Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 144, in clause 21, page 22, line 15, at end insert—

‘(3)The Chief Inspector shall maintain complete independence from the Government and shall not be directed by Ministers except where specifically directed under the provisions of this Act.’.

I am glad that you survived the threat to life and limb suggested by the fire alert, Mr. Conway.

The amendment is designed to provoke debate on the important fact that the chief inspector of the new combined inspectorate should be constitutionally independent from the Government. There are reasons to worry about whether that will be the case. The inspectorates are nominally independent now. On the Home Office website, which I am always keen to quote, the introduction to the inspectorate of constabulary says that it is

“independent both of the Home Office and of the Police Service.”

Lord Chief Justice Woolf has observed, in relation to the prisons inspectorate, that

“a system without an independent element is not a system that accords with proper standards of justice.”

However, we know from what previous chief inspectors have said about the operation of their inspectorates and how they work with the Government that that independence is often sorely tested. Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, noted in his book “Prisongate” that during his time as chief inspector, he and the Prison Service were working to different agendas and that the permanent secretary in the Home Office did not

“like or understand our independence.”

He further describes the way in which the Government sought to interfere, sometimes with the content of his inspectorate reports. On one, he says:

“I would have liked to complete a further thematic review called ‘Inequalities’ to address my deep concern about how five separate minority groups were treated in prison,”

but the Minister

“suddenly announced that he did not want me to include race in the review”.

Lord Ramsbotham says that he tried to persuade the Minister to include a review, but was not successful.

Similarly, Chris Woodhead, the former chief inspector of schools, sets out in his book “Class War” the relationship that he had with the Government, which was not one of proper independence. He says:

“Never at any point in its history was HMI wholly or constitutionally independent of government”.

In fact, prior to the creation of the Office for Standards in Education, the inspectorate was a member of the permanent secretary’s senior management board, working with other civil servants to an agreed agenda. Then, the Department was able to determine

“what it said and did not say”.

In 1992 Parliament made Ofsted constitutionally independent, but Mr. Woodhead says that in practice

“the Department continues to hold the purse strings. Officials and politicians alike seek to exert influence over the supposedly independent inspectorate in a variety of ways.”

He concludes:

“An independent inspectorate: In theory, it is fine. In practice, of course, people do not like it.”

As to the part that will be played by the existing inspectorate of constabulary in the combined inspectorate, we had a debate at the beginning of our consideration of this Bill about how the national policing improvement agency would sit alongside the Government’s Police Standards Unit and the independent inspectorate. As there is already a national policing improvement agency giving advice to police forces and the Government, and a Police Standards Unit operating in the Home Office that gives advice to Ministers, it is vital that the inspectorate sits properly outside the Home Office and is not interfered with in any way by Ministers. At the very least, that would avoid overlap, but it would also mean that the inspectorate could do its constitutional duty.

My concern about the matter was reinforced on a closer reading of the Bill. It transpires that subsection (3) of clause 25, which we will come to later, states:

“In exercising any of his functions the Chief Inspector shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the responsible ministers may direct.”

That is a very wide phrase indeed; it appears to give Ministers power to direct the chief inspector in any way that they want. Furthermore, in clause 24 there is yet another order-making power. It says that the Government may

“by order confer on the Chief Inspector additional functions in relation to anything that is, or is an aspect of, a matter in respect of which he has a duty under this Part to carry out inspections.”

So the provisions contain sweeping powers under which the inspectorate could be directed in ways that it is difficult for us to foresee.

The purpose of my amendment is to enshrine a principle that I am sure the Government will accept as right—namely that the inspectorate should be properly independent from the Government. The amendment states that the inspectorate will

“not be directed by Ministers except where specifically directed under the provisions of this Act.”

I must say that in many respects the amendment is not adequate to protect the independence of the combined new inspectorate because of clause 25(3), to which I referred, under which the Government can effectively give the inspectorate new functions and therefore direct it to carry out those new functions as they see fit. However, even if the amendment is imperfect, the   principle that the inspectorate should stand apart from Ministers should somewhere be written into the legislation.

It is extremely important that the public can have confidence in an independent body that assesses whether certain standards have been met. That applies to our public services across the board, but as we discussed in the last sitting, it must apply particularly to the prisons inspectorate, the police and the other safety services caught under the new inspectorate. If not, the constant temptation for any Government, not just this one, will be to seek to influence the work of the inspectorate. That will result in confusion about the role of inspectors in some areas, which is to act as advisers to Ministers; that is certainly the case for the inspectorate of constabulary. That role may be proper, although I question whether it is necessary given the plethora of bodies established under the new arrangements with the national policing improvement agency. Nevertheless, that advice cannot be a two-way street; it cannot result in the inspectorate being directed or influenced by the Government. There is concern that that will be the case.

In our debate on the previous amendment, I mentioned the importance of ensuring that the inspector of prisons is someone of independent standing who brings a fresh eye to the inspection regime and commands public confidence in his or her pronouncements. That has too often not been the case for other aspects of the inspectorates. For instance, in relation to the police, the senior inspectors of constabulary are drawn from the ranks of serving chief constables. There is a very close relationship between them and other chief constables. They are not allowed to inspect their own forces, but nevertheless the networks are very strong. I question whether that is the right arrangement for an independent inspectorate, or whether we need people from outside the police service who have some expertise, but more importantly, have an independence that enables them to enter and assess properly whether forces are performing up to scratch. Perhaps setting up a combined independent inspectorate provides the opportunity—I see that the Minister is shaking her head—to entrench that independence. I accept that that may be an argument for the combined inspectorate, although my concerns stand about the prisons aspect. However, that constitutional independence should be enshrined in the Bill.

Fiona Mactaggart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Slough, Labour)

It might be helpful if we start with the definition of inspection that the Government set out in their policy on the inspection of public services, because that includes an important commitment. As a first rule, it defines inspection as an external review that should be independent of the service providers. Inspectorates should also provide assurance to Ministers and the public about the safe and proper delivery of the services, contribute to their improvement, report in public and deliver value for money. It is right that that quick summary of the function starts with independence, which the hon. Gentleman emphasised.

The hon. Gentleman reflected on whether previous inspectors had experienced the kind of independence that rhetoric has always rightly praised in the House. An inspectorate that is a poodle to a service, or its creature, cannot inspect and provide the critique of performance quality of a public service for which we depend on it.

Lord Ramsbotham, who was previously the chief inspector of prisons, has rightly reminded us of moments of tension between him and the Home Office. Whatever statutory provision we establish will be there—and it is right that it should be. In a way, it is almost necessary that civil servants will keep trying to do things their way, because if there is never any tension between them and the inspectorate, one will wonder whether it is being sufficiently independent. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary said that

“the key point for me is the independence of the inspectorate, which must be spiky, particularly when considering the conditions of detention”.—[Official Report, 6 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 617.]

Unless that relationship is spiky and has moments of difficulty, it will not be a reflection of the right independence of relationship.

Have we achieved that in the Bill? I am confident that the Bill already achieves the effect sought by the amendment. The complete independence of the chief inspector from the Government is guaranteed, in so far as it is possible to guarantee it by legislation, by virtue of the establishment of the office as a statutory post, as is the case with existing chief inspectors in the justice sector. Ministers will not have the power to direct the chief inspector, other than where a statute provides for it. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that clause 25(3) contains a requirement for the chief inspector to have regard to aspects of Government policy and asked whether that would infringe their independence. They will remain entitled, as is made clear in the provisions about reporting and so on, to challenge Government policy and procedure to bring about improvement, including where a bad policy is producing the wrong outcomes for service users.

The power to which the hon. Gentleman referred ensures that, if necessary, Ministers can guide the chief inspector in accordance with policy on the broad purposes of inspection, such as assurance, service improvement and obtaining value for money, and obtain his or her expert views on the outcomes achieved on policy objectives. For example, we have a policy objective to reduce reoffending. All parts of the criminal justice system ought to play a part in achieving that outcome. It is a matter not only of what happens to people in prison, but of what happens to people under supervision in the community, how the police deal with criminals and how the court and the Crown Prosecution Service function. All those parts of the system can have an impact on reducing reoffending. It would be quite proper for Ministers to ask the inspectorate to have regard to that Government policy when conducting an inspection, but they will not have the power to direct the chief inspector what to conclude or how to conduct the inspection. Absolute independence will remain.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the possibility of conferring additional functions on the inspectorate by order. At present, we can confer additional functions on many of our criminal justice inspectorates by fiat. One of the reasons that we are seeking to pass the Bill is to obtain parliamentary scrutiny of the possibility of doing so by order. I share his feeling about some of our inspectorates that started within the service. They risk—let us not put it more strongly than that—becoming too cosy. In some ways, the tradition of involving them in senior appointments, training, staff development and so on is not fundamentally appropriate for inspectorates, which need a kind of spikiness and distance.

We have therefore taken the opportunity not to put that within the purview of the inspectorate, but there might be an occasion—perhaps that of appointments to some independent body—on which the view of the inspectorate would be appropriate. We do not want to rule out that possibility, but if it is done by order, we could discuss it in Parliament and it could be done properly.

The hon. Gentleman’s remarks have hit on the nub of the matter. The Bill is an opportunity to create an inspectorate that has a direct relationship with Ministers, direct accountability and the ability that our chief inspectors have, which he said the former chief inspector valued so much, to stand up and give it straight to the person responsible for service quality. We have maintained that relationship—the inspectorate will be an independent officer of the Crown—but by bringing the inspectors together, we have given ourselves the opportunity to infuse the inspectorate with the independent qualities that every parliamentarian I have heard speak about it values in the prisons inspectorate.

We recognise that the prisons inspectorate, because it performs human rights inspections, has some particular qualities. That is why we have created the special duty relating to prisons—so that it will not be subsumed in the general duties and so that that quality will be maintained.

I am confident that the amendment would not add anything to the chief inspector’s independence from the Government, which is already complete and equal to that of existing chief inspectors. Although chief inspectors of all kinds criticise the system for trying occasionally to infringe their independence, I have yet to meet an effective chief inspector who thinks that the system beat them and succeeded in infringing their independence. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment. It is not necessary, and we are all united on the issue.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful for the Minister’s response, because she recognised some of the concerns that have been expressed and shared some of the views that I set out about the need to maintain an independent inspectorate. Much of what she says is reassuring.

I have some continuing concerns, and some observations, however. First, I worry whether the provision in clause 25(3) that

“the Chief Inspector shall have regard to such aspects of government policy as the responsible ministers may direct”

may prevent the chief inspector from speaking out against and criticising Government policy. The Minister shakes her head. If my worry is incorrect, it would be helpful if she said so on the record, because it is important to send out the correct signal about the independence of inspectors and their ability at times to say things about the operation of policy that are difficult for Governments to accept. It is an important caveat.

Secondly, I accept what the Minister said about the possible need to confer additional functions on the chief inspector under clause 24. She said that they would be debated in Parliament, but I wonder whether they will be, because I suspect that they will be made under the negative resolution. There may not be any opportunity for debate about those additional functions, but that is just a minor, though familiar, point about the order-making powers.

My substantive point relates to whether it is a good idea to enshrine the independence of the inspectorate, and the chief inspector in particular, in the Bill. The Minister’s argument was not to criticise the idea that the inspector should be independent, but to say that the amendment is unnecessary and that its provisions are already guaranteed. If I heard correctly, the guarantee is offered simply by creating the statutory office of the inspector. I do not see why that in itself should guarantee the independence of the position. Many statutory offices are created by legislation, and it does not necessarily mean that they are independent.

Given that I am sure the Minister shares the desire to maintain and enshrine that independence, will she reflect on whether it would be a good idea to insert that independence in the Bill? It would not harm the operation of the inspectorate, but it would make it clear to the public and to the appointees themselves that they have an independent role and they are expected to fulfil it. I do not wish to press the amendment, but I should be grateful if the Minister reflected on that point and responded to my specific concern about whether the chief inspector might not be permitted to speak out in criticism of Government policy.

