Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

19: Clause 2, page 2, line 36, at end insert—
“(5A) Regulations under subsection (4) must make provision for a person to be able to obtain free of charge, on request, a transcript of the court’s summing up and sentencing remarks from a trial in which—(a) the person was a victim of a crime, and(b) that crime is tried in a court where the hearing is recorded.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment will provide all victims with a right to free transcripts of the sentencing remarks and the judge’s summing up where the trial takes place in a court where the hearing is recorded.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 19 in my name was originally proposed by my honourable friend Sarah Olney MP in another place. It highlights a scandalous failure towards victims, especially in the most serious crimes such as rape, serious sexual assault and stalking. It is completely unacceptable in this day and age that victims are forced to pay thousands of pounds to access a transcript of their own case while defendants can access them as part of their basic rights.

Let me quote:

“Accessing transcripts from proceedings in serious criminal cases is not only a fundamental right of victims but is also essential for maintaining transparency and accountability within the justice system”.


These are not my words, or Sarah Olney MP’s words; they are the words of the Government’s own Minister, Mike Freer.

In order to recover and cope, victims and family members need to be able to understand the reason a verdict has been reached, or the reason a certain sentence was imposed. Without this, many are left traumatised and are unable to move on with their lives. We have heard from many victims, saying they are constantly advised by the police and prosecutors not to attend a trial after they have given their evidence and, worse, not to attend sentencing hearings. Letters from the witness care unit literally capitalised the word “NOT” in “You are NOT required to attend”. Furthermore, videolinks to observe trials are rarely offered or facilitated for victims or bereaved families.

Unfortunately, the Government have cited the cost of court transcripts delivered through contracts with private, profit-making companies, and these prices can be prohibitive. With that, we agree. While the average sentencing remarks may only be £45 to £60, according to the Government, many complex cases can be significantly higher just for these comments—up to £200. The judge’s summing up can be higher still and we have heard of figures of over £500.

We are very grateful to the Government, and to the Minister particularly, for the meetings we had since Committee. We note that there is a pilot proposed. While the pilot proposed by the Government is welcome for these victims, it simply does not go far enough. It would, for example, not support the mother whose partner attempted to murder her and who is unable to move on. The pilot is very narrow in scope, running only for one year, only applying to victims of rape and serious sexual offences, and only giving access to sentencing remarks. Furthermore, we are not quite sure that the Government are clear on what they are hoping the pilot will achieve or demonstrate. We have discussed, with the Minister, the issue about data, and that remains an issue.

Ministers have suggested that transcripts are expensive to produce manually and the technology to automate the process is either expensive or not yet up to the standard. We do understand this point from the Government. This is why my amendment has been tabled, following discussion in Committee. Automation of the process at this stage would be needed only if the cost of producing transcripts was beyond the reach of government. In limiting this amendment to only sentencing remarks and summing up, we believe the cost, while prohibitive to many victims individually, is able to be taken on by the Government to provide open justice.

In conversations, the Government have questioned whether sentencing remarks really present a barrier. We know that they do, and I will give two very brief examples in a minute. Ministers have, on at least two occasions, said victims can go to a Crown Court and listen to the relevant audio recordings from the trial but may not record it themselves or transcribe it. This is wholly impractical, unknown among professionals, and we have never seen it happen once in practice. Having spoken with members of the judiciary, they were unaware that the practice even existed. The victims we are aware of who have tried to access this have all been denied.

The Minister has also previously stated that, in certain cases, a copy of the sentencing remarks can be made available to the public free of charge at the judge’s discretion. If this is true, members of the judiciary whom we have talked to are also unaware of this. We are certainly aware of some cases where they have been refused.

Here are two very brief cases. Juliana Terlizzi was quoted thousands of pounds for a transcript of her trail, and said:

“The trial was a culmination of almost two years I had fought to bring a dangerous, prolific sexual predator to justice. I was shocked to find out that I had to pay over £7,000 to get the transcript and I knew I couldn’t afford that”.


Rowan, whose daughter went through a gruelling court experience said:

“My daughter remains traumatised by her two days on the witness stand where she was character assassinated by the defence barrister.”


To prove the defence acted outside their own code of conduct, the family needed a copy of the court transcript and was quoted £22,000. This puts justice beyond the reach of victims.

There are other victims as well whom I have met and talked to: Charlotte, David, Victoria, Lily and Rosie. Those are not all their real names, because some of them are too scared to have their names mentioned. I particularly thank Claire Waxman and her team at the London Victims’ Commissioner’s office.

I have also signed some other amendments in this group and will be very brief. I have signed Amendments 57 and 59 on collaboration and adding stalking to the duty to collaborate. I have also added my name to Amendment 66 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, on supporting a parliamentary report, once every three years, setting out the position regarding stalking. Importantly, I have also signed the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester’s Amendment 70, about the Secretary of State including statutory guidance on sustainable, multi-year contracts. One of the big problems we have with victim services at the moment is that there is nothing in the medium term, let alone long-term planning.

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Finally, I echo the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Meston—which was also made to me in Edinburgh two weeks ago by senior members of the Scottish judiciary—that in some cases involving sexual offences you have to be very careful about the dissemination of transcripts. That is another aspect to a not entirely straightforward question. I think I have replied to the points raised.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this group, and particularly the Minister for his response. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for his clarification of which parts of the court process are concerned. I was quoting both the judge’s summing up and judgment as well as the bigger costs for a wider trial transcript. I was trying to make the point that it can be asked for now but it is entirely at the judge’s discretion whether it happens and therein lies the problem, which is why we find ourselves here.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for his help. He said: why can sentencing not be shared? I think that is one of the key points here.

