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Miss Widdecombe: I thank the Home Secretary for the tone in which he discussed this important Lords amendment. I see considerable merit in the proposal for a joint inspectorate. Indeed, in the longer term, I see merit in joining the two services. Both serve the aims of criminal justice, but, regrettably, can often pull against each other because, rather than running as a seamless whole, they work as distinct bodies. Furthermore, both provide services that would be better dealt with as part of a seamless whole. For example, our prisons run offending behaviour courses that seek to address drug, alcohol and gambling addictions and temper management. However, the Prison Service often operates in isolation on those courses and people who leave prison have no means of support to implement the strategies that they have been taught. If the services acted more seamlessly, much more aftercare could be provided.
I genuinely see merit in the Home Secretary's proposals and would not want him to think that I lightly dismiss them and his reasons for not accepting the amendment. I can travel quite a long way with him, but I am sure that he accepts that there has been understandable unease in another place and that the consultation suggests that such unease is even more widespread. Therefore, further reassurances are necessary if he is to convince another place that the safeguard that it proposes should not be implemented. For example, the chief inspectors say that only about 25 per cent. of the work is joint and, therefore, the overwhelming majority of that to be inspected would not fall in such a category.
Some of the work carried out between the two services is very different. For example, the Prison Service has a major duty to prevent escapes and security is an important aspect of the inspector's work, as is the provision of a humane regime. Slopping out, time out of cell, visiting facilities, bullying and purposeful regimes are not mirrored in the work of the probation service. Therefore, it is arguable that they deserve separate inspection.
However, there was an underlying suspicion in another place that any merger could simply be a cost-cutting measure designed to save the Chancellor money, rather than to promote excellence in inspection. I shall certainly draw to the attention of my right hon. Friends in another place the Home Secretary's comments about the
deficiency of the safeguard that they have inserted, but they were seeking to ensure that such a measure could not happen by stealth and that if the right hon. Gentleman--or, indeed, any of his successors--decided to go ahead with such a merger in future, he or his successor would have to return to Parliament for approval and, therefore, would be subject to the full rigours of scrutiny in both Houses. That being no bad thing, and given the Government's regrettable tendency sometimes to ignore the House, I find that, on balance, I must disagree with the right hon. Gentleman's disagreement, although I do not want to imply that I would never support--or, indeed, propose--such a merger. I commend the protection of parliamentary scrutiny to the House and, therefore, I agree with their Lordships in the said amendment.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I sense a conviction about the conclusion that the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) had a little difficulty arriving at.
I thank the Home Secretary for the timetable, by which we have received the written answer in advance of the debate. That is obviously sensible and helpful.
When I started my job for my party, I was entirely neutral about such matters; I had no pre-conceived view about whether there should be one inspectorate or two. Therefore, I undertook the same exercise as the Government have properly done--namely, I looked for myself, listened to people and sought to form a view according to the information that I was given. In that context, I own up to the fact that I now know much more about the prison inspectorate than about the probation inspectorate, both of which are highly respected. Indeed, both chief inspectors are well regarded, and the House will want to pay tribute to both, as the Government have done.
I say that because I am one of the few Members of Parliament who have had the privilege of spending two days with the inspectorate on a recent inspection of Armley prison, Leeds. That inspection was extremely well done and highly regarded by the prison staff, the management and the inmates. I thank those who facilitated my presence: the inspectorate team and their advisers; the prison management; the new governor of Armley, who was very welcoming, as were her staff; and the prisoners, who, at their instigation, allowed me to sit in, for example, on a sex offender treatment session--obviously, entirely respecting confidentiality--so that I could see how such things proceed. From that and the other prison visits that I have taken part in since starting my job, I have no doubt that the regime and methods are extremely effective for routine and ad hoc inspections.
I share the prisons Minister's view on a controversial issue. For example, as a result of the ad hoc inspections at Brixton--a prison which he and I know relatively well from our present and previous roles--he was right to conclude that the regime could not continue without a threat of severe change. That inspection was largely prompted by complaints, which led to the Minister's visit and decision, so the process appears to work, and I pay tribute to the system.
