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5.15 pm
In particular, they want to grab all control and ownership of land. I and many other hon. Members come across exactly the same issue in our constituencies all the time. The Treasury, with its grasping hands, is keen to seize ownership of land and control it centrally so that it can be sold off. That is part of the Government's cynical attempt to raise funds and to build up their war chest.
Mr. Stephen Pound (Ealing, North): Crikey, they've rumbled us!
Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), a wise observer of his party and, in particular, of the Treasury Bench, points out, from a sedentary position, that I have rumbled them. We have rumbled the Government; we are making an entirely serious point.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), my hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) and others are aware that, with regard to Ministry of Defence land, for example, there has been a programme, since the Government came to power, of sales, undoubtedly to the detriment of our armed forces, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer wishes to build up a war chest. Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would call me to order if I spent too long developing my thesis with regard to other Departments. We are concerned with the Home Office.
Mr. Clappison: On these provisions, does my hon. Friend share the sneaking feeling, which I get when the Minister speaks about overcapacity, that we are being softened up? Is it not more often the case that probation officers are crying out for accommodation in which to put young people who are often in trouble?
Mr. Forth: That involves sell-offs and redundancies.
Mr. Hawkins: As my right hon. Friend rightly says, that involves sell-offs and redundancies. The Government's approach is a cynical ploy.
The Minister's increasingly desperate attempt to reconcile the obviously irreconcilable text that was wisely spotted by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford simply showed that it is impossible to justify such incredibly sloppy drafting. The Government are determined not to allow any local ownership of land because they want to keep control so that, as soon as the Chancellor wants more ready cash, the land can be flogged off. That would be to the detriment of local probation services and of offenders whom the probation service is trying to reform.
Mr. Mike O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman's comments are becoming increasingly bizarre. Is he really suggesting that when there is clear evidence of overcapacity and of taxpayers not getting value for money, the Government
should not make efforts to ensure that taxpayers get value for money, and that the resources saved should not be directed to programmes to prevent reoffending? Is it Conservative party policy to ensure that taxpayers do not get value for money and that money goes into buildings rather than being used to ensure that criminals do not reoffend? That would be bizarre.
Mr. Hawkins: The Minister has got to be terribly careful. He was not listening to what I said. We do not--we never would--accept his word that there is overcapacity. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and my hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere and for West Chelmsford pointed out that all we have in this context is the Minister's claim that there is overcapacity, which we do not accept. My county probation service tells me that it is constantly strapped for cash, especially in the shire counties of the south-east, which my hon. Friends and I represent. The probation service has been strapped for cash because the Government deliberately targeted funding at their friends in the north and the midlands, and in Scotland and Wales. They have undoubtedly left all the authorities in the shire counties, including the probation service, short of money to do the job they are supposed to do.
Mr. Mike O'Brien: I regret that the hon. Gentleman feels that he must make a personal slight, and I am sure that on reflection he will realise that it is inappropriate. I said in my initial statement on this amendment that the national conditions survey of probation accommodation had identified a 16.8 per cent. overcapacity. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will now feel that it is appropriate to withdraw his personal comment about me, and accept that there is other evidence.
Mr. Hawkins: I hear what the Minister says, but I am afraid that we do not accept at face value a survey that states that there is overcapacity. In our democracy, we have such debates to test whether the Government's statistics are correct. During the 18 years for which we were in government, Labour Opposition spokesmen constantly attacked our statistics and my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Conservative Government Front Bench. They would not accept our phrases and words. I am not attacking the Minister in his personal capacity, but specifically and directly in his ministerial capacity. We do not accept what he says about overcapacity, and all my right hon. and hon. Friends from shire counties know the reality. The Government are deliberately penalising our authorities over their probation services, as they do over everything else.
Mr. Clappison: I think that I can help my hon. Friend. Does he recollect a time in the previous Parliament when the present Prime Minister was the shadow Home Secretary and complained about a shortage of accommodation for young people in trouble? He called in particular for the creation of more secure accommodation places, without delay, to use his words.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I advise the House to come back to the terms of the amendment, rather than have a general debate.
Mr. Hawkins: I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but this amendment in lieu relates to the question
of land. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere rightly pointed out that during the previous Parliament, the present Prime Minister, when he was shadow Home Secretary, attacked the Conservative Government because of a shortage of land and buildings specifically for the probation service, including facilities for looking after young offenders. I think that I can appropriately reply to my hon. Friend without going out of order, by saying that he has a good point.It is important to recognise that we are challenging the Government on their amendment in lieu, and particularly its sloppy and contradictory drafting, because we do not accept their statistics. We do not think that in three and a half years of a Labour Government we have gone from the shortage that the Prime Minister previously attacked to an overcapacity.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman prefaced his remarks by saying that he accepted my ruling, then he ignored it. I do not admire that, and I ask him to respect the Chair's rulings. The issue before us concerns ownership and management.
Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall move on. I shall return to the important point that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford raised in an intervention.
The wording of the amendment in lieu is contradictory. The schedule that the Government propose to amend entails a contradiction in terms. We are back to the same issues that we discussed on another Bill during national guillotine week, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) pointed out that, under pressure, the Government and those who advise them have resorted to desperation tactics and have produced self-contradictory amendments. We have a right to debate them and to challenge the drafting, especially when the terms of the amendments seem, on the face of it, to be contradictory.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not disputing the hon. Gentleman's right, I am merely urging him to get on with it.
Mr. Hawkins: I am endeavouring to do so, and I shall bring my remarks to a close in a moment.
My right hon. and hon. Friends who have intervened on the Minister have revealed the severe problems and contradictions in the Government's choice of wording. We think that there is a weakness. This issue has not suddenly emerged today: it was explored at some length in Committee--I took the Bill through its Committee stage. The Government will recognise that this matter has been debated at some length, because there is a serious issue about whether local autonomy should prevail. We have always felt that local probation services have a serious duty to perform, and that their responsibilities should not be unduly restricted, and that includes their ability to own and manage land.
I think that I speak for probation services the length and breadth of the country. I know that I have raised the concerns of my own county probation service, and my right hon. and hon. Friends may want to pursue the issue further on behalf of their probation services.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I could not have predicted that what might be described as the "last knockings" of our debate--although I do not wish to be disparaging about the part of the Bill that we are discussing--would generate such heat and drama. Similarly, had I consulted the week's programme, little would I have thought that the serried ranks of all the parties would be present for a major set-piece debate on what is clearly a central issue. In fact, to be honest, I do not think it is that; but it raises one important principle, and one supplementary drafting point.
Like the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins), I think that, ultimately, the draftsmen missed a trick. I am not making a huge point, but let us look at the schedule. The paragraph dealing with the ancillary powers of the probation service provides for
- directions given by the Secretary of State
- a local board may do anything which appears to it to be necessary or expedient
Let me now deal with my substantive point, and draw attention to one example and one principle. Around the corner from my constituency office is a building run by the probation service. As it happens, I do not know who owns the building--had I realised that this would be such a big debate, I would have walked around the corner and asked--but it has been in probation service use for as long as I have been a Member of Parliament and probably before, and is well used. It is not a residential building; it is a building for day use--for training, and so forth.
Let us imagine that the probation service rents that building from another owner, in either the private or the public sector. Let us imagine that there comes a time when the owner says, "I am going to sell the building. Either you buy it from me, or I will sell it to someone else. You can have the freehold, but I am afraid that if you do not take it, I will not provide another lease on it; I will get rid of it."
In that event, the local board would have no power to buy the building. It would be subject to the central control that the Minister says is necessary so that the estate can be rationalised. The local board may not persuade the probation service of the intrinsic value of the building in the sense that, in the board's view, it is in a good location, has been fitted out well or has worked well for the client base. Ultimately, the board may have to say to the owner, "We are sorry, but we cannot buy the building"--whereupon the owner will say, "I am sorry, but in that case I will sell it, because I am not willing to give you a further lease". I feel that the "strict central control" argument may often militate against the interest of the local service.
I am not in a position to dispute the figures given by the Minister relating to the survey's findings in regard to overcapacity, but I am sure that the same argument could be advanced in respect of the national health service. The NHS certainly has a great deal of land that is not being
fully used. The argument could be advanced in respect of the police and education, and I am sure that it could still be advanced in respect of public highways, where a lot of space that was not being fully used has been acquired for purposes of road-building and the like. Although the railways are no longer in the public sector, it used to be possible to advance the argument in that context, because huge amounts of land were not being used. Anyway, in public policy terms, the argument could be relevant in many areas.All that I say to the Government is this: it strikes me that we are removing a flexibility that may be to the advantage of the local services. The fact is that what may work in, say, Surrey, or in London, may not work in Durham, Cleveland, Powys or Gwent.
The whole idea of having a local service is that it is a service intended to respond to local needs. In that sense, it is different from the prison service. The Prison Service does not work on the basis that everyone goes to prison near where they live. The Parliamentary Secretary, Privy Council Office, who is present now--probably waiting for the next debate--has a prison in his county town, the city of Nottingham. He will know that not everyone in Nottingham prison is a Nottinghamshire resident. The basis on which the Prison Service works is that, depending on people's prison needs, they may be sent to a high-security prison at the other end of the country, or they may be imprisoned locally.
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