Transforming Rehabilitation

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am grateful to the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), for the elements of his statement that were supportive of what we are doing, and of course I should thank the Labour party, because it is only thanks to legislation introduced by the Labour Government prior to 2010 that I am able to make such an important reform for this country. I should also pay tribute to the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who established the Peterborough pilot. The work being done in Peterborough prison by the team involving the St Giles Trust—I met representatives from the trust this morning—and other charities working in partnership with the private sector is an impressive example of what can be done in mentoring offenders.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned pilots. The last Government were obsessed with pilots. Sometimes those in government just have to believe in something and do it, but the last Government set out a pilot timetable under which it would have taken about eight years to get from the beginning of the process to the point of evaluation and then beyond. Sometimes we just have to believe something is right and do it, and I assure Members that if they went to Peterborough to see what is being done there, they would think it was the right thing to do.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Work programme, and I wish he would stop using statistics that are certainly not entirely—[Interruption.] I am not sure how to describe them; “misleading” might be inappropriate language to use. The Opposition keep missing an important point: in the Work programme, we do not pay until someone has been in work for more than six months. So if 800,000 people joined the Work programme in the first year, half of them could not have been in work for six months. The reality is that the Work programme has so far helped 200,000 people find jobs. Many of those people have been in jobs for the short term and have then gone on to second jobs, and many of them have gone into long-term employment. The programme is making a real difference, and I defy any Member of the House to visit a Work programme centre, see the work that is being done and not come away impressed. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman mentions G4S. It is true that G4S is one of the prime contractors in the Work programme, but interestingly, it subcontracts all its work in the Work programme to voluntary sector organisations and small businesses. The Work programme is the biggest voluntary sector welfare-to-work programme that this country has ever seen, with organisations such as the Papworth Trust delivering support right across East Anglia and organisations such as the Careers Development Group involved. That charitable organisation is running large parts of the Work programme in London. Labour Members need to look at the detail of what is happening.

The right hon. Gentleman made a sensible point and asked a sensible question about the management of and fluctuation in risk. We intend the public probation service to work closely with local providers, and where there is a variation in risk—where it suddenly becomes clear that an individual represents a clear and present danger of harm to the public—the mechanisms will exist to move those people back under the public sector umbrella. So the public sector will continue to work with the most serious offenders, through the multi-agency public protection arrangements and similar, and the police will continue to work closely with the public sector on the most serious offenders. Where there is a clear and present risk to the public, it is the duty of the public probation service and of this Government—and it will continue to be so—to make sure that we supervise and manage that risk, and that intelligence is shared between the police and the public probation service to manage the risk that exists, when it does exist, because we must ensure that the public are protected.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of cost, and I simply offer him one example of where efficiencies can be delivered. When we contracted out the delivery of community sentences in London, the cost of delivering those sentences fell by nearly 40%. I am absolutely certain that although very good work is being and will continue to be done in the probation service, and those professionals will continue to work in this field, there are efficiencies to be found. Such efficiencies can be reinvested in providing support to those prisoners whose sentence is less than 12 months, who have never had it before.

Lastly, the right hon. Gentleman asked about the more difficult offenders. I wish to make it absolutely clear, as our consultation document does, that we will have a pricing mechanism that makes it impossible for providers simply not to support the most difficult prisoners. Every prisoner must have support. We are delivering support that is mandated by the courts for every prisoner, and that will be continued.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

These proposals, which will greatly increase the potential for offender managers to deliver rehabilitation, should mean that probation officers will be employed by many different types of organisation. Indeed, it will be vital for the success of these reforms that probation officers at all levels of experience are found in the remaining public sector organisations and in the new delivery organisations. Will the Secretary of State therefore ensure that he strengthens the corporate identity, and the training and academic underpinning of probation as a profession, so that there is a strong base for our excellent probation officers and their profession, wherever they are deployed?

[Chris Grayling]

I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend. There is a slight myth in the media that we arrived in the Department in September and nothing had been done before, but that is totally untrue; I have inherited some very good work done by him and his colleagues, which created the foundation for these reforms. Indeed, he and I worked closely together in providing employment support to prisoners through the Work programme. It is very important that we ensure that we have the best possible professional standards. I apologise here, because the point was raised by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). One of the questions I have for the probation profession is: should we facilitate the creation of some sort of chartered institute that raises professional standards in the profession? It will continue to be an important profession, with high-level specialist skills needed to manage the most serious risk. I am also ensuring, through these proposals, that existing probation staff have the opportunity to set up social enterprises and mutuals, so that they themselves have the opportunity to be part of the future.