The Home Secretary was absolutely fair in saying that it is logical to extend the appointments of the occupants of both posts so that they end at the same time, providing
the flexibility to consider whether there should be a combined post. I do not dissent from that sensible proposal. There is now a process, to which the Home Secretary has alluded, that will allow both posts to be considered complementarily.I thank the Home Secretary for undertaking the consultation process. We should thank him for his response to that process; it shows that he listened. He and I occasionally have our run-ins--we even had a mini run-in yesterday--but I hope that I have never said that he does not listen and deal with the arguments. He and his colleagues are always fair in that respect. The consultation has been well carried out in this case. On balance, a persuasive case was put to the Home Secretary. Clearly, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald was persuaded by it.
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I shall cite some examples--first, the experience of people of great competence and experience across all parties who argued for the separation of the inspectorate. In the other place, Lord Windlesham and Lord Hurd, a former Home Secretary, were clear about their views. Among my colleagues, Lord Dholakia, who has huge experience of the Prison Service and of rehabilitation, was clear about his view. There is much weight of experience to suggest that the inspectorates should be kept separate.
I give considerable weight to someone who has been prayed in aid--namely, the Bishop of Lincoln, who is the bishop to the prisons. I have known him since he was my college chaplain at university and greatly respect him for his common sense and straightforwardness. He concluded that the inspectorates should remain separate. A host of the great and the good, and the competent, has come to the same view.
I shall not repeat the comments of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald, but there are clearly issues that are expressly to do with custody. The prison regime suggests that much work needs to be done. There is no doubt that the prisons inspectorate has a huge amount of work to do. The Prison Service needs a lot of work and improvement. No one in any of the parties would doubt that the service needs external assessment to keep people up to the mark. Sir Stephen Tumim and Sir David Ramsbotham have been very good at independently criticising the Prison Service and constructive about how to proceed. However, that exercise is wholly different from inspecting what only sometimes overlaps with the work done by the probation service.
The probation service has much more natural liaison with many other agencies, such as the health service, housing and social services, the youth service, the education service and the voluntary sector dealing with drugs and alcohol rehabilitation and so on. All that is different in style and character from dealing with the in-house management of the Prison Service. Therefore, I reached the same view as that which most peers, the Home Secretary and--for the time being, at least--the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald have reached: the inspectorates should be kept separate.
The amendment, whether or not it is perfectly drafted, would prevent the policy being changed without Parliament taking that decision. The strength of Parliament's view has been--and the clarity of the conclusion reinforced that view--that the amendment is necessary. Clearly, concern
has been expressed in both Houses. The Home Secretary's preferred option clearly has much to commend it, and I accept that it came from the consultation process. It appears that the proposal should be acceptable to the inspector of constabulary, the Crown Prosecution Service, magistrates courts, the probation service and the prisons. Of course, some of their work needs to be done together.One of the lessons that I learned at Armley the other day was that the procedure for moving people from prison to the outside world still does not work well. That is not a matter of political dispute. I shall not pretend to know many cases, but Armley prison does all sorts of things. It is one of the biggest prisons in the country and acts as a local prison, so prisoners go there on remand and then serve a short period after their conviction. Sometimes the periods are very short--six weeks, or three or six months. I think that the inspection, which was carried out only a couple of months ago, showed that no one who had been a remand prisoner and then served a short period of imprisonment before their release received any pre-release preparation whatever. Some of those people will have broken their drug or alcohol habits inside; others will have had anger problems and been on a course, or have had a history of sex offending, but there was no preparation for their release because they were short-sentence prisoners. As in the films, they walked through the door into the world with their bags in their hands, but without any preparation. That system will not stop reoffending.
Just as, in the health service debate, the link between health and social services is so important, we need to make that link. That means that there needs to be collaboration, but prison and probation, inside and outside, custody and relative freedom are different things. I am glad that the Home Secretary and the Government have said that there will be two separate inspectorates. Our amendment--which, with the right hon. Lady, we will press to the vote--will, I hope, flag up the fact that we want that decision to be changed only by Parliament, not by the Executive without parliamentary authority.
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