I am very grateful to the Minister for his explanation but the difference between my amendment and the pilot is that the pilot remains at the judge’s discretion, which means that it becomes very difficult to collect any data on the efficacy of allowing victims to have these decisions at the point of judgment.

I was very moved by the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, relating to Amendment 57 —which I did not comment on earlier—and if the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, wishes to test the opinion of the House, these Benches will support her.

I believe that victims need to see progress in this area. I recognise that my amendment is not what they really want but it would be a step forward and, on that basis, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is important to acknowledge that we need to improve the kind of data collection that we have. This is a really good idea, and I would like it to be pursued. I have an amendment later on consistency of data. One of the things I felt when I was looking at the issues was that, too often, victims are not counted properly. We know that there is a range of ways to produce crime statistics: discussions about victims can be very emotive and subjective. The more accurate information we have and the more rationally collected it is—a point was made about common sense—the better it is for society, so that it cannot be turned into a political football. We would know exactly what was going on, so that the right kind of research and resources could be allocated. I would like to hear from the Minister some ideas about at least being open to this and experimenting with it. It is eminently worth exploring further, and I would like to hear a positive response.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I spoke in Committee on this issue, and I continue to offer our support from these Benches. I will not repeat the detail of what I said, but through the passage of the Children and Families Act we had to make sure that there was specific identifying data to link up children who were having to access services in more than one department. That picks up very much on a point made by the noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Russell, about the complexity of data.

There has been a really good period between Committee and Report in which the Minister and other Ministers have made themselves available for discussing lots of these amendments, but the main problem is that we do not have a lot of data about victims. We have plenty of data about crime, but we just do not understand victims’ experience through data. One of the side benefits of the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is that having that unique identifying number will create automatic access to make assessments, while protecting GDPR. I have spoken about that on other Bills, but it is important. I hope that this Government and any future Government will assess this as a key part of better services for victims, because we will better know and understand who they are.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing this amendment. As he said, we had a helpful discussion on this proposal in Committee. The unique identifier for victims is a good idea and may well solve a lot of problems. As he said, why not harness this Bill to do it?

I will briefly repeat a point I made in Committee. I strongly suspect that this is a more difficult problem than it might seem on the surface, given that there are different computing systems in different parts of the system and different ways of collating data. It is a problem. I am well aware of the shortcomings of data retention within the wider criminal justice system. When I sit in a magistrates’ court, I see the PNC for offenders; very often, they will have multiple dates of birth and names. One only hopes that one is dealing with the same individual as recorded on the police national computer. There is a single identifier for the offender, but there may be a fair number of errors in there as well.

Nevertheless, it is a good idea. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, said that it has the virtue of common sense; I almost thought he was going to say that it has the vice of common sense. It needs to be considered carefully. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, we want to hear that the Government are taking this seriously and that there is a programme in place to look at this seriously and try to help victims through this mechanism.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has spoken. This was an issue that I came across only when preparing for Second Reading. I do not want to repeat her arguments, and I could not make them as well or as thoroughly as she has, but I was shocked to discover the problems that have arisen in connection with counselling and advice. I also support the firewall amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We have been here before many times, have we not?

Last week the previous Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, speaking to the committee reviewing the Modern Slavery Act, raised the interesting position of one law enforcement sector withholding information from, or not sharing information with, another law enforcement sector. She came to her conclusion, but I did not read her as having reached it entirely easily. I reached the conclusion that there should be a firewall for the reason put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher: imbalance of power—that is what it is about—between a victim and somebody to whom material is made available for abuse. These are very vulnerable victims. I have circled words such as “later this year” and so on, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned. I will not repeat them, but it would be good to make some progress on this issue.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my honourable friend Layla Moran laid an amendment about the ending of non-disclosure agreements that prevent victims disclosing information to the police or other services, including confidential support services, ensuring that they cannot be legally enforced. She has campaigned on this issue for some considerable time. She and I both thank the Minister for the progress in Amendment 76, which is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. It certainly will help some victims access the support they need, but we on these Benches regret that this is not enough to fully give victims their voice back. We still need a complete ban on the use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying to ensure that no victim is ever silenced. We will campaign on this in future but appreciate the step forward that has been made in this Bill.

I have signed Amendments 87, 88, 89 and 94 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I also thank the Minister for the meetings, his Amendment 76 and what he said in introduction—I agree with the response by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, talked about third-party data requests, and again it was a privilege to be involved in those meetings. I thank her for her comments and her remaining concerns. She is absolutely right that it does not take us further forward enough.

Finally, I signed Amendment 96 from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on the immigration firewall. My noble friend Lady Hamwee was absolutely right: we have been here before. I was just thinking about amendments during the passage of the Illegal Migration Bill, the safety of Rwanda Bill and, I suspect, the Nationality and Borders Bill before that—yet we are not making progress. It is very unfortunate that the Government have gone backwards since the Modern Slavery Act in the protection of these particular victims. I know that across the House we will continue to push for ensuring that the loophole is closed.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is really a pleasure to respond to this group from these Benches, because there is real progress. It is important to record thanks to everybody who has made this progress happen. I very much welcome the clarification that the Minister has made in Amendment 76. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is quite right, though, that this is a first step. Indeed, today a useful brief was sent to me and possibly other noble Lords from the Bar Council, which makes the point that the issue of non-disclosure agreements is ripe for legislative change. The Bar Council welcomes the Government’s intention to implement legislative reform and recognises that some NDAs are abusive in nature. NDAs cannot cover criminal acts, and under existing common-law protections many are already unenforceable, but those who are asked to sign them are not always aware of the relevant legal principles. When you have the Bar Council and everybody else on your side, you know that this is an important first step.

