Clause 5
Offender Management Bill
9:00 am
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister (Home Affairs), Home Affairs; Harborough, Conservative)
Good morning, Mr. Bayley. In discussing the clause I wish to concentrate on one aspect of the Secretary of State’s ability to spend money. Subsection (1) gives him the power to make payments to a probation trust or
“towards expenditure incurred by any other person for any purpose falling within the probation purposes.”
One of the probation purposes that should concern him and anyone else providing probation services is, as stated in clause 1(1)(c),
“the supervision and rehabilitation of persons charged with or convicted of offences”.
As the Minister will know, the problem of reoffending is caused partly by the innate characters of the people who become defendants in the criminal justice system and partly by the system’s inability to re-educate, or indeed to educate at all, those in its care whether inside or outside custody. As my party discovered during the informal evidence session that we arranged last week, there is a huge absence of speech therapy for people in the care of the criminal justice system. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Wrexham want to intervene?