Lord Beith
Main Page: Lord Beith (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beith's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(12 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Blunt
No, Government policies are going to improve the probation service. If the hon. Gentleman looked at the probation budget, he would see that the position of probation has been substantially protected relative to the demands being placed on the overall budget of the Ministry of Justice.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
What is the Minister doing to make sure that probation officers’ work with prisoners is not undermined by prisoners being moved from prison to prison for no very good reason or for entirely administrative reasons?
Mr Blunt
We are trying to give the notion of prison clusters much greater prominence. The right hon. Gentleman will have seen that the OLASS—Offender Learning and Skills Service—review presages a situation in which prison clusters would procure education and skills training, and that should reflect the prisoner journey. We want to have a prison estate that is not under the enormous pressure it is under now—due to the terrible situation we inherited—so that we can get prisoner journeys from local prisons through to resettlement prisons, while both getting support from offender management and delivering programmes.