On the Government’s amendments, I welcome Amendment 85, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, welcomed it. I thank the Minister and his team for listening and for bringing forward this amendment, which was aired in Committee very powerfully indeed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins and Lady Newlove. Then, of course, there is a suite of amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I was very pleased to be able to support these in Committee. These Benches are absolutely in favour of them; they have the support of the whole House. I know from the very long time ago when I was a Minister how much work goes into getting to this place. I congratulate the noble Baroness and say how much we are in favour of these amendments.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, is absolutely right to be disappointed about the Government not accepting Amendments 87A and 88A. It is probably clear that we have not come to the end of this. The noble Baroness is quite right in nodding to say, “We have definitely not come to the end of this discussion about what needs to happen to support victims with requests for dealing with digital and other information, and providing the right kind of safeguards for them”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is right, and she has our Benches’ support for her amendment. If there were to be a Division on this then it would be next week. Between now and then we need to look at what the Minister has said to see if we can push him a bit further than he has gone, and then maybe we could avoid that, but the noble Baroness needs to know that she has these Benches’ support, and probably that of the Liberal Democrats, if we need to take the issue further. All in all, we have made great progress.

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I support Amendment 92. Much of what it seeks to achieve is or ought to be covered by the relevant practice direction in the Family Procedure Rules. As I said in Committee, it is sometimes quite difficult to discover what the state of the investigation has been and what bail conditions apply. It is therefore quite difficult to align bail conditions with orders required by the family court. Nevertheless, I support the amendment because it will, in practice, assist the courts.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 80, 83, 91 and 92, and I support Amendment 84 as well, although I have not signed it. I will not repeat everyone else’s comments, but I support virtually all of them—though I might take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on a couple of minor details about why amendments have been laid.

I will make one point about Amendment 91 that nobody else has made. The very helpful briefing that we received from the Association of Clinical Psychologists and the Law Society Gazette this week set out the technical anomaly that exists with regulated psychologists. The position of the regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council, is that it wrote to the director of workforce at the Department of Health and Social Care to highlight risks presented by unregulated psychologists, including in relation to the provision of expert evidence. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that it was writing in a broader way than just for the courts.

In the landmark case of Re C, the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, determined that the courts could not prohibit the appointment of an unregulated person who called themselves a psychologist as a psychological expert because there is no regulation of the term “psychologist”. The way round this would be to take this amendment, to make it absolutely clear. However, there are slightly broader issues that the Government now need to look at, not just from the courts but the wider health system, to make sure that those who are bound by the HCPC are the ones who are regulated to work in these areas—nobody else should be permitted to do so.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, although this has been a relatively short debate, it has been quite comprehensive. All noble Lords have spoken with brevity about these sensitive issues.

I will highlight two points. First, I pick up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, about how any order made by the Crown Court should automatically be reviewed by the family court. That was a useful addition to the amendment, although I suspect my noble friend may be pressing the amendments as they are. Nevertheless, I thought it was an insightful point.

My other point about Amendment 91, on psychologists and people with professional expertise, is that the problems extend beyond experts. In family courts, I see McKenzie friends who clearly have their own agendas, and it is an issue with which one has to deal—but that is a tangent to the main points in these amendments. If my noble friend chooses to press her amendment, we will of course support her.

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[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 90, which provides for the relaying of information to schools. Schools need accurate and prompt information about what is going on. They need to know, and understand, what is happening, or what is suspected. Therefore, I welcome the amendment. It is almost as important as the information going the other way—that is to say, schools relay information to local authorities and, where appropriate, to the police.

I am afraid to say that there are a few cases I have come across where schools, or individual members of school staff, have been reluctant to get involved in child abuse cases, or where there is suspected child abuse. Albeit this amendment provides for the information to pass the other way—from the authorities to the school—if it serves to do anything it may well encourage the passing of information in both directions.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, we also welcome Amendment 90. I want to add one other issue though. It is very much a one-way system, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has announced, and I ask whether the noble Earl will write to me, the noble Lord, and any noble Lords who speak in this group, to report on the Government’s progress on the recommendations that they have accepted following the independent inquiry into child sex abuse. Recommendation 13 is about the need for mandatory reporting, and the Government said, over a year ago, that there would be a full public consultation beginning with a publication of a call for evidence. I have seen neither, but, more importantly, I want to know when we can—perhaps through this Bill—have something going the other way, as the noble Lord so rightly pointed out.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a genuine question. Of course, I support the amendment, but the wording here is

“if a member of the force has reasonable grounds to believe that a child who resides in the police area may be a victim of domestic abuse”.

If there is a situation where one of the parents calls the police, and there is what is called a “call-out”, that will be recorded, and that sort of information is made available to courts in particular circumstances. But would the child be seen as a potential victim of domestic abuse because the parents have made that telephone call because of a dispute between the parents?

Nevertheless, I support the duty to notify, but I wonder whether the Minister can answer that specific question.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, we discussed this in Committee. Since then, a decision of the Court of Appeal comprehensively rejected the rather eccentric argument that a child is not a person. In fact, reading that judgment, it is quite clear that there was never any doubt that a child is a person. The Oxford English Dictionary definition, which was quoted, defines a person as:

“An individual human being; a man, woman, or child”.


The purist would say that this amendment is unnecessary, but I suggest thinking about it a little more deeply, and that the arguments we have heard in support of the amendment, which makes it clear that children are individually and separately covered by the Bill, should ultimately carry the day.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, as we begin Report, from these Liberal Democrat Benches I thank the Minister and his fellow Ministers for talking to noble Lords in the short time between Committee and the commencement of Report. We understand that this has been difficult during the Easter Recess, but it has been extremely helpful to hear the Government say where they are and are not prepared to make some progress on closing the gap between themselves and others across this House on this important Bill.

