invested this year across 51 organisations so very much rooted in the community, and 31 of the projects across those organisations. Organisations have actually worked nationally to boost awareness, understanding and behaviour change in black Asian mixed heritage and minority ethnic communities where we need more people to come forward to donate blood in order that we have the blood we need for the

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meet. I should admit that I never

15:38

Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat)

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really decided to become a blood donor. Once when I was at Chatham House, a van from the Blood Donor Service was due to come to Saint James's Square, and my secretary informed me that they were coming the next week, and she had booked me in to give a donation. I thereafter donated for 20 years. That shows that there are a lot of us who would sort of get round to it if we thought about it, and taking the caravans to the businesses, and then working with the businesses to encourage their members to donate, is one of the ways in which, clearly, it helps to get the passive potential donors to say, yes.

15:38

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Well, the noble Lord gives a good example. Sometimes we need other people to sort us out, to give blood. But the main point the noble Lord makes is absolutely right. We need to speak to people through our campaigns. You know, each donation can save up to three lives. We need to say the effect of what people are doing to. And I'm glad that we are taking innovative steps to raise awareness, including advertising around London buses.

15:39

Lord Markham (Conservative)

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The Minister for letting me get in just in time. I'm interested in plasma because as many noble Lords will be aware that actually we have been importing 100% of all our plasma needs ever since mad cow disease. So it's an area where we are quite vulnerable and I know the blood services are trying to correct that. Could the noble Lady Minister give us an update on where we are on that, please?

15:39

Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)

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Well, we are making considerable progress on that to diversify where plasma comes from. But perhaps I could also say to the noble Lord, we're making good progress in terms of demand management and actually ensuring that there isn't waste in blood products, which will also greatly assist us. But I'll be very pleased to write to the noble Lord with a full description of the

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advances that we are making. It is an exciting time in that respect. Fourth oral question Baroness

15:40

Oral questions: Budget 2025 commitment to fund SEND budgets centrally and the affect on mainstream schools

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Barran. My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the

15:40

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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question standing in my name on the Order Paper. been. Clear that.

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Clear that. Send pressures will be absorbed within the overall government budget from 2829, such that the government would not expect local authorities to need to fund future special educational needs costs from general funds budgets from 2028 to 29 onwards, including the core schools budget, will be confirmed at the 2027 Spending Review.

15:40

Baroness Barran (Conservative)

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I thank the noble Lady for that answer, and I'd just like to start by saying, on this side of the House, we genuinely wish the government every success with their work on the reforms to the special educational needs system, but the expected annual deficit on the dedicated schools grant, as the noble Lady knows, is expected to be over £6 billion in 2829, which is a huge number. And while the government has been very clear that the this will come from current Ardal allocations, it hasn't specified a funding plan to cover this.

And anyone who's been involved in SR negotiations will know that finding £6.3 billion, apparently from other government departments rather than the DfE will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. And of course, this isn't even about £6.3 billion in one year. Looking at the OBR document, if you look at the three years beyond this SR period, the figure for the projected deficit is well over £20 billion. So I hope the noble Lady will understand why schools are worried, why parents are worried, and why more clarity is needed about who is going to pay for this.

And I hope she can give us that now.

15:42

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Well, I take the noble Ladies assurance that noble Lords opposite want to support the government in reforming the send system. I believe that to be true. But it is also the case that there has been a fair amount of misinformation being peddled, not least by some of her colleagues at the other end of Parliament about the nature of and the and the source and the. The way in which the the £6 billion will be dealt with in 28, 29.

And I think, as I made clear in the original answer, the Treasury in the budget were very clear in careful wording that future funding implications will be managed within the overall government envelope, not the dfe's del within the overall government Del envelope. And that, as I said, will be a part of the spending review that will start in 2027. But the other important point here, of course, is that that figure assumes no reform to the send system. And of course, that reform will be focussed first and foremost on ensuring that children and their families are getting better outcomes than they're getting from the system at the moment.

And it will be important to ensure that that happens. But it will also make the system more sustainable. And I hope that all those interested in send reform will, for example, take part in the quite extensive engagement activity that is currently underway to help to inform those reforms. inform those reforms.

15:44

Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat)

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The I. would the Minister agree that you will get no real reform unless you get capacity within the school system to identify early? This will require training, budgets and technology to back it up. If the government can assure us that that's going to be there, they do here.

15:44

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Well, I think the noble Lord is absolutely right. And just to be clear, the objective here is to ensure better outcomes in a system which is at the moment costing a considerable amount of money, but is not delivering the outcomes for children and families that they need. And that noble Lord identifies a couple of areas where the government is already investing additional money. So, for example, into teacher training from early years onwards, into the support that is available in terms of continuing professional development for teachers into into initial teacher training and early career framework teaching into the national professional qualifications that teachers are doing.

All of those have had reform and investment from the government in order to ensure, as he very accurately says, we are in a better position to identify at an earlier stage the needs that children have and to be able to address them in our mainstream schools.

15:45

Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated)

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My Lords, the noble Lady, the Minister is absolutely correct to suggest that early stages of identification is critical, and she will be aware that there's been persistent and decades of underfunding and pressures on local authorities about services. And hundreds of thousands of children are still waiting. The final assessment can the Minister show us the House and parents who are waiting for these assessments, that perhaps local authorities can be asked to ring fence the budget so that they receive the care that they deserve?

