I beg to move amendment No. 936, in

clause 264, page 146, line 29, leave out

'an offence specified in Schedule 11'

and insert 'a serious violent offence'.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 1001, in

clause 264, page 146, line 33, leave out '12 months' and insert '3 years'.

No. 981, in

clause 264, page 146, leave out lines 34 and 35.

No. 1000, in

clause 264, page 146, line 35, leave out '12 months' and insert '3 years'.

No. 982, in

clause 264, page 146, leave out lines 42 and 43.

I do not intend to repeat our earlier debate on schedule 11, other than to say that the range of offences that it covers is extremely wide. The hon.

Member for Woking said that, as a starting point, the threshold is fairly low. It is clear that there needs to be consistent and proper management of people who pose a real risk to the community. It is not a supportable contention that all people convicted of offences listed under schedule 11 and who have received a sentence of 12 months or more are likely to pose a genuine risk to the community. This debate is an extension to the argument that has already been advanced, and as such may be considered to be redundant, given that we have lost that argument to the Minister. The mechanism should identify the most serious offenders and not spread the net so wide as to clog up the system with many people who have nothing to do with the safeguards inherent in the Bill.

Amendments Nos. 1000, 1001, 981 and 982 are no more than probing amendments, so we will not push them to a Division. They relate to the issue raised by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) about the threshold that one has to cross to be part of clauses 262 to 264. My judgment is that the persons who should be subject to those provisions should be those who pose a genuine threat to the community in which they live and perhaps work. The more persons in the group, the less attention can be paid to each of them individually.

We should ask which group of people pose a threat to our community and which the community needs to monitor, hence amendment No. 1001, which would mean that the provisions applied to those sentenced to three years or more, rather than only 12 months. I could have equally proposed periods of five years or two years, but I am sure that the Minister will understand those of us who argue that we must monitor serious offenders. Naturally, our instinct is that serious sexual offenders must be monitored by the community and the clause may do a good job in that regard. We feel the same about people who constantly, or even on a one-off occasion, are very violent. As I mentioned in passing in a previous debate, there is a great width to group of people affected, as it includes all those who serve a sentence of 12 months or more. The Minister knows—and I will not repeat this ad nauseam—that the courts pass 12-month sentences a great deal of the time.

A three-year sentence, on the other hand, is serious. People do not get three years unless they have done something very serious indeed. It is the sort of penalty that might be given for a charge of malicious wounding with intent under section 18, or of grievous bodily harm under section 20: that is to say, really serious bodily harm, either caused intentionally or with a slightly different standard of intent.

Actual bodily harm, which is less serious, is an offence in the schedule. In my experience, actual bodily harm is regularly a one-off offence that may be committed within a family or under the influence of drink, and may not happen again. It is not linked in my mind with people who commit serial violence. There is an argument for keeping this to the more serious sentences of three years.

Can the Minister outline what happens in practice to a typical offender? For example, someone is convicted of actual bodily harm in a Crown court and is sentenced to 14 months' imprisonment. The Judge tells him that if he had pleaded guilty he would have got eight, which is the normal discount. He serves a term of imprisonment, but comes out on licence halfway through his sentence and is thereafter under the supervision of the probation service for the balance of his licence. What happens in practice when the mechanism under clauses 262 to 264 is applied? I float my amendment on the basis that we should save those cases for more serious offenders: a level of 12 months is too low.

I recognise the helpful and probing nature of these amendments: they raise an important point with which I hope to assist the Committee. MAPPAs put additional measures in place to ensure that those who are assessed as posing a high risk of serious harm to the public effectively receive extra attention and supervision: that is the principle.

In order to ensure that MAPPAs operate effectively, the net is cast in the way described in the clause. All offenders convicted of a sexual or violent offence who have been sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment or more fall within the potential scope of a multi-agency public protection arrangement. In practice, only a few are formally referred to, and then considered for, MAPPAs, because of the sifting process that I described in an earlier debate.

The bulk of offenders, including those of the type described by the hon. Member for Woking, will be managed by the ordinary supervision arrangements. That would be the case in the particular example that he gave. However, there may be aspects of an offender's background or history that would give rise to concern that they presented a higher risk. That is the purpose of having this trigger which depends on their background or circumstance. For instance, they may have committed some quite serious offences abroad, come to this country and then appeared before the hon. Gentleman for the kind of hypothetical offence that he described. That is why subsection (2)(b), which we have already discussed and agreed, refers to

''other persons who, by reason of offences committed by them (wherever committed) are considered by the responsible authority to be persons who may cause serious harm to the public.''

