Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

It is above my pay grade to give information on why a probation trust has been refused a contract. I find it heartening, however, that so many of the examples given by Opposition Members involve charities and other organisations outside the probation service working successfully with offenders. I welcome the fact that the Bill will roll out that programme to ensure that more people get that kind of assistance.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Is it not true that whoever works with offenders, whether they are from a private company or a trust, will have to be qualified and prove that they can do the job?

[Gareth Johnson]

It is highly unlikely that the Ministry of Justice would give any kind of contract to an organisation that it did not regard as fit and proper to provide those services.

I repeat that charities and private sector organisations are already involved with administering some unpaid work requirements and drug treatment orders. This can, and often does, work extremely well, and we should certainly not turn our back on it. I fear, however, that the genuine help that charities and private organisations can provide will not be made available if the instinctive rejection of the private sector by some Members results in the Bill being voted down. Some Members oppose the Bill simply because they do not want the private sector to become involved in state affairs, regardless of whether that would reduce crime.

Let us not lose sight of the central argument: the public are screaming out for less crime. I believe that the Bill will achieve that. It matters not to a burglary victim whether the perpetrator is helped to stop offending by an organisation in the private sector, the charity sector or the public sector. What matters to that victim of crime is that there should be less crime, and that they will not be the victim of further offending.