Fiona Mactaggart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Slough, Labour)

May I remind the hon. Gentleman of the words that I used? Perhaps I spoke quickly, in which case he might not have been able to recall them. I said quite specifically that the chief inspector will remain entitled to challenge Government policy and procedure to bring about improvement. That will include situations in which a bad policy is producing wrong outcomes for service users. I hope that that gives him the assurance he seeks.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I am grateful, and I am sorry to have missed that reassurance when the Minister first provided it. It is helpful. On that basis, in the hope that she will reflect on whether a specific provision for   independence should be put in the Bill and on the basis that we can return to the issue at a later stage, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley & Sidcup, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Clause stand part.

New clause 4—Establishment of joint secretariat and planning unit for criminal justice system inspectorates—

‘(1)There shall be a body to be known as the Joint Secretariat and Planning Unit for Criminal Justice System Inspectorates (in this Part to be known as “the Joint Secretariat”).

(2)The Joint Secretariat will co-ordinate—

(a)Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary,

(b)Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate,

(c)Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration,

(d)Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons,

(e)Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation, and

(f)The immigration enforcement system.’.

New clause 5—Appointment of chief executive—

‘The chief executive of the Joint Secretariat shall be appointed by a panel comprising the chief inspectors from: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary; Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons; Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (“the Criminal Justice Chief Inspectors”).’.

New clause 6—General duty of the secretariat and planning unit—

‘The Joint Secretariat shall work with the Criminal Justice Chief Inspectors to provide—

(a)the promotion and support for area inspections and joint thematic inspections,

(b)links to inspectorates of other services, such as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools in England; the Adult Learning Inspectorate, the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Audit Commission,

(c)administrative support for the Criminal Justice Chief Inspectors, and

(d)capacity for joint planning of reports between the Criminal Justice Chief Inspectors.’.

New clause 7—Regulations for establishment of joint secretariat and planning unit—

‘(1)The Secretary of State may by regulation make provision for the establishment of the Joint Secretariat and in particular for—

(a)salaries,

(b)allowances,

(c)sums for the provision of pensions,

(d)staff, and

(e)general expenses.

(2)Regulations under this section shall not be made unless a draft of the regulation has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.’.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

Liberal Democrats have no objection in principle to the proposed merger of the inspectorates for police, Crown Prosecution Service, courts, prisons and probation service. However, we are concerned that in practice it will be counter-productive and decrease rather than increase the expertise in each inspectorate. There is widespread apprehension about the proposals, particularly in the police and prison sectors. As we heard in an earlier debate, the prisons   inspectorate is respected worldwide for the way in which it safeguards the interests of people who are confined by law away from public scrutiny in the closed and often isolated institution of prison. It is a closed system to which public and media access is minimal, so our duty to safeguard those who are vulnerable to abuse behind closed doors is paramount. We cannot abdicate that responsibility for the sake of convenience or of structural links that would in any way diminish that speciality.

To uphold the standard of work, the inspectorate has to be able to focus on the specific institutions, to set its own criteria rather than being under undue influence in terms of Government targets and—I am reassured by what the Minister said—to report publicly and directly to the Minister. As we have heard, the prisons inspectorate is special; it has specialist knowledge on how to detect abuses. We fear that merger will inevitably result in knowledge being lost and, as the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said, the independence of the prisons inspectorate being compromised and the discovery of abuses diminished.

I want to consider more deeply the issue of independence. The Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, in examining the feasibility of the establishment of an inspectorate in Ireland, looked at the UK and around the world for best practice. It set out seven main requirements for independence, which seem pretty sound to me. They cover matters such as the need for the inspection be enshrined in legislation and to be appropriate to the prison system being inspected; for the inspectorate to enjoy a sufficient degree of independence to be proof against coercion, obstruction, intimidation or institutional bias; for resources to be adequate to ensure sufficient frequency and breadth of inspection; for personnel to be of the highest integrity and competence; for the inspectorate to be able to publish reports and findings quickly and without restraint and to secure their scrutiny by appropriate committees; for the inspectorate to be free to encourage public and media discussion of its reports; and for the inspectorate’s findings and recommendations to be able to secure an adequate response by Government and appropriate authorities. I would welcome the Minister telling us how much of that is included in the proposals.

