Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The Bill represents a significant step forward in strengthening both the rights of victims and the way in which our courts operate. At its heart, it seeks to ensure that victims are treated with dignity, compassion and respect throughout the justice process, while ensuring that our courts are able to deliver justice more swiftly and effectively.

I thank all Members of your Lordships’ House who contributed during the debates; the officials for all their support during its passage; and all noble Lords who have given their time and expertise to scrutinising the Bill during its passage through your Lordships’ House and, through their engagement, have strengthened the Bill in the process.

I am especially grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their support for and engagement on the key measures in the Bill. I look forward to continuing to work with them on the recent amendments regarding the unduly lenient sentencing scheme, court transcripts and support for victims of homicide abroad.

I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their informed, thoughtful interventions and the constructive challenges that they have put forward. I look forward to discussing further their recent amendments regarding court transcripts and private prosecutions.

I am grateful for the broad support for this Bill across the House, and I look forward to working on its implementation. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, I am very grateful that the Conservatives have already expressed their thanks for the Bill. We echo that thanks. I welcome the very constructive engagement from all sides of the House. I particularly thank my noble friends Lord Marks and Lord Russell, with whom I have worked closely on victims’ issues for many years. I also thank the House more generally. The timely passage of this Bill is unusual, and I am very pleased that we were able to conduct our business in the time allocated and still come to the end of the Bill and feel that real progress has been made.

This is where I thank the Minister and all her officials because, despite the fact that a number of votes were won on Report—we look forward to continuing to work with her—many of the items we discussed in private between Committee and Report have been resolved to some extent or another. On behalf of all the groups and the individual victims who got in touch, not only now but in the run-up to the Bill, we are grateful for the progress that has been made. That does not mean, however, that everything is done; I and many others will continue to work on those particular issues. From our side, as has already been mentioned, we particularly want to see some movement on court transcripts, homicide abroad and unduly lenient sentences. We are very grateful for the discussions that are already beginning between now and ping-pong.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking on the Motion that the Bill do now pass, I readily start with praise and thanks for my noble friend the Minister for her entire conduct on the Bill throughout its passage in the House. I particularly thank my noble friend for her willingness to hold meetings with us on a number of occasions, despite her very heavy and busy diary.

The Bill does well in strengthening the position of victims in our judicial processes and in strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner. However, there is unfinished business relating to the victims of trafficking of women and girls, particularly related to the provision of sexual services. As I told your Lordships in Committee, the numbers are large. They are not in the hundreds but in the thousands.

As this is Third Reading, I do not seek to repeat arguments made in Committee or on Report. It suffices to say that these women and girls, who are often illegally brought into this country, are in a fraught and difficult position. For example, they are terrified, when they are drawn to the attention of the authorities, that they will be deported. They need our help. Help, I have to say, is not being provided to them either in this Bill or in the Crime and Policing Bill.

The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner produced an excellent report, which I strongly commend to your Lordships. I strongly urge those responsible in the Home Office to read it as obligatory reading. As she rightly says in her foreword:

“Tackling modern slavery is everyone’s business”.


Indeed it is. I recognise, when speaking to your Lordships and to my noble friend the Minister, that modern slavery is in the remit of the Home Office and not the Ministry of Justice, but I ask my noble friend to speak strongly in government of the need to give the victims of modern slavery the support that they are not currently receiving and which they need.