I am grateful to have the opportunity to introduce such an important debate. This is the first time that we have had the chance to discuss the new national offender management service. No one would disagree that improvements must be made in the way in which offenders are managed. That is not to say that some progress has not been made. In their response to the Carter report, the Government had a lot to say about improvements, such as the policies that have been adopted in prisons to deal with mental health and drug abuse. This year, 50,000 prisoners will be subject to clinical detoxification, which is an enormous improvement on what was happening a few years ago. As for education, I think that 50,000 prisoners will gain basic skills qualifications this year.

Significant improvements have been made. The percentage of prisoners who are in work or training compared with a few years ago has improved enormously. We all recognise that progress has been made but there are still some problems. We must bear in mind two key issues: first, the number of people in prison, which is far too high and is still rising and, secondly, the reoffending rates, which do not show any great signs of coming down.

Although there have been improvements, there have been worrying shortfalls in some parts of the country. I am thinking in particular of the probation service in London, which has significant resource problems, and the capability of the service to do the work that it should be doing. I shall cite a recent example. An offender was leaving prison after a fairly short sentence, but there were problems with completing his probation report. No one was available to undertake such necessary work.

Although we shall be discussing the structures of the service this morning, there are clearly resource implications. We must consider what resources are available. The services are overstretched and, if we do not examine resources, we will not solve the problem. In the past two or three years, there has been a tendency not to use the extra money that has been put into the service to fund front-line services. There have been large increases in bureaucracy at national level within the probation service but, as I said, money has not gone into front-line issues.

There are two stated aims of NOMS: first, to punish offenders appropriately and, secondly, to reduce reoffending. As for the structure that is proposed, Martin Narey has been appointed to head the service. There will be 10 regional offender managers. I am not clear why reorganisation is regarded as so important that it must be done quickly by June this year. The regional managers will be in place within the next year, but it has only been three years since the probation service was last reorganised and some of that reorganisation has hardly had time to settle in. That is causing concern to many people who work in the probation service.

There was not any serious consultation with stakeholders prior to the publication of the Government's plans. Patrick Carter did not appear to carry out any consultations with stakeholders or trade unions. I was told in a written answer that he was conducting an independent review, so he was not expected necessarily to consult, and that the Government's response to "Reducing Crime—Changing Lives" would seek views from stakeholders on a number of issues. However, this is what happened. The paper was published on 6 January and the closing date for responses was 3 March, although the Cabinet Office guidelines recommend a standard 12-week period for consultation with key stakeholders. There seems to be a rush to get things through.

It would have been better if there had been consultation before, rather than after, announcements were made. That leaves us with a lot of uncertainty about how the new organisation will work, and I hope that the Minister will deal with that. We are told that one of the key aspects is that the reorganisation is about ensuring that individual offenders are managed right through the system. I cannot see how 10 regional managers will be able to deal with all the individuals concerned. I am unclear about what will happen on the ground. What will be the relationship between people in the Prison Service and people in the probation service? Where will decisions be made about what happens to an individual offender?

Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight): I apologise for not being able to stay for the whole debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with representatives of the Prison Officers Association in my constituency that the consultation did not make it clear whether those who work in prisons will have the same training under the new system as they have under the existing system? If that training cannot be delivered, security in prisons cannot be delivered.

Mr. Gerrard: There is a serious issue about training. I attended a meeting yesterday evening that Martin Narey addressed. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who is on the Opposition Front Bench, and the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) were also at that meeting. Training was mentioned. There is not enough training in general for prison officers; there is a nine-week training period for prison officers. The training period for probation officers is much longer. I hope that that will be addressed. If we expect prison officers to be much more involved in rehabilitation, dealing with reoffending, education provision, drug testing schemes and so forth, there is a case for there to be much more training, regardless of what is happening with the restructuring of the organisation.

There is a lack of clarity about what the plans will mean for staff in other respects. There are issues to do with governance, employment status, collective bargaining and the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981. A part of the proposals involves what is now called contestability. That is a new word that I had not come across before I studied these proposals; some of my hon. Friends might have something to say about what it means. That has serious implications for the employment status of current staff. Naturally, there are concerns about that in prisons—there are suggestions that groups of prisons will be put out to tender—and in other parts of the service.

I was struck by a comment by the Probation Boards' Association about the impact on staff. It commented as an employers organisation on the industrial relations issues that it would need to deal with, particularly during the transition period. It said: 

"An agitated workforce, already threatening industrial action over workloads is in danger of becoming demoralised by the proposals to disband its service and jettison its name. Of equal concern is the likely loss of senior managers who, seeing no future in the new structure, may look for alternative employment at a time when they are most needed to deliver the changes."

Clearly, employers in the probation service believe that, if staff in the service do not receive the reassurance that they need, there may be serious consequences over the next year, before we reach the point at which the new structure should start to operate.

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham): The hon. Gentleman is introducing and laying out his case extremely well. Does he agree that one point made to us by representatives of prison officers is that pay is on average 24 to 32 per cent. lower for those employed in the private sector than for those employed in the Prison Service, and that pensions are between 10 and 13 per cent. more valuable in the public sector than in the private sector? There is real concern among prison officers and their families about the implications of what may be happening with so-called contestability and about the lack of consultation.

Mr. Gerrard: That is absolutely right. When considering pay levels in the different sectors, people will naturally be concerned about what may happen to them if the prison in which they work becomes part of a group of prisons that ends up in the private sector. I understand clearly the rationale for involvement of the not-for-profit sector when we are dealing with community-based sentences, but I am far less convinced by the case for putting large sections of the service out to tender. I remember being involved in such arguments in this place 10 or 12 years ago, when the then Government embarked on the privatisation of prisons.

Another issue on which we need to be clear is the need to create a level playing field, so that public sector bidders are not disadvantaged. The Probation Boards' Association stated:

"The government will need to create a level playing for voluntary and not-for-profit organisations to . . . enable them to participate."

The association also made a rather technical point when it said that

"the current Home Office re-charge system for probation property would seriously disadvantage an 'in-house' bid in probation areas with low commercial property costs."

Those issues must be addressed, so that a level playing field is created.

Another point, which is not part of NOMS in a sense but is critical to its success, is what happens on sentencing. Martin Narey, as head of the service, will be an observer on the Sentencing Guidelines Council, which I think has had its first meeting in the past two or three weeks. However, he will not be a member of the council. If the council does not work and does not lead to changes in sentencing, we will face serious problems in the new structure—indeed, in any structure.

Perhaps the Minister will comment on what messages will be sent about sentencing, because that is the key to bringing prison numbers down. In particular, people should not be in prison doing short sentences that could be dealt with as community-based sentences. One message that came out in the meeting that some of us attended yesterday evening concerned the futility of many short sentences, because people going into prison for a short sentence do not get into drug treatment programmes, education programmes and so on. They end up doing very little while they are in prison. That message needs to be got across, particularly in magistrates courts, where there has been an enormous increase in the use of custodial sentences over the past few years.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): I declare an interest as a member of the Magistrates Association. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister and his colleagues should consider carefully custodial sentences for offences such as shoplifting? The number of people in prison now compared with 10 years ago, when I was last sitting actively, has increased by a factor of 10. That is astonishing. Surely something needs to be done.

Mr. Gerrard: My hon. Friend is right. If I remember correctly, about 1,400 people are in prison for shoplifting, whereas a few years ago there were 100 and something; the numbers have increased by a factor of 10. That is not the only kind of offence that is relevant. Many people are in prison because of unpaid fines and motoring offences. We accept that there are some very serious motoring offences that should lead to a prison sentence, but whether everyone who is in prison for such offences should be there is another matter.

Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West): The best kind of contestability may be to ask magistrates and judges whether they have seen any studies on whether the person they are considering sending to jail would be better disposed of in the community. The one thing that I suspect we all favour—it is one of the purposes for which NOMS was created—is seamless care and control of the person who has been convicted. We all have examples in which someone has come out of prison and the probation service has not managed to look after them. That is as big a concern as having people in prison who should not be there in the first place.

Mr. Gerrard: That is absolutely right. We also need to get the message across that community-based sentences are not necessarily soft touches. I am not sure whether that needs to be communicated to magistrates, but it certainly should be got across to the public. There is an image that, if people are given a community sentence, they are being let off, whereas such sentences can—and should in many cases—be fairly demanding to do.

I know that many hon. Members want to speak, so I will make my final points. With regard to parliamentary scrutiny of the process, it does not appear at all certain that legislation will be involved unless the role of probation boards changes substantially. Another area of uncertainty concerns what will happen to probation boards, which are currently the employers and managers of staff. There are some issues for us about how Parliament will examine the profound changes that are taking place in the rapid reorganisation. The lack of clarity about the detail is causing concern among a number of hon. Members. We do not want to repeat the mistakes that were made in other reorganisations.

As I said at the beginning of my contribution, we all want to see cuts in the number of people in prison and success in preventing people from reoffending. We want to be certain that the new structures being put in place will do that. We do not want to end up with confusion about responsibility, and over-centralisation of services such as the probation service that have been developing well at local level. I hope that the Minister will reassure us on those issues. 

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