For me, the most telling comments on what is about to happen are those of Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons. She calls the current climate an “uncertain and uncharted landscape” and, in the context of a growing prison population, she argues that the consistency and human rights focus offered by a specialist prisons inspectorate is all the more needed. However, she points out:

“at the same time, the inspectorate itself faces major structural change.”

That is the change that we are arguing against in our new clauses, which aim to protect the quality and independence of the prisons inspectorate.

Ms Owers is clearly worried and unconvinced by the Government’s arguments. She states in her annual report:

“Ministers have said that they are committed to preserving the integrity of custodial inspection in its present form”,

but she clearly doubts their ability to do so under the new legislation. She continues:

“The question is whether that internationally recognised expertise can be ‘bottled’ and preserved within a much larger, differently focused, inspectorate. The Bill now before Parliament provides for a specific duty to inspect places of custody. That is welcome, and the legislative provisions will need to be carefully examined.”

She says that statute can guarantee only the outline, not the ethos, which the Minister mentioned, and the functioning of an organisation. The Government have said that they want the special focus of prisons inspection to “infuse” the new body, but Ms Owers points out that the other side of infusion is dilution. What has made the prisons inspectorate successful has been its specialised, human rights-based focus on a single phenomenon—the conditions and treatment of those detained by the state—and the fact that it acts under the sole authority of a chief inspector who is associated only with that issue and who speaks directly and with specialist knowledge to Ministers, Parliament, the public and the media.

The prison system will face huge changes and challenges in the next few years, and it is vital that it continues to be objectively and independently inspected robustly and in detail. Ministers say that that is what they want, but in the conclusion of her report, Ms Owers says:

“However, I remain concerned about whether it will be possible to legislate, and to create a structure, that ensures that this is what future Ministers will get.”

It is clear that she has doubts about whether the spikiness will be spiky enough on both sides to maintain that independent and tense relationship, and about whether the Government will have the spikes, rather than the prisons inspectorate. I think that that says it all. Ms Owers is highly respected and ultimately knowledgeable, and supports the view that we put forward.

I want to address one more aspect of what is effectively a merger. Work on mergers in private industry found that about 80 per cent. of mergers are either unsuccessful or find that their constituent parts are diminished; the cost is large; and there is an effectiveness lag, particularly during the reconstruction. The prisons inspectorate will go through uncertainty and change for about 18 months, during which time safeguards need to be in place.

I therefore hope that the Government will think long and hard about the prisons inspectorate and consider our proposed new clauses in a serious and constructive manner. We understand that they want to join up governance and that they seek improvement with the changes, but we are concerned that they might not get improvement. The model might allow for thematic studies and offer joined-up governance without so diluting—to use Ms Owers’ word—the   specialisms within each inspectorate. It might give the opportunity to best apply joined-up governance without that specialist loss.

Fiona Mactaggart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Slough, Labour)

Let us review what the clause is trying to do. I will deal with the hon. Lady’s points. The clause establishes the position of a new chief inspector for justice, community safety and custody, who will take over from the existing justice system inspectorates—the inspectorates of: constabulary; the Crown Prosecution Service; court administration; prisons; and the national probation service for England and Wales. Our ambition is to create a chief inspector who will look at the whole system, have a direct relationship with Ministers, be appointed by the Queen, and give independent guidance and challenge to our services. That is why we want clause 21 to stand part of the Bill.

The hon. Lady seeks to substitute for the creation of a new chief inspector a joint secretariat and planning unit that would co-ordinate those five inspectorates. We considered such a model and consulted on it as part of our consultation on the reform of the inspectorate, but we rejected it because it would encounter the same limitations experienced by the existing inspectorates, which already have the use of a joint inspectorate for such purposes, albeit not on a statutory footing.

