Lord Keen of Elie (Con)

My Lords, these amendments were tabled by me and my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. As we have already seen, the Bill introduces new prohibition powers: prohibitions on attending public events, restrictions on entering drinking establishments, restriction zones limiting movement and electronic monitoring to enforce compliance. In principle this all sounds very sensible, but we must again ask the critical question: how will these powers work on the ground? On the prohibitions with respect to drinking establishments, legally the offender must comply but enforcement is then shared. Probation must monitor and the police must act. In practice, this is far from straightforward. How will breaches be reliably detected? GPS or electronic monitoring may indicate proximity but cannot confirm entry. Reporting from licensees or police may be inconsistent. Once a breach is detected, how quickly can probation services respond and are resources sufficient to manage multiple offenders across wide areas? Without clarity, we cannot be confident that these powers will work. That is precisely why Amendments 71 and 76 are tabled. They would require the Probation Service to record and publish breaches, repeat breaches and underlying offences. They also probe the reliability of electronic monitoring. Can GPS monitoring operate reliably in towns, cities and rural areas? Will probation teams receive training to know how and when to respond? As I have said before, we know that probation services are already stretched. Surely new powers that add a substantial responsibility to their workload have to be considered with care. We simply seek clarity as to how these services will be managed in these circumstances. These amendments come from a place of reality, not of opposition. They affirm the Government’s policy while probing whether it can be delivered reliably. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how these powers will operate in practice. I beg to move.