Sadiq Khan MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, commenting on the publication of the preferred bidders for the 21 probation privatisation contracts, said:

“David Cameron’s Government is putting companies with little or no track record in criminal justice in charge of dangerous and violent offenders.

“There’s been no testing or piloting to see if this will work and won’t put the public’s safety at risk, and all of the concerns of Labour, experts and probation staff have been swatted away. It’s also unacceptable that Ministers are going out of their way to tie the hands of future governments to multi-billion pound contracts for ten years.

“This Government’s reckless and half-baked privatisation has resulted in a meltdown in probation. Dedicated and experienced staff are demoralised or are leaving the profession, offenders are going unsupervised and this chaos is putting the safety of communities up and down the country at risk.”