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Bishop welcomes preservation of Prisons Inspectorate

24 October 2006

The Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby, Bishop of Worcester and Bishop to HM Prisons, has welcomed the Government's announcement that it will not proceed with a proposal to merge the Prisons Inspectorate in a ‘super-inspectorate’ covering all parts of the criminal justice system. 

Bishop Peter said, "I warmly welcome the Government's decision to achieve common purpose and shared working among the criminal justice inspectorates by cooperative working rather than structural reorganisation. This achieves exactly the balance of independence for the particular responsibilities of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and of the sharing of insight that we all want to see."

For the last 18 months, church representatives have joined many others working with prisons and prisoners to campaign for the retention of a separate Prisons Inspectorate with a specialist staff and a Chief Inspector reporting directly to the Home Secretary and Parliament.  It was feared that the creation of a single criminal justice inspectorate would lead to the dilution of expertise in inspecting prisons, erode the independence of inspection in an area where rigorous scrutiny is essential, and remove the high public profile of the Chief Inspector of Prisons.  The Government's proposal was defeated during the Report stage of the Police and Justice Bill in the House of Lords on October 10 by 211 votes to 98 and the announcement was made on October 17.