Turns out Gove is the Tory who can be shamed: UK pulls out of £5.9m Saudi jail deal

[muriel_volestrangler]

The UK government has withdrawn from a controversial £5.9m prisons deal with Saudi Arabia, Downing Street has said.
...
The withdrawal follows reports of a cabinet rift on the issue, with Mr Gove said to have angered Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond by seeking to pull the plug.

The Times says the justice secretary wanted to pull out of the deal, saying the government should not be assisting a regime that uses beheadings, stoning, crucifixions and lashings to punish its citizens.

But Mr Hammond warned that cancelling it would not be in the national interest as it would make Britain appear an untrustworthy ally - and No 10 had sided with him, the paper reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34518706

The spokeswoman said: “This bid to provide the additional training to Saudi Arabia has been reviewed and the government has decided that it won’t be proceeding with the bid. The review has been ongoing following the decision that was announced earlier in September to close down the Just Solutions International branch of the Ministry of Justice that was providing some of these services.”
...
In September, Gove announced that he was closing down JSI, telling MPs it was because “of the need to focus departmental resources on domestic priorities”. But, against his own wishes, he had to announce that the Saudi contract bid would go ahead because of the financial penalties involved, but when that reason was amended to Britain’s “best interests” it was widely assumed that Hammond had overruled him.

It has now been confirmed that there was an intense cabinet debate over the issue in July with an exchange of letters between Gove and Hammond, with the justice secretary arguing that human rights concerns should come first and the foreign secretary accusing him of naivety and insisting that “wider interests of the British government” were more important.
...
Corbyn responded to the cancellation saying: “David Cameron has been shamed into a U-turn on this terrible contract, but why on earth was it set up in the first place? We should be sending a strong message to repressive regimes that the UK is a beacon for human rights and that this contract bid is unacceptable in the 21st century, and would damage Britain’s standing in the world.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/uk-ditches-plan-to-bid-for-saudi-arabia-prisons-contract

Good to see it's cancelled, and "the Just Solutions International branch of the Ministry of Justice" closed down. But why was there such a branch of government in the first place, under a government that claimed to be about 'small government', and which privatises everything, including prisons, that it can in Britain?

Just Solutions international: a timeline

2012

According to LinkedIn, NOMS personnel date that their JSi positions started in 2012. One individual, who I will not name here, has on his LinkedIn profile:
...
The JSi web domain was registered on 4 October 2012.
...
On 3 July 2013 JSi is discussed on the PricewaterhouseCoopers blog. Other than (perhaps) LinkedIn pages, this is the first public mention of JSi.

Another example currently sits within the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), which is exploring an option to establish a not-for-profit organisation to market its expertise in Justice internationally. The new operation, Just Solutions International (JSi), will re-invest any surplus into research that supports the work of NOMS.

On 9 October 2013, Grayling refers to JSi in a speech to the World Probation Congress. This seems to be the first mention of JSi by a government minister.

In response to this interest from around the world, we are setting up Just Solutions International – a social enterprise – to enable this service to be delivered in a commercial manner.

http://jackofkent.com/2015/02/just-solutions-international-a-timeline/

[LeftishBrit]

1. What a horrible thing to be involved in, in the first place!!!

For once, Gove did the right thing.

[Ken Burch]

2. Score one for Corbyn.

If any of the others had won the leadership, they'd have unquestioningly backed any deals the Tories made with the House of Saud-just as Blair always did.