This group, as has already been outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and other noble Lords, relates to the importance of ensuring that child victims are recognised as having different needs and services available to them under the victims’ code and this Bill. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, echoes that made in Committee specifically changing the definition of victim to “any adult or child”.

Amendment 21 and others tabled by the Minister choose a different definition:

“victims who are under the age of 18 or who have protected characteristics”.

I am grateful to the Minister for that addition because, as somebody with a protected characteristic—in my case, a disability—it makes it clear that age alone does not cover some of the particular vulnerabilities faced by those with protected characteristics. In this case I am thinking of those over the age of 18 with an intellectual disability, who may need a heightened level of support under the code. However, there is a broader point that we welcome from these Benches. Under the terms of the Equality Act 2010, those with protected characteristics have enhanced rights in relation to crimes against them, because of their protected characteristics. We welcome that. Can the Minister explain why the government amendments are phrased the way they are and why the Government are therefore still resisting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell?

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I spoke extensively on including such a provision on children in the Bill because of the information I received from children’s charities, which explained to us the importance of including it. It is vital for them in their work, and I trust what they say. The Minister has been extremely helpful in moving this forward. Having children at the forefront, as I said, is vital, and I hope the Government will accept the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell.

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[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to Amendments 5 and 8, to which I have added my name. One of the things that has changed hugely over my adult lifetime is an understanding of just how lifelong traumatising events that take place in childhood are. For that reason, we need to be very clear and careful when working with children.

In the current legislation, there are the things on the statute book that refer, in different places, to child criminal exploitation, but the definitions given there are not consistent. In the previous debate, the Minister very wisely spoke about the need to have materials that are clearly understandable by children, but we need to be equally clear about when a child falls under the terms of this Bill as somebody who ought to receive support because they are a victim of child criminal exploitation. At the moment, the conflicting definitions in other bits of legislation do not give us that clearly enough. Therefore, I urge your Lordships to support the amendments, which will give us a clear definition that will help to support children. Even if just one or two children fall through the net as a result of not having a clear definition, their lives would be scarred worse than they would be otherwise—and for ever.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 7 in this group and have also signed Amendments 3 to 5 and 8. I will refer to Amendment 7 and then briefly cover the others.

My Amendment 7 is similar to the one I tabled in Committee. I thank the Minister for arranging for Restitute CIC, which is championing the amendment, and me to have a meeting with his officials, and for his recent letter to me. I am disappointed that the Government are not going further by producing their own amendment, but I hope that there will be recognition soon that family members who relive the experience of their loved ones, as they help them to recover, may actually be victims themselves. Many have had mental health support themselves and have had to give up work. Often, other family relationships have been fractured, and the lives of all involved have been completely and utterly changed. I am disappointed by the lack of progress and feel that this is something that will keep coming back to bother Ministers as more Bills come down the line in the criminal justice area.

We have heard some very moving contributions on Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, on homicide abroad; a similar amendment was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, in Committee. I also thank the Minister for his extremely helpful meeting. We really need to support this amendment because the sort of service that the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, described, which was set up specifically for one particular tragedy, is absolutely vital. We heard from officials that, in theory, the arrangements are in place through co-ordinators to make sure that those links are made. But in practice, without formal guidance for every single department that victims will come to, there are far too many holes and victims’ families are absolutely not getting the help that they need. I hope that the Minister will consider that in future.

On Amendments 5 and 8 on child criminal exploitation, I remind your Lordships’ House that Home Office data from 2023 sets out that more than 7,000 referrals relating to children have been made to the national referral mechanism, the framework for identifying potential victims of modern slavery and criminal exploitation. That was an increase of 45% since 2011. The most common reason for referral was criminal exploitation. However, the problem is that the lack of a legal definition means that there is no effective data collection across the UK; there is a patchwork of data, which includes just the tip of the iceberg. A statutory definition of CCE is essential in ensuring a consistent understanding of and response to child criminal exploitation across the country by all agencies and sectors. Crucially, the experts think that will help to identify exploited children more quickly.

I turn now to anti-social behaviour. We have not heard yet from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, but the very moving speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, in Committee set out the reality of the devastating consequences of repeated and escalating anti-social behaviour. I will not repeat what has already been said today in your Lordships’ House, but we on these Benches will support the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, if he wishes to test the opinion of the House.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I will first address Amendment 2, which was so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I picked up from the debate on Amendment 2 the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, about the lack of appropriateness of existing protocols and how they have been designed for a specific situation, whereas in fact murders abroad happen in a huge variety of situations, for all the reasons that she outlined. I think what the noble Baroness was really asking the Minister was that he undertakes to encourage the Foreign Office and other affected government departments to better devise protocols to deal with these situations. I think that was the meat of the argument we heard regarding Amendment 2.

Amendment 3, which is in my name and which has also been spoken to by other signatories to it, is the anti-social behaviour amendment. I too remember the very poignant speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, in Committee. Again, I know that the Minister is sympathetic to this, but there needs to be a step change on the Government’s behalf in acknowledging the cumulative effect of anti-social behaviour, both criminal and non-criminal, and how this can be cumulatively assessed to make sure that the appropriate services are utilised for the victims of anti-social behaviour.

There was a particular question which I did not get an answer to, about the use of callouts by the police of non-criminal anti-social behaviours and whether those callouts, which are recorded by the police, can be used in prosecutions to try to build a picture when assessing a particular case which is brought to court. I made the point to the Minister that this approach is used in domestic abuse cases, as well as in family law cases, as I regularly see. I just say to the Minister that this could be used, first, to increase the likelihood of getting convictions but also to demonstrate that the country and the police are taking this behaviour very seriously, doing something and putting in specific measures to try to crack down on anti-social behaviour—and I have to say that I will seek the opinion of the House on Amendment 3 in due course.

Amendments 5 and 8 deal with child criminal exploitation; Amendment 8 is the definition of child criminal exploitation. A number of noble Lords made the point about the variability of definitions in different parts of government. The particular example I have here is that there is a working definition in the Home Office, in the Working Together guidance, a separate definition in the national referral mechanism, and there are other definitions in other parts of government. The point which a number of noble Lords and the right reverend Prelate have made is that, if there is a single definition, it will make the working response more effective. In addition, there is the point which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made, which is that it will make data collection more effective as well.

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I am not at all sure that the proposed amendment would much help with collecting data. There is no separate offence of child criminal exploitation; the data is collected under the particular offences, whether that be misuse of drugs or modern slavery or whatever, rather than under a separate heading of “child criminal exploitation”, so I am not sure that, at this stage of our reflections, the data point necessarily takes one much further.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I was trying to make the point that the noble and learned Lord has started to make: there are lots of different agencies involved, and they do not collect the same, consistent data. Something on the face of the Bill would ensure that the data was consistent and would help everybody.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

Again, that is going a little bit further than either the amendment or the Bill as it stands, because the collecting of data in this area is a very complicated task, and we know that collecting data in general is quite tricky. What I am saying is that I am not entirely convinced at the moment by the argument put forward by the noble Baroness. In all respects, the Government consider that the amendment would not really take things further. Extending the definition of a victim is unnecessary because the issue is already covered.

I should say a word about the county lines problem. A full county lines programme has been in operation now for some years. The figures I have are that we have had 16,000 arrests and 9,000 safeguarding referrals. The Government are working very hard on dealing with the county lines problem, and there is special support through the county lines programme for children involved in that. It is clearly a difficult area, but it is not that nobody is tackling it. Would the amendment take the issue forward particularly in the county lines situation? I respectfully suggest that that is doubtful. So that is the Government’s position on child criminal exploitation.

On homicides of British nationals abroad, again the Government are entirely sympathetic to the various points that have been made. On a point of detail, since we are talking about what the victims’ code should cover, if the perpetrator of the murder is another British national, then that can be an offence triable in this country and it would trigger the application of the victims’ code. But most of these cases will be where the perpetrator is not a British national, and it seems reasonably clear that, where the offence or murder or homicide is in Ecuador or Peru or South Africa or wherever it is, large parts of the victims’ code by their nature will not be applicable. The various rights to information, the various rights about prosecution decisions and the right to make a personal statement would all, by the nature of the situation, not apply. From a quick look at the victims’ code, rights 1 to 3 and 6 to 11, for example, just would not apply. I think that leaves, essentially, right 4, which is the right to victims services. At the moment, the support available is provided by the Homicide Service, which in the United Kingdom is provided by Victim Support, a most excellent organisation, to which the Foreign Office can refer victims.

So there is already, by proxy, support for victims of homicide abroad, but I think that the complaint is that it is not sufficient. Hearing that complaint, the Government, as we develop the new victims’ code, will review the information provided for bereaved families of victims of homicide abroad so we can be clear what the entitlements of families are. The NPCC, the FCDO and the MoJ have committed to working together to explore separate guidance, to be referenced within the code, specifying the roles and responsibilities of each department and their services. That would act as a public commitment on how they will work together to support bereaved families and, I think, provide the consistent protocol—to use the words that were being used some moments ago—to assist families in this very difficult position.

Finally, in relation to the amendment regarding carers—

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[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is pretty much an understatement to say that it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, the Victims’ Commissioner. She and my noble friend Lady Lawrence of Clarendon are very special Members of your Lordships’ House, if I may say so, for their extraordinary superpower and ability to turn experiences that no one should have to endure into a subsequent lifetime of public service, for which I think we are all very grateful.

I will take my lead from the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I do not think it is a secret that my many amendments in this group were tabled with her blessing and that of the London Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman. I am also grateful to a number of victims’ groups and NGOs for their support of these amendments.

This is Report, not Committee, and we have had a long day, so I do not want to trouble noble Lords for too long, but I am grateful to the Minister and his team. Petty France may have shown Marsham Street that it is possible to engage just a little—half a loaf is better than no bread. Of course, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, and I are going to disagree about the extent to which government amendments to this part of the Bill are a huge step in the right direction, but they are a step. I thank him and his team, including those who are not in your Lordships’ Chamber. This is the way, perhaps, that we ought to try to do legislation.

The motive behind my many amendments was to try to put victims’ rights on a proper statutory footing and to make them equivalent to suspects’ and defendants’ rights. Divide and rule is a really bad thing, and for decades Governments of both persuasions have sometimes been able to be in an arms race where victims’ rights are set against defendants’ rights. As the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, put it so eloquently yesterday at Questions, if you treat a suspect badly and delay justice, that is justice denied. The same is true for victims, and for some years now we have told victims that they have rights and a code, but those rights have been totally unenforceable and that is not fair. That false expectation has caused enormous trauma and concern.

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, for moving things on just a little, but I hope that a future Government of any persuasion will go further still. I hope I am not dishonouring the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and letting her down in saying that. I can say thank you for what has been achieved but still be more ambitious for change.

The justice department has, I think, had the biggest cuts of any department in recent years. To deliver rights for victims takes resources and investment. Sometimes with suspects’ and defendants’ rights, you can deliver something by holding back, but when it is victims’ rights you really need to invest in the different entrances—in the staff of any criminal justice agency who will be there and so on. I am so grateful and do not want to seem churlish, because this is something, but I hope that it is the building block for further reforms so that we can have a level playing field.

Finally, I remind noble Lords that suspects’ rights came from a Conservative piece of human rights legislation: the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Given that both parties often compete for the law and order agenda—forgive me, I should say all parties—it seems odd to me, as a human rights campaigner of many years, that we would entrench and codify suspects’ and defendants’ rights in a way that we have yet to do for victims.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I start by referring to Amendment 16 from the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir. I will not repeat the points she made but she emailed me just prior to us starting this evening’s debates on Report. I am interested that she notes that this is a loophole caused by us exiting the EU. I have immense sympathy with the amendment. If it is a clear anomaly caused by us exiting the EU, I remember considerable debate on the retained EU law Bill about what to do when things were discovered. Ministers said on more than one occasion that in the EU withdrawal Act there is something called the correcting power, and that that can be used to correct any anomalies, providing they are not the Government’s whim because they have changed their policy on something. I do not know the detail because I have not seen where the loophole has come from, but it seems to me, on the amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, has described, that if this is caused by our leaving the EU then there is a remedy of legislation. Perhaps the Ministry of Justice will take that away and look at it, and the Minister will write. It can be done quite simply in most cases by regulation, which is why the retained EU law Bill took such a long time to wind its way through Parliament—I worked on a lot of those amendments. It seems that if the Minister has sympathy with this, there is an easy remedy.

My own Amendment 34 seeks to ensure that each criminal justice body makes arrangements to provide adequate training regarding violence against women and girls for all personnel supporting them. The hour is late, so I will not say very much, other than that there is already a substantial amount of training in other areas but the guidance on what that training should be and how it should happen is not the same. The Domestic Abuse Act statutory guidance is clear, and at paragraph 225 provides that:

“Public agencies should invest in awareness raising, specialist training and systems … to ensure that victims receive effective and safe responses”.


Unfortunately, that is not the same in the code of practice; it is not as strong. My Amendment 34 attempts to strengthen that.

I am mindful of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I know that he has spoken, but his amendment is slightly broader than mine and, if he chooses to divide the House on it next week when we return, I think our Benches will be happy to support him.

I end by reflecting on the debate we have had on the Minister’s amendments and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. It seems to have been the prime debate that we have had since the start of this victims Bill about its function and practice. I echo the thanks from all around the House for the steps that the Government have taken to strengthen it. I am still with the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, that it is not quite there, but I will take any change at all.

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[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 13 is in my name. I remind the House about my various interests in relation to languages and linguists.

In Committee, I proposed four amendments in relation to language services, but I accepted the Minister’s argument, in relation to three of them anyway, that they concerned operational detail rather than matters of principle and were therefore more appropriate for guidance or regulations in the future than for putting in the Bill. However, the fourth of my amendments in Committee and the subject of the amendment I have tabled this evening is in a different category altogether. I feel very strongly that it is a matter of principle, which is why I have brought it back at this stage. It is the principle that, where interpreting and translation services are needed by victims, as they have a right to expect under the victims’ code, those interpreters and translators should be qualified and professional.

I am very grateful indeed to the Minister and his officials for meeting me twice and for giving careful, serious attention to the points I made in Committee about the importance of this issue. I understand that there is a reluctance on the part of the Government to add new points to the Bill. I had thought that by getting this issue into the Bill itself, it would be given more weight and less wriggle room. However, I also understand that the intention now is that the status of the code itself will be effectively upgraded and more binding than it is at present.

We have heard this evening about the very welcome government amendments about, for example, a statutory duty on relevant bodies to provide services in accordance with the revised code and a duty of compliance on relevant public bodies. Therefore, in the light of all that, I can see that my fears of non-compliance with anything short of what is actually in the Bill could fall away because of this elevated status.

I have been very encouraged by what has been suggested to me by the Minister as a positive alternative to my amendment. I assume that he will be sharing with the House what he has already been generous enough to share with me, which is a significant strengthening of the wording of the relevant parts of the victims’ code in relation to interpreting and translation services. I have consulted with the Chartered Institute of Linguists, the National Register of Public Service Interpreters, and the Bell Foundation, and all these organisations also regard the proposed draft revisions to the code as a very welcome step in the right direction.

I suppose I should not say any more about what is proposed myself, as I am sure that the Minister will want to do that. Suffice it to say that the two key words “professional” and “qualified” make a decisive appearance in the proposed revisions. If the Minister confirms this tonight, I will regard it as a positive outcome that delivers on my objective and shows that the Government have taken my point seriously, and I thank the Minister most sincerely for his engagement and his willingness to get this right.

I hope that these changes, if they come to fruition, will mean that we will no longer see services resorting to drafting in the court usher, the hospital porter who happens to speak Polish, the neighbour’s teenage son because he is doing Spanish at school or the man who runs the Chinese restaurant up the road. These are all real examples that have been brought to my attention. I hope that, if we are looking instead at what should be there, which is to do with professional, qualified interpreters and translators, all that will be a thing of the past.

In closing, I caution the Minister and his department to be aware that there will be very close monitoring of these aspects of the revised victims’ code to assess compliance. It is well worth reflecting that the use of professional, qualified interpreters and translators is not just right and proper for the victims, who need their services; it cuts both ways, also enabling those responsible for the administration of justice and the quality of justice to understand better what has happened and what needs to be done about it. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and, for the moment, I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches we pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for her absolute and consistent determination that we should be reminded about the need for professionally qualified interpreters. We had a good debate in Committee on her previous amendments. I will not repeat what I said then. I have torn up what I was going to say because I will be very interested to know what the Minister is going to say. I hope that the noble Baroness gets some very good news.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I could not disagree with that. I suspect that there are a whole host of issues behind habitual offending which we need to think about, of which drug addiction is one. People involved in this policy area are clearly more experienced than I am.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, this is the first group of amendments which really gets into victims’ rights—not just what is expressed in the victims’ code, but ensuring that they can access it. The noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, started the group with the important issue of a victim’s right to challenge decisions, including but not only relating to multiple perpetrators. I thank her for that, because that and some of the cultural issues she raised are important in ensuring that victims’ services are tailored to victims’ needs and are not a tick-box exercise.

