The Offender Rehabilitation Bill has moved to the House of Commons following its third reading in the House of Lords yesterday, where the minister of state for justice dismissed earlier Lords' calls for the government to re-examine reforms to the probation service.
Lord McNally described the proposed amendment, which called on the government to slow down the process of reform, as "defective".
During the debate, Lord Ramsbotham, who had tabled the amendment to prevent any changes to the probation service being made without resolutions being approved in both chambers, said he has been told the government’s plans for the probation service will go ahead “regardless of the vote” last month.
He said: “Probation staff around the country are lost for words because it was expected that at the very least the government would respect the vote of this House and reconsider their proposals, or at least appear to do so.”
Ramsbotham had asked the government to provide more detail about its proposals to open up the probation service to the private and voluntary sector and carry out more analysis of their impact, before pressing ahead with the reforms.
But the minister of state for justice, Lord McNally, responded by saying that the amendment is, and always was, “defective” and that MPs would have views on it before the bill returns to the House of Lords.
He said: “I do not think I can go any further than that. We will see what the other House thinks about the amendment and in due course it will come back to this House to be dealt with.”
Lords agreed an amendment to take into consideration the particular needs of women prisoners but rejected one that suggested establishing American-style veterans’ treatment courts to support ex-armed services personnel.
The Ministry of Justice announced plans to move the probation service into the private and voluntary sector in January and published the Transforming Rehabilitation document detailing its vision for a payment-by-results structure. The commitment to new legislation was reaffirmed in the Queen’s Speech and McNally introduced the Offender Rehabilitation Bill to the Lords in May.
