| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Jackie Ballard: We, too, welcome the amendments. As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) said, the Government are right to take the opportunity to amend the law. However, they were also right to wait for an appropriate opportunity instead of making the wrong decision by overreacting in a knee-jerk response to a heated newspaper campaign and obvious public anxiety earlier this year.
Some of the most important words in the clause are "risk assessment". Nothing can be risk free. We cannot give anyone a guarantee that there is no risk, but it is
important to assess and manage the risk properly, monitor it and ensure that lessons are learned if anything sadly goes wrong.It is unfortunate that a long debate between the parties about the amendments now would hit the headlines, but because they have cross-party support and our debate has been brief, the press will not notice what we have done today.
Mr. Boateng: The contributions of the hon. Members for Taunton and for Surrey Heath are characteristic of the calm and appropriately serious approach of the House and of the other place to the matter.
It is vital that difficult and complex decisions about the nature of the information to be disclosed on sex offenders be considered on a case-by-case basis by the police and the probation service. It is equally true that parents and the public have the right to more information. We are providing information about the way in which sex offenders are managed in the community, the safeguards that are in place to protect them and the part that they can play in enforcing those safeguards. That is why we are creating a statutory duty for the police and probation services to establish arrangements for assessing and managing the risks that sex and violent offenders present.
I welcome the fact that, in the contributions that we have heard, the House has expressed its approval of our approach.
Lords amendments Nos. 12 and 13 agreed to.
Lords amendment: No. 14, in page 3, line 24, leave out ("accommodation") and insert ("supervision").
Mr. Boateng: I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 15 and the Government motion to disagree thereto, and Lords amendments Nos. 29, 53 and 54.
Mr. Boateng: The Government amendments would create a generic category of approved accommodation, which include those hostels that are currently designated approved bail and probation hostels. That would remove distinctions between categories of hostels and enable all approved hostels to accommodate, when appropriate, offenders who are subject to drug treatment and testing orders, or licensed conditions, or offenders who, while not subject to statutory supervision, require enhanced supervision in residential accommodation to assist their rehabilitation.
The Opposition amendments, would--doubtless inadvertently but nevertheless certainly--wreck the ability of the service to provide accommodation in hostels. They would prevent accommodation of a smaller number of dangerous offenders, who are no longer on licence, but whose accommodation in approved hostels is clearly in the interests of public protection.
Greater flexibility, which the Government amendments would provide, is necessary in accommodating those on DTTOs by enabling them to be housed in any approved accommodation while undergoing treatment directed by the courts. The supportive regime in approved hostels increases the likelihood of such unstable offenders
completing the treatment element of their orders. That increases the effectiveness of sentencing and improves public protection.The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald and I have debated hostels late at night. I appreciate the seriousness with which she takes their contribution to public protection. They have an excellent record of dealing with difficult and dangerous offenders. We want to build on that success by increasing the flexibility and usage of approved hostels. We thus aim to provide for increased public protection and a reduction in reoffending, especially among those on whom the court has imposed DTTOs or who are on licence.
The amendments to clause 24 are consequential on the creation, in clause 9 as amended, of a generic category of hostel. However, the Opposition amendments would destroy the ability of the service to undertake such work. Amendment No. 14 would remove the word "accommodation". That would call into question the ability of the service to provide accommodation in hostels. That cannot have been their intention, but that is the effect of their amendment.
Amendment No. 15 would restrict the use of hostels to those currently on bail, on licence or serving a community sentence. The vast majority of residents will be in one of those categories, but a small number of dangerous offenders, who have been released from prison but not on licence, are currently accommodated in hostels, and rightly so. The supervision provided in hostels, including the operation of a curfew, is such that the public are much better protected than they would be if offenders were left to their own devices in the community. It is essential that we retain the ability to put dangerous offenders in such accommodation.
I urge the House to accept the Government amendments made in the other place, and to reject amendments Nos. 14 and 15.
5.45 pm
Mr. Hawkins: I make no apology for spending a little time on this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) have made it clear that on a number of occasions during the consideration of the Bill in the other place the Government suffered what can only be described as humiliating defeats, and this matter was one such occasion. When the other place divided, 180 noble Lords and noble Ladies voted for the Opposition amendment, which was ably moved by my noble Friend Baroness Blatch, and only 126 of their Lordships were prepared to support the Government. That was but one of a series of substantial defeats on the Bill in the other place.
Their Lordships felt so strongly about the Bill because they believed that the Government had not paid sufficient attention to the serious concerns about supervision in hostels. I hear what the Minister says about the unintended consequences of the amendment of my noble Friend Baroness Blatch, but we feel strongly that their Lordships were right to press this matter. The Minister's noble Friend the Lord Bassam of Brighton got very confused--to put it at its best--in his attempt to respond to the serious concerns of my noble Friend. He talked about resolving practical matters in a practical way, and said:
- That should be done in a fair-handed way.
-
I am not sure whether he intended to say "fair-minded" or "even-handed", but it showed how confused he was in response to these serious matters. He has sadly been nicknamed Lord Climbdown.
- What in my amendment would legally preclude the most dangerous people from being supervised in the accommodation? The noble Lord has not answered the question. I am pressing this point because the noble Lord's response has been based on that premise; namely, that my amendment would be dangerous . . . I am not satisfied with the response that I have received from the noble Lord.--[Official Report, House of Lords, 31 October 2000; Vol. 618, c. 828-30.]
We pressed amendments in Committee, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald have made clear, in the other place the Government were dragged kicking and screaming into conceding some of the sensible points that we had made, some of which were supported by the Liberal Democrats. The Government have finally accepted the importance of our points.
I remind the Minister that many hon. Members, including some Labour Members, expressed concerns in what was a detailed debate on issues to do with bail and probation hostels. Many hon. Members--some in Committee--raised constituency cases in which serious problems had arisen in relation to bail and probation service hostels. I especially remember powerful points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid- Worcestershire (Mr. Luff), who spoke from experience of a hostel in his constituency. I have experience of a hostel in my own constituency that caused a number of problems, and similar concerns were raised in another place.
We think that Lady Blatch was right to press the issue of supervision, and we hope that the Government will address the point. We shall not ask the House to divide, because we do not want the Government even to seek to allege that we are doing any damage to the provision of accommodation; but we do think that the issue is serious. We want the Minister finally to concede, when he replies, that the Government recognise--and will place firmly in regulations, even if they are not prepared to include it in the Bill--the need for those who will run bail and probation hostels to be required to ensure that, at every stage, dangerous and potentially dangerous residents are supervised. It should not be simply a matter of accommodating them.
Labour Members who have had practical, sharp-end experience of such hostels--which they mentioned in Committee--know very well that supervision is a vital element in any hostel. All our law-abiding constituents want to be given the comfort of knowing that anyone sent to such a hostel will be supervised morning, noon and night. If the Minister is not prepared to say that the Government will find a way of ensuring that supervision is clearly written into the obligations of those running hostels, the next time an outrage, crime or tragedy is
perpetrated by someone who is resident in a hostel but has not been properly supervised, the Government will have to take the blame.I do not want to be a Cassandra crying in the wilderness, but these are serious issues. As the Minister said, they were addressed seriously in Committee, and we want to hear that the Government will address them seriously. As I have said, we shall not divide the House, but we hope that the Government will take what we have said, and what I expect the Minister to say shortly, in the spirit in which I have made these serious points.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |