Labour welcomes U-turn on Tory privatisation of probation system

Labour has welcomed the government announcement today that the part-privatisation of the probation sector in England and Wales, implemented by Chris Grayling as Justice Secretary in 2014, will be reversed.

Offender management will be once again undertaken by the state from June 2021, after years of heavy criticism from MPs, inspectorates, charities and other experts who said the privatised system was “irredeemably flawed”.

Last year, the the chief inspector of probation Dame Glenys Stacey said it would be “safer” if supervision of offenders were brought back into public ownership and minister Rory Stewart accepted it was “not working”.

Critics highlighted that private providers were supervising offenders only by telephone, housing needs were not met, and there was inadequate protection for victims when domestic abusers returned to the community.

The private sector will no longer play such a role and the current system is set to be replaced by a “new unified model”, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told MPs in the House of Commons this afternoon.

In response to the statement, Shadow Justice Secretary David Lammy welcomed the move, saying: “It’s a U-turn that we have been calling for for many, many years in this House… This is an important announcement.”

Lammy added: “Just as our NHS must be publicly-run, so must probation services. But the Conservative government’s part-privatisation of the probation service was the deepest privatisation that the criminal justice ever experienced.

“The reforms led by [Chris Grayling] transferred 70% of the work done by the public probation service to private and voluntary sector providers. Coming in 2015, in the middle of a decade of austerity, these were in essence cost-cutting measures.”

The Shadow Justice Secretary concluded: “We are open-minded to the government as it tries to atone for its past sins… The government should not just try to put the clock back.

“It should work with the opposition, work with our unions, work with NGOs and other experts to build a better probation service than we did before. This is how it can make up for its past mistakes.”