I am certain that such a model would suffer from a lack of strong, overriding leadership on inspection priorities, setting a strategic course on the balance between single agency and joint inspections, and the ability to commit resources accordingly. I think that nowadays everybody recognises that with modern inspection it is necessary to focus attention where it is most needed and have a relatively light touch when services are doing an excellent job to enable them to get on with it. Individually, inspectorates reflect that approach in their inspection programmes, but it is more difficult in a patchwork system in which there is merely co-ordination between existing inspectorates which focus on places and things, rather than issues.

The hon. Lady read out the inspection principles of a certain organisation—I did not hear which organisation—and those principles sounded very good. However, I would add one: the user, who in this case would be the defendant, victim or witness—the user of the services—should be a focus of the inspectorate. Generally, the kinds of qualities that she described are important to the inspectorate, which is one of the reasons why, for example, we have ensured that the inspectorate can set its own criteria. We have ensured also that expertise can be retained, which was one of her anxieties, and that is provided for in paragraph (5)(3) of schedule 8. That will ensure that the expertise that exists in all of the inspectorates—we have talked a lot about the expertise in the prisons inspectorate—can be retained.

The hon. Lady made the point, which was well-made, that her anxiety about the criminal justice inspectorate is not that it is in principle a bad idea, but that in practice there are risks. I admit that there are risks, but we have put a lot of energy into the design of the inspectorate in order to minimise those risks. The   inspectorate will have a special duty to inspect the human rights of people in custody. We recognise that a single criminal justice inspectorate might present risks: those in the end-to-end system have no customer engagement, whereas, for example, if a reporter from a local newspaper sees something going wrong in court, they can, in a sense, hold up their pen to it. They cannot act as a formal inspectorate, but they can engage public concern in a way that is not possible in prisons.

That is one of the reasons why, where custody is concerned, we need to be extremely careful to ensure that that quality of focus is retained, which is why the inspectorate will be structured as set out in the Bill. The model that the hon. Lady offers—I understand why she has done so—is a weaker one, and does not provide the opportunities to look at the spaces in between systems, the places through which people fall, and the end-to-end experiences.

We found that the inefficiencies, for example, in bringing offenders to justice, often happened in between different parts of the system. The police would say, “Oh, we arrest them fast”, but then there would be a block in the magistrates court because of the way in which the police perform their functions. If we aligned those services more intelligently, and got them to understand where the barriers were in the next service, we could improve the quality of the whole service.

At the moment, we do not have an inspection regime that can automatically focus on that. Of course, we have joint inspections, which are conducted in the way that clause 21 allows for—a kind of negotiated deal in between individual inspectorate’s fiefdoms. That has produced some excellent inspections such as one on the transport of people between courts and prisons. That good inspection highlighted a number of things that had been ignored. Often, however, those inspections do not produce good results because it is not necessarily anyone’s priority, and it is agreed between silo inspectors. They do not work well automatically or have a drive to get through it.

We believe that we need to try to ensure that inspection remains relevant to service users and providers. The reforms of policing, prosecution, court administration and the management of court offenders that have we have already conducted have been fundamental and wide-ranging. They have been supported by better joined-up strategies led by the National Criminal Justice Board, and at local level by the development of joint working arrangements with local criminal justice boards.

We do not have an independent inspection regime to match those reforms, and to match the achievements that service providers are seeking to develop to provide a unified public response to crime and disorder. A statutory joint secretariat could help with such objectives, and that is why we had the non-statutory one to which I referred. There has been some good progress with joint inspection works, but we want something more ambitious—something that reports powerfully and credibly on the criminal justice system as a whole. We want something that can easily follow the experience of users as they pass through the   system—users who include offenders, victims and witnesses—and that co-ordinates its programming and streamlines its methodology to reduce the additional work that inspection involves for front-line service providers.

We have not discussed that part of the requirement very much, but I think that we all agree that inspection should try to be an aid to improvement rather than a burden on services. It should be a burden on services when they fail to perform, and it should be unashamed about that, but it should also try to operate in a way that helps services, taking a strategic view of where it can make most difference, and thus provide best value for money. It needs to maximise opportunities for efficiency and for pooling funds, skills, knowledge and support services.

