Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

I want to take up a point touched on earlier my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey. I do so on the basis that repetition may at least somewhat reinforce it.

We come now to pre-sentence reports, and the probation service is crucial in this respect. The Minister was asked earlier about the resources that were available to the service, and he declared that everything was pretty okay because the Government had increased them by 50 per cent. since 1997. I am no expert on the probation service—at least, I have not been since way back, when I was a council leader, and we had yearly reviews of Somerset probation service—but I wonder whether what the Minister suggests is a 50 per cent. increase might in fact be a 50 per cent. increase in central Government funding. There has been a huge change in the service's structure and funding mechanism. Individual services have been amalgamated and are fully funded by the Home Office. There is no longer a local authority component to that, and therefore at least part of the increase might represent a substitution of central Government funding for local government funding, which does not in any way improve the resources available.

We ask an awful lot of the probation service and will ask a lot more when custody plus comes in. Whatever is said about the level of funding and the organisational improvements that may or may not be put in place, the service is often stretched beyond endurance. If we want a fast and effective justice system, we should focus on that weak point. Courts are often delayed simply because they do not have

access to pre-sentence reports or other requirements that the probation service provides. That is not through any lack of diligence on the part of the service, but simply because of the amount of work that officers have to do. I urge the Minister to take back to his Department the point that unless we fund that essential service properly, we shall continue to have bottlenecks in the administration of justice and shall not see the benefits of some of the changes that he and his colleagues are attempting to introduce.

The clause re-enacts existing provisions in the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 concerning when a pre-sentence should be used.

I am acutely conscious of the responsibilities placed on the probation service, the demand for its work, and how the nature of its work has changed as some offenders who would previously have been dealt with by fines—we discussed that earlier—have moved up the system to come under its care. In order to address the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised, the probation service encourages courts, where courts think it appropriate, to ask not for a pre-sentence report, which requires a greater amount of work from the probation officer, but for a specific sentence report, which takes less time but can be just as fit for the purpose of assisting the court in reaching a decision about the most appropriate sentence. If one looks at the different probation areas, one will find that in some areas the courts are more willing to ask for a specific sentence report, which is less onerous in terms of time than a pre-sentence report.

The hon. Gentleman will also notice when we come on to the next clause but one that there is a Government amendment that seeks to assist that process, by making provision for advice to be offered orally in certain cases. That is in recognition of a wish to provide advice to the court as effectively as possible, to assist it in taking a decision about sentencing.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 140 ordered to stand part of the Bill.