PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Probation Service - 11 November 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

We are determined to back our hard-working probation staff by investing up to £700 million by the final year of the spending review and investing an initial £8 million in new technologies to reduce administrative burdens. We will also recruit 1,300 trainee probation officers in 2025-26, in addition to the more than 1,000 we recruited last year.

In July 2024, inspectors rated Cambridgeshire and Peterborough probation service inadequate, with major leadership failures and child safeguarding assessed as adequate in just 28% of cases. The action plan committed to increasing probation officer staffing by 87% by March 2026, but the National Audit Office has now revealed that the Probation Service has underestimated staffing requirements by 34%, which implies that the service in Cambridgeshire has been operating with only half the staff needed. Given that miscalculation, will the Secretary of State commit to revised, accurate staffing targets for Cambridgeshire, and reassure my constituents that child safeguarding will not be compromised as the service tries to manage with inadequate resources?

Cambridgeshire is a part of the country that I know well, having spent seven years of my life in Peterborough. I will look closely at this issue, and I will ask the Prisons Minister to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss how we move forward.

The Probation Service plays a vital role in our justice system, and is integral to ensuring that community sentences are effective and that our communities are kept safe. The Conservatives’ part-privatisation reforms were disastrous for our Probation Service. What are this Government doing to ensure that our probation officers are properly supported in carrying out their vital jobs?

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The decisions that were made under the last Government by the then Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, were catastrophic for a wonderful service, and we are now in the business of rebuilding the Probation Service. I have been very pleased to visit probation workers in Chatham, Kent, and in Islington recently, and one of the things they raise is their caseload. In Kent they were trialling our transformation fund money, which is introducing artificial intelligence that can help them do what they want to do: provide face-to-face contact and reduce their caseloads. I want to see that rolled out across the country.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Currently, if a child sex offender is released from prison, the police and the Probation Service can track them on the sex offenders register, but if a child abuser is released from prison, the authorities have no register to track them with. There is a glaring gap in the system. Paula Hudgell has been fighting to fix the law after her adopted son Tony was abused so badly that he lost his legs. She has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she says this campaign is the fire in her belly. Paula is truly inspirational, and we are backing her campaign. Will the Secretary of State take our amendment or bring forward his own, and get this change over the line for Paula, for Tony and to protect children now and into the future?

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. I can tell him that the Minister for Victims, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), met Paula today and we are keen to support her campaign.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Like much of the justice system, the Probation Service is buckling under the strain after a decade of being undervalued by the previous Government. The injection of £700 million by 2028 was welcomed last year, but it has yet to be felt on the frontline of probation, which is estimated to be 10,000 staff members short. Given that the Sentencing Bill and a presumption against short sentences are bound to put additional pressure on the Probation Service, what is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that the service can work efficiently to properly manage offenders in the community?

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this issue. It was important that we exceeded our target of 1,000 officers last year, and we have to get those 1,300 officers in place. The £700 million must be spent by the end of the spending review. It is important that we bear down on getting AI across the service and that we introduce new technology, because it is only by doing so that probation officers can do what they want to do: get back to face-to-face and personalised care.