• Shortly after his election, Luke Pollard raised the issue of privatised probation in Parliament
• The Labour MP said Chris Grayling’s privatisation policy was a “colossal failure” and has put the public at risk and taxpayer out of pocket
• In early 2018, Luke called for an end to the shambles saying “bring back the contracts into public hands”

Luke Pollard MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport had previously called for probation contracts to be brought back into the public sector saying probation could not wait for a Labour Government.

In a Parliamentary debate on probation services in February 2018, Luke Pollard slammed the Government for defending the failure of privatised services and for failing to tackle the root causes of the problem.

Poor probation services have real life consequences and fail to reduce reoffending because of poorly monitored offenders. People in Plymouth saw this first hand with the tragic murder of Tanis Bhandari in Tamerton Foliot back in 2015.

Today, commenting on the news that offender supervision services were being re-nationalised, Luke said:

“The failings of privatised probation are well known and have literally ruined lives in Plymouth. Probation should never have been privatised. This experiment has cost the taxpayer nearly £500m according to the NAO. It has created cruel and difficult working environments for probation staff who have been cut, sacked and resigned because of the drive of private companies to squeeze profit out the system. And perhaps worst of all it has failed the public as it has put profit ahead of properly funded offender management. Why did Ministers wait so long and allow so many lives to be ruined before facing up to the fact that their obsession with privatisation went wrong, as we knew it would? This was a colossal failure and it’s about time the shambles ended.”

Notes:

1. Read Luke’s full speech on probation here.
2. Watch Luke’s speech here.