Member

My point is that the Government should not aim for perfection in, say, dealing with women prisoners: compassionate release, rehabilitation, education and drug treatment programmes. Have they considered the balance of risk regarding capacity issues? This is the second point I turn to; namely, the pressures on the Probation Service alluded to earlier by my noble and learned friend Lord Keen. The service is now at 104% capacity, and struggles with huge case loads and staff shortages—up to 10,000 as at August 2025. The Bill’s impact assessment estimates that this policy will give rise to a requirement for at least another 630 new full-time equivalent probation officers every year. To deal with the 241,540 individuals currently being supervised in England and Wales, however, we have a service with a full-time equivalent probation officer shortfall of 2,300, despite 1,153 new officers being appointed in the past year.