asked Her Majesty's Government:

In what respects their proposals to amend the existing statutory public sector ombudsmen arrangements through the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill will remove from the investigative reach of the existing ombudsman areas of state provision for vulnerable people. [HL1083]

The proposals in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill will amend the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 so as to exclude from the Parliamentary Ombudsman's remit any matter that falls within the complaints or deaths remit of the proposed HM Commissioner for Offender Management and Prisons. That will ensure that there is no question of both statutory ombudsmen investigating the same complaint or death.

In practice, we consider that the amendment to the 1967 Act will make little difference to the handling of prisoners' complaints; the large majority of which are currently made to, and resolved by, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman. Prisoners, those supervised by the Probation Service and immigration detainees will continue, as now, to be able to complain to an ombudsman who specialises in their concerns. The important difference created by the Bill is that that the Commissioner for Offender Management and Prisons will be legally independent of the department and equipped with statutory powers of investigation equivalent to those of the Parliamentary Ombudsman.