Part of Offender Management Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 12:00 pm on 23 January 2007.
Edward Garnier
Shadow Minister (Home Affairs)
12:00,
23 January 2007
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.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
