PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Community Sentence Treatment Requirements - 8 December 2020 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

My hon. Friend is right to raise community sentence treatment requirements as an important area to push, expand and develop. The Government firmly believe that, where someone has mental health problems, or drug or alcohol addiction causing the offending behaviour, treating the causes of the offending is very often a much better sentence than a short custodial term in terms of rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. So we certainly intend to expand the roll-out of these. They operate already in 14 areas and we intend to make sure that half the country is covered for mental health treatment through CSTRs by 2023-24. We are looking at other ways in which we can speed up the roll-out even further.

My hon. Friend asks a good question. CRCs are being transitioned out and the probation service will take over organising this activity, but within that there will be opportunities for private sector, or indeed charitable sector, organisations to bid to provide certain kinds of activity and certain kinds of rehabilitation work via the dynamic framework. We envisage eventually spending about £100 million a year on procuring these services via the dynamic framework. Any organisation, such as the one she mentions, that has something to offer and can help with rehabilitation is, of course, strongly encouraged to bid for those services to make sure we are drawing on the full range of available services as we try to rehabilitate offenders and build a better life for their future and protect our constituents as well.