David Mowat
Main Page: David Mowat (Conservative - Warrington South)Department Debates - View all David Mowat's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
What I want for our probation service is the best of the public, private and voluntary sectors: the public sector has high-quality skills in managing the risk of harm; the private sector can deliver a more efficient system, so that we can release funds to support those offenders who get no support at the moment; and the voluntary sector has the kind of mentoring skills we so desperately need to help people turn their lives around.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
T4. Our criminal justice system may be the most expensive in the world, perhaps by a factor of two or three times, and yet we continue, as a state, to pay many practitioners several hundreds of thousand pounds a year more than we pay surgeons or scientists. This practice is of course enthusiastically supported by the Bar Council, and apparently by Opposition Front Benchers. Can the Secretary of State confirm that his consultation will at last bring to bear competition and market forces?
Chris Grayling
It certainly brings competition to bear. We are trying to take tough decisions on legal aid in a way that, where possible, impacts on the top end, not the bottom end, of the income scale. That is what we believe in, and I am surprised that Labour Members appear to disagree with us.