If those are our objectives, I do not think that anyone who was given a remit to design a new inspection regime would actually propose five separate inspectorates and a co-ordinating secretariat. Why persevere with the awkwardness of a fractured regime when a unified one could preserve all its strengths and improve its most obvious weaknesses?

The hon. Lady remains to be convinced as to whether we can preserve all the present strengths. She has quoted, in aid, the chief inspector of prisons, but she will notice that the chief inspector retains—in a very inspectorial way—a note more of scepticism than criticism about whether what we have sought to do will in practice retain the excellence of inspection for which she is responsible, without—in her words—diluting it. She refers to the importance of the special duty for which we have provided, and she asks whether we can bottle it, and what will be the risk associated with change. I think that they are two of the most important things.

We have recognised that there is a risk at the moment of change—the risk of taking the eye off the ball—on custodial inspection, which is an area in which services can change quickly without any public awareness. That is particularly the case when there is a large prison population, and it is precisely why we have both kept the special duty, and have allowed ourselves to commence different parts of the new inspectorate responsibilities at different times. In that way, we can ensure that the ability and expertise that exists in the prisons inspectorate can be retained and can operate side by side with the new inspectorate, as it grows.

We think that that will diminish the risk—though it will not eliminate it 100 per cent. Nevertheless, the reform could make things much better. Though I cannot promise it to the hon. Lady—one never can when one is making a change—I genuinely think that by embedding those qualities in the legislation we have very substantially reduced the risk, and at the same time created the opportunity to retain spikiness.

I do not think that legislation can guarantee that we will always have chief inspectors who are sufficiently spiky and able to do the best kind of job, but creating a big strategic inspectorate, which has a duty not only to inspect the system end to end but to set its own inspection criteria and retain expertise, with a special   duty to inspect the conditions of those in custody and given substantial additional powers, is very likely to achieve the desired end. Legislation on its own cannot do that; it will depend on the personnel whom we appoint and the way in which we manage the new system.

It is very probable that we can not only continue the excellence of the prisons inspectorate. My ambition is much more than that: to ensure that we create a quality of independence and spikiness in the inspectorates of all relevant services, which in some cases have not been as powerful for the public and the user as we all feel they have been in the prison service. The prize is an inspectorate system that is at least as good as Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons and has all of its good qualities in all areas of criminal justice, community safety and custody. That is what we are seeking, and the way in which we have constructed part 4 of the Bill should reassure hon. Members that we have a real chance of producing something much better than what has gone before.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

The rationale for the creation of the combined inspectorate puzzles me. As I understood it, it was originally to save money. Back in 2003 the Prime Minister’s Office of Public Service Reform produced a report entitled “Inspecting for Improvement.” It noted that the increase in the cost of public sector inspection had more than doubled from £250 million in 1997 to more than £550 million in 2002-03. Further impetus towards the rationalisation of the way in which inspections were conducted was provided by the Gershon efficiency review.

We should note that the combined inspectorate, the reduction of the number of inspection bodies relating to business from 35 to nine and the reduction in public sector inspectorates from 11 to four were announced by the Chancellor in the Budget last year. The implication was that there would be savings, which was why it formed a part of the Budget discussions, or at least a reduction in unnecessary regulation. That appeared to be the rationale.

However on Second Reading the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety confirmed that the establishment of the inspectorate

“is not about saving money. We anticipate spending the same amount of money, although we may make some marginal efficiency savings.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2006; Vol. 443, c. 690.]

We therefore have the curious suggestion that simply combining the inspectorates will somehow result in a more efficient inspection regime. How will it do so? It is not going to involve any savings, for a start. The regulatory impact assessment states at paragraph 3.2:

“A new independent inspection regime is needed to provide the independent scrutiny required by Ministers”.

Well, we have agreed about the necessity for independent scrutiny. It adds that it is needed

“to retain credibility with the public and inspected bodies themselves”—

we agree about that too—

“as well as an increased focus on outcomes for the service users.”

We agree with those objectives, but it is not clear why a combined inspectorate should meet the objectives better than the existing inspectorates. It is, however, clear that there is a potential loss, in relation to the independence of the prisons inspectorate.

