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The Government remain committed to offering all NHS acute and mental health trusts the opportunity to apply for foundation status as soon as practicable. Monitor is now authorising trusts on a monthly basis, and further waves of NHS foundation trusts are set to follow.
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Prisoners: Parole
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Jack Straw) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
The purpose of this Statement is to advise the House as to changes I am making in respect of arrangements my department makes for sponsoring the Parole Board, an executive non-departmental public body (ENDPB).
In its judgment handed down on 1 February in the case ofBrooke, the Court of Appeal ruled that, as a consequence of its current sponsorship arrangements, the Parole Board was not sufficiently independent of the executive to meet the requirements of Article 5(4) of the ECHR. In reaching this conclusion the court acknowledged that the Parole Board had evolved from an advisory body to a judicial body.
The Court of Appeal found that the Parole Board should not be sponsored by the National Offender Management Service as is currently the case and that the Secretary of State should ensure that the sponsorship responsibility for the board was placed in another part of the Ministry of Justice where its independence is not open to question. However, the Court of Appeal also ruled that the status of the board as an ENDPB is not incompatible with independence.
The Parole Board has an important role in determining whether to release some of potentially the most dangerous offenders within the criminal justice system. I fully recognise that its decisions in individual cases must both be and be seen to be free of interference by its sponsoring department.
I have decided not to seek leave to appeal against the court’s findings. Instead I have given careful consideration to how the Parole Board’s sponsorship arrangements should be altered to meet the concerns of the court.
From 1 April sponsorship of the Parole Board will be transferred from the National Offender Management Service to the Access to Justice Group in the Ministry of Justice. Although responsibility for sponsorship of the Parole Board will remain within the ministry, there will be a clear separation between responsibility for the board’s sponsorship and responsibility for the management of offenders.
These new sponsorship arrangements underline my commitment to enhancing and protecting the independence of the Parole Board and I commend them to the House.
Probation Trusts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath): My right honourable friend the Minister of State (David Hanson) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
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I wish to inform the House that from 1 April 2008, there will be established six new probation trusts operating in England and Wales: Dyfed Powys; Humberside; Leicestershire and Rutland; Merseyside; South Wales; and West Mercia. The Government will be continuing to work closely with and support these first six probation trusts in the learning year of 2008-09 as they develop and evolve.
There remain 36 local probation boards that continue to operate in all other areas of England and Wales. The Government are currently assessing the performance of all the local probation boards while considering the implications of wider issues around efficiency and effectiveness. We will continue to learn from, and with, our first probation trusts during this time.
In accordance with Sections 7, 8, and 10 of the Offender Management Act my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Justice has published National Standards for the Management of Offenders; his annual plan for discharging his functions in relation to the provision of probation services; and guidelines for the qualification of officers supervising offenders. Copies have been made available in the Libraries of both Houses and are also available on the NOMS website at www.noms.justice.gov.uk/about-us/OffenderManagementAct/.
Schools: Revenue Balances
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Lord Adonis): My honourable friend the Minister for Schools and Learners (Jim Knight) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
Following my Statement of 30 October 2007 on school finances, the Department for Children, Schools and Families has today published information on the end of financial year revenue balances of all local authority-maintained nursery, primary, secondary and special schools for the year 2006-07.
This information is presented alongside information on schools’ revenue balances for the financial years 1999-00 to 2005-06 published on 15 March 2007. The information is taken from local
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Women: Violence
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Ashton of Upholland): My right honourable friend the Minister for Women and Equalities (Harriet Harman) made the following Statement.
Last July I made a Statement to the House setting out three key priorities for the Ministers for Women. One of these priorities is, “tackling violence against women and improving the way we deal with women who commit crimes”.
We have done a great deal to step up action against domestic violence, sexual offences and human trafficking, but there is more to do. Domestic violence still results in two homicides every week. It not only harms women but has a devastating impact on children. Human trafficking takes many forms and blights the lives of men, women and children in many different continents. Britain is a major focus for the global trade in the sexual exploitation of women by traffickers, who trick or abduct young women and force them into prostitution.
We need to ensure that the substantive law is right and make it clear beyond doubt that domestic and sexual violence against women and human trafficking for prostitution will not be tolerated.
Today the Government are publishing Tackling Violence Against Women: A Cross-Government Narrative. This report draws together work being done across Government to tackle violence against women and responds to the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) coalition's annual Making the Grade survey. The EVAW campaign's work is a valuable part of the work to tackle violence against women, and I welcome both the challenge and opportunities which Making the Grade offers.
Copies of Tackling Violence Against Women: A Cross-Government Narrative will be available in the Commons Library.
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