§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his answer of 28 July,Official Report, columns 3–4, if he will review the provision of post-release support services for long sentence prisoners whose convictions have been overturned by the Court of Appeal. [13088]
§ Ms Quin[holding answer 6 November 1997]: The support services to which my hon. Friend the Minister of State referred in his reply to a question from my hon. Friend on 28 July, Official Report, columns 3–4, are national and local voluntary organisations which provide help to prisoners on release. It is for those organisations, which are independent from government, to decide what services they are able to offer.
As my hon. Friend also mentioned, probation services are able to help with resettlement problems experienced by released prisoners. Since those who have had their convictions overturned would be free of any ties with the criminal justice system and its agencies, there is no statutory obligation for probation services to provide assistance to people in these circumstances. However, probation services can, and do, provide help on a voluntary basis. Again, it would be for the service concerned to decide what help it is able to offer in the particular circumstances. The Government currently have no plans to introduce any legislative requirements to compel probation services, or any other organisation, to provide support services to prisoners whose convictions have been overturned.