The balance sheet shows on the one hand an uncertain reorganisation, which will not save any money, and, on the other, great concern, expressed by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) and others, including others outside the House, about the potential detrimental impact on the prisons inspectorate, which we have already debated. That is not a very convincing balance sheet. We are relying on a lot of assertion that somehow combining the bodies will automatically improve the inspection regime. I do not see evidence that that will happen, so we are taking it on trust that the regimes will be improved.

The regulatory impact assessment itself conceded that the improvement could, to varying degrees, be made by joint working—further, deeper co-operation between the existing five inspectorates. However, it argues that

“more radical reform is needed to achieve the maximum benefit.”

Radical reform simply consists of merging the inspectorate bodies. That is the extent to which it is radical.

I remain unpersuaded of the merits of the measure and concerned about the implications for the prisons inspectorate. I do not think that there is much more that we can say on the matter now, because we do not have a great deal of information about how the new inspectorate will operate. Much, as the Minister suggests, will rely on the quality of the appointees. Although the regulatory impact assessment suggested that a chief inspector would be appointed ahead of the enactment of the Bill, I do not think that it has happened yet. It is incredibly important that the individual in question should be able to epitomise the independence and leadership that any of the individual inspectorates, and certainly the combined inspectorate, need.

Lynne Featherstone (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Hornsey & Wood Green, Liberal Democrat)

I appreciate the Minister’s response which showed a passionate conviction that the proposals will bring about a better system. The difference is that Liberal Democrat Members are not convinced that the provisions embody any guarantee. Supposing it all goes horribly wrong? How responsive could we be after the fact? As the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs has said, we are asked to take a leap of faith, and at this point I am sure that I cannot do that without being negligent in my duty to those who rely on the quality of prisons inspection.

Derek Conway (Old Bexley & Sidcup, Conservative)

The Minister does not have to answer, but I am happy to call her if she wishes.

Fiona Mactaggart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Slough, Labour)

I was asked some specific questions by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs about what would improve. I shall give him three instances. It would be much easier to track the experience of service users. It is important to focus on that: providing a clear emphasis on the end user’s perspective. A service user does not know whether the   problems that they experience in a system are created by one service or another. At the moment, the inspectorates inspect only one silo unless they have an elaborate joint thematic inspection. The measure will help to produce outcome-focused findings and better, more user-friendly reports.

We will be able to promote improvement across agency boundaries—that is a real challenge for the criminal justice system—by exploring themes and making recommendations that span agencies, encouraging innovation, diversity and the spread of good practice, and discouraging silo working.

This is not a cost-saving exercise, but there will be effectiveness and efficiency gains from pooling funds, skills, knowledge and support services and from the ability to assimilate and continually learn from a wide range of experience. We have consulted on the measure, although one would not have thought so from the debates here, and a number of bodies—local criminal justice boards are foremost among them—are confident that it will produce a better system than the present one.

As I said to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, we have put in place a number of mechanisms to protect us from the risks of everything going horribly wrong. An example is the timing of commencement of different aspects of the measure. That will protect us if there is a risk that we have not predicted.

Nick Herbert (Shadow Minister (Police Reform), Home Affairs; Arundel & South Downs, Conservative)

I want to respond on one point. Paragraph 3.3 of the regulatory impact assessment states:

“Over time, it is likely that inspected bodies ... would lose confidence in inspectorates whose statutory remit was single agency inspection.”

It is alleged that a police force, for example, would lose confidence in the inspectorate of constabulary because that inspectorate had the single remit of inspecting constabulary. Why on earth should a police force lose confidence in an inspection body that is dedicated to and knowledgeable about the performance of the police service? On the contrary, a police force may well lose confidence in an inspection regime that is undertaken by a combined inspectorate that the force does not consider has expertise in the matters affecting that force. I return to my previous point. Many assertions are made about the benefits of a joint inspection regime, but I am not sure that there is much underlying that to give us confidence that the joint regime will necessarily deliver the higher standards of inspection that we seek.