Member

I turn to Amendment 135. There are two aspects to this which were previously explored by my honourable friend Kim Johnson in the other place. First is the call for the Government to give serious consideration to taking electronic monitoring out of the hands of the private sector, which has failed us so badly on too many occasions, and into the Probation Service, where it belongs. As was mentioned at Second Reading, this is a key recommendation from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, arising from its excellent inquiry into tagging. It is common throughout Europe for the probation service to be in operational control of tagging day to day, so why can we not do that here? There may be strong voices in the MoJ saying that it is impossible, that the state does not have the capability to do this, but I urge the Minister to fully investigate the feasibility of insourcing this vital work, examining relevant international experience closely.