I thank Restorative Justice for All for its briefing, and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I will not repeat it all, but we know that restorative justice is a well-established and evidence-based alternative that certainly does not let offenders off the hook; it is as difficult for offenders as it often is for the victims. Restorative Justice for All wrote to us because it is concerned about how long it has been since issues about the right to restorative justice were addressed. It goes back to an EU directive of 2012, yet there is still no absolute right available. That needs to be remedied.

Unfortunately, under this Bill there is no obligation for criminal justice agencies to inform harmed parties about restorative justice systems. When we come to later amendments, we will be fighting hard to ensure that that does become a requirement, because victims deserve no less. The other part of this group also talks about signposting of services. I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harris of Pentregarth, who believes that the perpetrators need restorative justice as much. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said that being told there is a code is a start, but much more is needed. I suspect that the Minister will try to say that having such a system would be expensive. However, we know that not having the alternative is even more expensive not just in terms of the consequences for victims’ lives, but for the criminal justice system, parole and stopping recidivism. Without restorative justice, all those costs will continue to pile on.

I do hope that the Minister will bring us some good news. I gently remind him that in the costings for this Bill we were reminded that Part 4, on prisoners, will cost around £0.5 billion, but only a very token amount is allocated for victims’ services. Perhaps that balance is not yet quite right.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, as I often do, that we are now digging into how this legislation can be improved for victims. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, on raising the issue of the gap in proceedings whereby, if there are multiple perpetrators, some of whom are not charged and some of whom are, the victim does not have the right to challenge why people are not being charged. That clearly needs to be remedied, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s suggestion.

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[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble and right reverend Lord invites me, I will look again at that evidence and the whole argument. However, in relation to this aspect, noble Lords should be aware that access to all the supporting services and processes in the criminal justice system are already part of the principles under Clause 2(3). In the implementation of those rights, access to justice is already specifically provided for under right 3 in the present draft code, which, among other things, requires the police to provide all the information you need to exercise that right.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the problem with Clause 2(2) is that it is followed by Clause 2(3), which starts by saying, “The victims’ code must” but then in all its sub-paragraphs says simply that things “should” be provided, so it is watered down. I apologise for being pedantic on this point but it goes to the heart of what the Minister is trying to do. I believe he is saying to us that there is enough in the Bill that will support victims in regulation, but the problem is that there is no watertight “must” in the Bill as it stands.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I think we will come to the “must”/“should” point a bit later when we discuss the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. If I may, I will deal with that issue in general, in an umbrella way, in that context.

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[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments, and I particularly emphasise the points we have heard about having people with expertise. The right reverend Prelate spoke very clearly about this.

This can also be very much affected by dialect-inflected accents which mean that it can be very hard for everyone, including members of the judiciary, to understand what is being said. I spoke before in your Lordships’ House about an occasion where I actually heard the word “car” misread as “cow”. Of course, you do not really want a collision with either, but the Highway Code can deal with only one of those two. In the interests of justice, clarity is important and interpreters must be well trained. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, mentioned Wales, where I spend a lot of time. Of course, there is a huge area here for confusion. We need people who are to a certain extent site-specific. For example, if you are in Newcastle or Liverpool, you may well—if you come from London and, like me, from the BBC—have trouble understanding exactly what is going on. But it is imperative in the name of justice that people are well-trained and can really do the job properly, so I strongly support my noble friend’s amendments and I very much look forward to what the Minister has to say about them.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Benjamin would have liked to speak from these Benches today, but, unfortunately, she cannot be here. She told me that, in signing all these amendments, she supports the attempt of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, to strengthen interpretation, in particular, but also access to services in other languages. Much has been said, and I will not repeat it, but we need to commend the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, who has from every possible aspect in your Lordships’ House—whether in debates or on legislation—ensured that we think about the importance of other languages that are not our first or our own. One of the key things that has come through this short debate is that that relates to not just the traditional languages that we may have perceived through learning at school or going on holiday but the rights of people who are deaf to have BSL interpreters; to have easy-read or particular interpreter support for children or those with learning difficulties is equally vital.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds reminded us that this is all about fair access for victims, and he talked about “the culture”. I worked at Cambridge University for 20 years in various roles and on two or three occasions had to help foreign-language students when they had been victims of crime. They had good English, but they did not have confident English to deal with what had happened to them in the aftermath of an incident, let alone understand the culture of how our system works—whether it is the police or the criminal justice system. Having an interpreter to whom they can explain what has happened and in return to hear how the process will happen—importantly, that must neutral, as many noble Lords have mentioned—is vital.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for raising the issue of vulnerable groups because that is important too. He might be amused to know that I am now the step-grandmother of a six year-old child for whom Welsh is very much her first language—I am trying to catch up. A child of that age just speaks the language as it comes and even in the family environment it can throw you when you do not understand. How much more important is that when you are navigating a system such as the criminal justice system?