15:46

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Well, I'm afraid the situation is even worse than my noble friend has identified, because the problem here is that actually a considerable amount of money is being spent on special educational needs and disability provision. But the problem is parents remain concerned about being able to access the support that they need, and the outcomes for children aren't good enough. And local government is facing considerable deficits because of that. That's why we need the type of reform that this government has undertaken to do.

And and yes, it will test of it will be whether or not parents feel more confident at an earlier stage that their children are getting the

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support that they need to flourish. My Lords. It's done to ensure that

15:47

Lord Hope of Craighead (Crossbench)

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It's done to ensure that teachers have the time that they need to assess the needs of these need to assess the needs of these people with particular educational needs. It takes time. No person is disabled and individuals need to be assessed according to their own individual. Individual problems. Yeah, well.

15:47

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Well, the noble the noble Lord is absolutely right about that. That's why, for example, we're improving the ability in early years settings for staff to be able to identify special educational needs. It's why we're developing a national professional qualification for the special educational needs co-ordinators, who will play an important role in that assessment. And it's why we have invested in recruiting more educational psychologists who play a really important role in assessment.

15:47

The Lord Bishop of Norwich (Bishops)

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My Lords. with me that when there's not enough support for send pupils in a classroom that has a major impact, sometimes on other pupils in the classroom and on teachers themselves, some of whom are leaving the profession because of the stresses that they're under. And and would the noble Baroness, the Minister, agree that sometimes it's in other educational provisions, such as forest school and play, that these children can really thrive?

15:48

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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I mean, an actual fact, I think all children can, can really thrive in other provision, additional provision like that as well. But the important thing here, I think, is that we ensure that all of our teachers are able to and all of our schools are able to deliver the inclusive teaching and provision that will ensure that children can not only have their needs identified as early as possible, but then can receive the excellent teaching, which is what will make a difference.

And just to reassure the right reverend Prelate, we've actually seen a record low in the numbers of teachers leaving the profession this year.

15:49

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Conservative)

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I remind the House of my interest in that I was recently. I recently stood down as the leader of London Borough of Bexley, but I'm still a councillor. My Lords, the OBR has red flagged the £14 billion existing deficit that local authorities are currently in and the cost, which is currently unaccounted for in the government plans. Some estimates suggest that by the time spending returns on the council balance sheets, by the time they return to the council balance sheet in 2028, nine out of ten upper tier authorities could be forced to declare bankruptcy.

How does the government aim to clear this deficit and solve the problem? this deficit and solve the problem?

15:49

Baroness Smith of Malvern, Minister of State (Education) (Labour)

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Well, I mean, I take the the noble Lady's point, but perhaps if it were that serious, there could have been more effort made on reform before we got to this government. But the government will work with local authorities. And by the way, it isn't an obvious red flag. It's an OBR assessment of what the cost will be in 2829. And the OBR have been very clear that their suggestion about the impact that that would have on core schools budgets is a hypothetical.

They were clear about that in the Treasury Committee this week when they talked about it. But in terms of supporting local authorities, we will continue to do that, including, for example, alongside an extension to the dedicated schools grant, statutory override. And we will set out further details on our plans to support local authorities with historic and accruing deficits and conditions for accessing the

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support we are providing through the upcoming local government finance settlement. That concludes. Our.

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Our. Questions for today. If noble Lords wish to leave the chamber,

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So. Has Has to Has to be Has to be again Has to be again in Has to be again in committee Has to be again in committee on Has to be again in committee on the Sentencing Bill Lord Timpson.

15:52

Legislation: Sentencing Bill - committee stage (day 3)

My Lords, I beg to move that the

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House do again resolve itself into a committee upon the bill. The question is that the House do now again resolve itself into a committee upon the bill, as many of that have been content, not content. that have been content, not content. The contents have it. After clause 19. Amendment 88 Lord Foster of Bath.

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Bath. My Lords, I rise to move amendment 88 and to speak to other amendments in this group. But

15:53

Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat)

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amendments in this group. But before turning to the specific amendments, I think it's important to understand why the various proposals have thought them necessary in one way or another. Most address concern about the existing capacity within the MoJ, and the very big concern that there won't be sufficient capacity to deal with the new responsibilities arising from the bill. And most, but not all, focus on staffing in the Prison Service and the probation Service. Damning concerns about staffing levels in these two services regularly appear in the annual reports of the Prison and Probation Inspectorate.

In an earlier debate, I mentioned concern about prison officer numbers and pointed out that the prison population has risen. The number of prison officers has declined, and that prison officers are leaving at an alarming rate, 17% each year, and half of those do so after less than one year in service. But as far as the probation services concerned, Ministers themselves have acknowledged that they have inherited, and I quote, a service under immense pressure. And the chief inspector has referred to chronic understaffing.

The bill envisages more sanctioned early releases from prisons and an almost doubling of the number of people being tagged. And that means more people to be supervised. So more work for the probation officers. Now, currently, approximately 7000 officers are doing this existing supervision work, and that number is considered inadequate. As one senior probation officer talking about when things go wrong, put it, it's infuriating when some of us are being told it's our fault we're not doing enough and that we need to up our game.

But actually the workload is sky high. And I want to give, if I may, an example of why this really matters. Just one year ago, 73 out of every hundred released prisoners were being recalled to prison. By June this year, the recall population had reached 13,538. That's the equivalent of nine prisons costing £3.5 billion a year, and most are

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