Earlier this week Emma questioned the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling on the future of probation. Emma told the Secretary of State that concerns had been raised with her about the Government’s plans for Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), which help agencies share information about dangerous offenders so that they can work together to protect the public.
Speaking at Justice Questions on Tuesday, Emma said:
“Local multi-agency public protection arrangements, introduced under the previous Labour Government, have been highly successful in protecting the public from high-level violent and sexual offenders. Concerns have been expressed to me that those arrangements might be centralised, making management of such offenders difficult and putting the public at risk. Will the Minister assure me that the Government do not intend to make that worrying scenario a reality?”
The Secretary of State replied that MAPPA would “remain in the public sector” and would “continue to be subject to local decision-making”, but did not rule out some centralisation of the system.
Labour has repeatedly expressed concerns about the Government’s plans to privatise the probation service, as have professional bodies such as Napo. Even the Ministry of Justice’s own evidence suggests that the proposals are likely to create “an unacceptable drop in operational performance.”
Commenting on the Secretary of State’s response following Justice Questions, Emma said:
“Labour introduced MAPPA to keep members of the public safe from potentially dangerous offenders, and the Coalition Government mustn’t be allowed to weaken those protections. Given the Secretary of State’s plans for sweeping privatisation in the probation sector, it is difficult to take his claim that MAPPA will remain public seriously. He needs to make a strong statement that cost-cutting will not weaken services which are vital to public safety.”