A Lords committee tasked with scrutinising secondary legislation has criticised the Ministry of Justice for not mentioning that two companies awarded electronic tagging contracts are subject to deferred prosecution agreements.

On Friday, the House of Lords secondary legislation scrutiny committee said an explanatory memorandum for the Electronic Monitoring (Responsible Persons) (Amendment) Order 2024, laid before parliament last month, was ‘another egregious example’ of setting out legislation without providing sufficient context.

The memorandum states that 'a person may not be made responsible for electronic monitoring of prisoners released on licence unless the person is of a description specified in an order made by the secretary of state', and added Serco Limited as a responsible person.

Aware the ministry experienced difficulties with a previous contract, the committee requested supplementary information.

In the supplementary information, the ministry said: ‘Under previous contracts first awarded in 2005 for electronic monitoring services, Serco and G4S overcharged the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) including multiple times for the same cases and for cases where the monitored person had died. This issue came to light in 2013, contracts were terminated, and the matter was referred to the Serious Fraud Office for investigation. Serco repaid the MoJ £70.5m. In 2019, as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, Serco was fined £19.2m and G4S were subsequently fined £38.5m.’

The ministry said Serco and G4S could bid for new contracts as they complied with the terms of the DPA, had not been convicted of an offence and had taken measures to prevent a repeat of earlier events.

The committee's report states that the order was laid before before G4S’s enhanced monitoring period expired.

Committee member Lord Rowlands said: 'The Ministry of Justice has granted new public contracts to these companies worth over £500m but chose not to inform the House of its previous history with these companies. We find that omission inexcusable... While we received some additional information from the department, the responses provided are still obscure, referring to the firms “self-cleaning” and to MoJ’s “enhanced monitoring” without explaining what that actually means.'

A spokesperson for the MoJ said: ‘These contracts have been awarded following a fair and open process and include far greater oversight than was the case a decade ago. They will allow us to continue delivering our innovative tagging scheme to protect the public and divert offenders away from a life of crime, while ensuring best value for the taxpayer.’

 

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