There is the answer to the Minister’s question and I hope he will take that on board. I know that he will have studied the evidence session that we had a couple of weeks ago.

That suggests to me that we need an intelligent approach to reoffending, but it is not something to which the Government have applied their mind. They are very good at passing Acts of Parliament and very  good at demanding longer and harsher sentences for this, that and the other but what they are not so good at is reducing reoffending. That is why it is important, given the opportunity of the Bill, that providers of probation services should be set the task of explaining what it is that they can do and the Secretary of State should tell them what he expects them to do. If they are not prepared to meet our expectations they should not be given the task.

I do not think that is at all controversial, but I notice that the hon. Member for Ceredigion wishes to amend my otherwise entirely perfect new clause by suggesting the Secretary of State should report annually to Parliament on the nature of these targets and the progress made towards their attainment. Again, the more we know about what the Secretary of State is doing the better. I say that particularly about the present one.