Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who supported Amendment 1 in my name on 1 July—the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Newlove, and the noble Lord, Lord German. This Bill is about alleviating the hurt that non-disclosure of information causes to families, and it places a duty on the Parole Board to act. In agreeing Amendment 1, this House recognised that victims can experience hurt and anguish because of inefficient and ineffective communications about parole hearings. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is for families to be fully informed and involved in parole hearings about release and, when mistakes are made in the flow of information, how much distress this causes victims and their families.

As the Victims’ Commissioner noted, a sizeable number of victims who qualify for the victim contact scheme decline to opt in. Further down the line, they are shocked to learn that the offender has been released, and they were neither aware nor invited to request licence conditions. That is why this House agreed that the opt-in approach was inadequate and did not work well and that it should be replaced with an opt-out system.

Today I want to put on record my response to the various undertakings given today by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, and the Government. I note their concerns about duplication and I am very grateful, as I am sure many noble Lords across this House are, for the Minister’s assurances. This move forward, with a nationwide rollout of an opt-out scheme for victims, to assess the victim contact scheme as part of a new victims’ code, which will mean that victims and their families will be contacted and receive information unless they actively decline contact, is very welcome news.

While I welcome the Government’s response, I have two questions. First, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, mentioned the trials that the Government have carried out in testing the new referral process. Do the Government intend to publish the results of these trials? Secondly, as the new opt-out system is rolled out, will there be a programme for tracing those victims who have declined to opt in so that they too can receive information about an offender’s potential release and support?

In conclusion, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for her response today. The opt-out system will ensure that victims and their families are informed first about any release of offenders. This update to the victim contact scheme is long overdue and is a huge win for the campaigners—Marie McCourt and the families of the victims of Vanessa George, and the two Members of Parliament who championed the Bill, the honourable Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and the honourable Member for St Helens North. As the Bill moves forward to become law, I hope that the families will find some comfort from knowing that there is strength in legislation and better communication as a result of their campaign.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, want to thank the noble Baroness the Minister for her introduction of this matter this afternoon. It has been a privilege to take part in the passage of this legislation. This is not an area that I normally have involvement with, but it has been a great privilege to work with people having to work in the certain knowledge that what we do cannot be perfect. We cannot, in this legislation, force people who have committed heinous crimes to give information to the victims. But what I think we have managed to do, particularly during the passage of this Bill through your Lordships’ House, is to move the processes on a stage further in favour of the victims to improve the processes and procedures. I say that knowing that, since the last time we discussed these matters, Marie McCourt has had her request for a judicial review turned down and Russell Causley has been released without revealing to his family the whereabouts of his former wife, Carol Packman.

We will never be able to right those wrongs, but all that we can do—and I think we have done in this Bill—is to make sure that the system treats victims in a more humane way than it did before. I am very pleased that the national opt-out scheme will be rolled out. I echo the questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, and I wonder whether the Minister will be able to tell us how the whole system will be kept under review in terms of its impact on the probation service and on the perpetrators of crime, and the extent to which it will play back into assessments of them during sentencing.

The Bill is an enormous testimony to Marie McCourt, who has for many years conducted, with great dignity, a campaign not simply to deal with her own hurt but to alleviate the suffering of the small but significant number of people for whom this is the most horrible issue with which they have to live. In that vein, I welcome what the Government have said today.