Criminal Justice and Court Services Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:45 pm on 2 October 2000.

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Photo of Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch Conservative 3:45, 2 October 2000

I cannot think of anything more broad and generic than "rehabilitation"; it covers so much of what the Probation Service is about. If the aim is ensuring an awareness of the effect of offenders' actions on victims and the public, and education and rehabilitation are not included, why is the protection of the public and the reduction of reoffending to be included? The reduction of reoffending is not nearly so wide as some of the matters that we suggest should go into the Bill. The Government dance on the head of a pin in seeking to produce arguments as to why the public should not be considered alongside property, the effective supervision of punishment and awareness among offenders of the impact of their activities on the public. What the noble Lord says is baffling.

The Minister also said in passing that the Probation Service is not a social work organisation. When I sat in the Minister's seat I made the same argument very strongly but received no support from his colleagues sitting on this side of the Chamber at the time. The fight to keep social work training for probation officers was vigorously fought in this place on all Benches. I lost miserably on that occasion. The argument was that the work of a probation officer was better served by social work rather than Probation Service training which made it central to the criminal justice system.