That casts the net widely. Indeed, it would cover an offender who had committed serious offences abroad before coming to this country. Information about such offences would be brought to the attention of the police and the clause would enable such people to be brought within the scope of the arrangements.

In the main, offenders would be managed on licence after their release from custody. There may be people who are no longer serving a sentence but who are assessed as persons who may cause serious harm to the public because of the offences that they committed. Although that second category of offenders could be quite broad, the police and the National Probation Service work on the basis that it comprises people who

present a risk of harm which is life-threatening, traumatic, or from which recovery, whether physical or psychological, could be expected to be difficult or impossible.

That provides a tight test that would address what the hon. Gentleman said about the level of risk that is presented to the public. Most of the relevant offenders are likely to have committed serious sexual or violent offences prior to the introduction of the 2000 Act, which established the arrangements regarding the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. Those offenders will include some mentally disordered offenders and people from overseas who have the right of residence in the UK.

Clause 262(2)(b) must, through its wording, allow any offender—for example, someone who has committed the most minor offence in this country—to fall within the ambit of the MAPPA if that is thought to be necessary. It certainly does not confine the definition to an offence that was committed abroad. In some ways, that wording makes the wording of subsection (2)(a) unnecessary.

The honest answer is that this is a belt-and-braces provision, and the hon. Gentleman has identified the reason. The purpose of the provision is to try to manage risk, so it seems sensible to draw the net widely in order to give the MAPPA the power that it needs to supervise and oversee individuals who might present a real danger to the public. The MAPPA would apply the sifting process that I described so that we do not end up with the impossible burden about which the hon. Member for Woking was concerned. The provision will enable the MAPPA to focus most of its efforts on those who present the greatest risk.

The Minister's reply is helpful. Does he say that everyone who gets a 12-month sentence should have their cases considered by that group of people? Does he think that the volume of cases will be heavy, and might it not be substantially reduced if the three-year sentence were substituted for the 12-month sentence? It is a question of the burden.

I am conscious of that point. One of the most helpful developments is that the probation service is being enabled to manage the risk. These are indicators. The purpose of schedule 11 is to indicate a range of offences and the purpose of the 12-month trigger would offer, in part, a response to the argument that the hon. Gentleman made, although I recognise that it could be argued that that period could be greater or less. That is also the reason for clause 262(2)(b), which casts the net. The probation service will assess the risk that is posed by the offender.

OASys, which we discussed in a previous sitting, is the new risk assessment tool developed by the probation service. The OASys assessment of an offender will play an important part in future in determining the degree of perceived risk and whether an individual should be placed formally within the purview of the MAPPA or whether they could be managed under the normal licence arrangements.

There is an issue about greater consistency in the application of that assessment, and I referred to that when I talked about the inspectorate assessment of

MAPPAs. The largest issue that the inspectors identified was that different MAPPAs were undertaking the assessment in different ways. That is not surprising because the arrangements are relatively new and people are feeling their way, learning and trying to ensure that they carry out their responsibilities in the most effective way possible. OASys will assist enormously in making the assessment and identifying risk, and after going through the sifting process, the very small number—the critical few—of highly dangerous offenders to whom the MAPPAs will pay most attention will be identified. The high and medium risk group will be managed in several ways and the vast bulk will be dealt with through normal supervision arrangements. That is the sensible way in which to deal with potentially very large numbers in a way that the MAPPA can manage, which was the point made by the hon. Member for Woking.

That was a helpful response, although I am still worried about the range of initial assessments. At the back of my mind, I have doubts about the arrangements as they pertain to a specific area rather than to an individual in the context of the whole country. I also have doubts about how the interlocking facets of MAPPA case management will work in practice.

For example, I understand that a range of maritime offences is included. If a regular offender against shipping or navigation aids—this is a hypothetical case; I am using it only as an illustration—was normally resident in Derbyshire, he would pose no risk to that community. However, that person might make a day trip to the seaside. I am worried about communications, and we should not swamp the system with cases at a low level, because that would not allow for proper management and interchange of relevant information among areas. Such information should allow the proper management of people who are at high risk of causing serious harm to the wider community—wherever that is situated and including abroad, as was mentioned in a previous debate.

I am grateful to the Minister for his comments and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: No. 700, in

clause 264, page 147, line 14, leave out from 'include' to end of line 15 and insert

'a service court, as defined by section 252(1)'.—[Hilary Benn.]

Clause 264, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.