My noble friend Lord Marks set out the important reasons for the criminal justice system that we professionalise language and interpretative services. We absolutely support that on these Benches and I hope the Minister will listen favourably to all the comments that have been made so far.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, for this group of amendments, to which I have put my name. I echo the point that she has had a sustained campaign on this through a number of Bills and I very much hope that this group of amendments will reinforce her campaign, if I can put it like that, and the Minister will look at it favourably. She gave various examples of shortcomings in the court system where interpretations go wrong and I have had personal experience of every single one of the shortcomings that she highlighted. I suspect that anyone else who has worked in the courts, particularly in our metropolitan cities, will have experienced those shortcomings as well.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds spoke about his work as a linguist and I think I am right in saying that he is a Russian linguist—he is nodding his head a bit. It reminded me of when I understood the difference between interpretation and interpreting. That was when I was working in Ukraine and had a Russian interpreter interpreting for me. She was so fluent that she could talk simultaneously in whatever conversation was happening and, she told me, she also did her shopping list in her head at the same time. That is how fluent she was. There really are some remarkable people who do this work. The other thing I learned through various aspects of my life is that there are specialisms within interpreting and it is very important that you recognise the limits of the interpreters one is dealing with at any particular time.

This brings me on to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. She gave the example of an Albanian gang member who was involved in interpreting in a case of alleged rape. One thing I have become aware of in dealing with domestic abuse, particularly when it is minority groups with minority languages, is that you have to be very cautious about who the interpreter is. The information that comes through the interviews with the lawyers and the like can easily leak out into the wider community of that group and can undermine the woman in whatever legal remedy she is seeking. It is a point that I absolutely recognise.

The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, talked about the processes themselves and the noble Lord, Lord Meston, talked about value for money. He also spoke about sign language and lip-reading, both of which I have experienced in court. It is quite an exhaustive process and I understand that it is quite expensive when you have to have relays of sign language interpreters when one is dealing with particular cases. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental point underlined in this group of amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, about access to justice and we need to make sure that the standards are as high as possibly can be obtained.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, “Don’t underestimate good intentions when interpreters are interpreting”. Many times, I have seen them try to help understanding by overexplaining things, which actually undermines one side or another of the case. I understand that this is a difficult, sensitive issue but I very much hope that, when he comes to reply, the Minister will give as much reassurance as he possibly can—both that standards are kept at the highest possible level and that all necessary procedures and protocols are properly reflected—so that the aspirations of the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, can be fully met.

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Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

20: Clause 2, page 2, line 36, at end insert—
“(5A) Regulations under subsection (4) must make provision for a person to be able to obtain free of charge, on request, a transcript of a trial in which the person was involved as a victim.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to provide victims of crime with a right to free transcripts for the trial in which they were involved.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 20 and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, for signing it. The background to this amendment is that victims and their family members often feel that they are bystanders in the justice process, unable to have their voices heard and sometimes actively dissuaded from having any involvement in proceedings. We believe that open justice means transparency for the public, but even more so for the victim, because they have arguably the most vested interest in seeing justice done.

My honourable friend Sarah Olney had an Adjournment Debate down the other end and correspondence with Ministers Edward Argar and Mike Freer on this issue. She tabled an amendment to this Bill when it was in the Commons; it was not selected for debate, but she continued to take the matter up and Ed Argar announced in the Commons a one-year pilot scheme to enable victims of rape and other serious sexual offences to request Crown Court sentencing remarks. But this is insufficient, and it is the reason we have retabled this amendment.

We have heard in some of the stories from victims that they are not just actively dissuaded from returning to court after they have given their evidence but that various people in the criminal justice system have told them that they should not return to court. The reason for that is they are told, whether by court officials, their own counsel or even the judge, that their presence in the court will affect the jury’s attitude towards them and, as a result, might mean that the jury would go against them—as if they wish to be voyeurs in the case in which they have been victimised.

Claire Waxman, a long-term victim of stalking, was told repeatedly not to attend her offender’s sentencing as it could make her look vindictive. Another victim said: “I was told I could not watch the court case after giving evidence, as I’d look like I wasn’t scared of the perpetrator and it could harm the jury’s decision”.

After inquiry, we have some data that shows there is a range from about £30 for a copy of a judgment to more than £300 for an original transcript of sentencing remarks. Where a victim requires a transcript of the entire court case, we have seen figures going from about £7,500 to £22,000. That is absolutely unacceptable.

Sarah Olney reported that in 2020 one of her constituents was raped and drugged by a former partner, who was sentenced to 18 years in spring 2022. Her psychiatrist advised her to apply to the court to obtain a copy of the trial transcript, to aid her recovery and understanding. Her application for a free transcript was denied by the court, and she was then quoted £7,500. That was unaffordable, as she has been unable to work following the attack because of PTSD. Unlike many other victims she attended the 10-day trial, but she said she could barely remember what was said due to emotional distress.

Judges need to ensure that the discrimination that is happening is cut out. The Bill cannot address that, but I would be really grateful if the Minister gave some thought as to how we can stop victims being victimised yet again in the middle of their own court process when their case is being debated. The current system of fees flies in the face of open justice, because a victim must pay for the details of their justice. Many will not want it, but some will. The psychiatrist of the lady I just referred to thought it was absolutely key for her to come to terms with what had happened to her, and indeed to her offender.

Technology has moved on, I suspect, since concern was first raised about this. One of the issues is how easy it is to get access to audio in Crown Courts. That would leave the victim, even if they could not get a written transcript, to be able to listen to a judgment, at the very least. We know that this is already available in coroners’ courts—and without charge. Why not in Crown Courts?

Above all, AI technology means that the old days of having to get a stenographer to listen to audio and spend many days typing it, perhaps getting some of it checked back to make sure that names and exact details are right, are long gone. Obviously a court would not want something that had not been checked to go out, but the really long part of it has been completely overtaken by events.

As Mike Freer MP said in the debate in the other place:

“The ability to access transcripts from court proceedings is an essential part of maintaining transparency and accountability within the system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/11/23; col. 848.]


From these Benches we really wish the pilot well, but the pilot itself is too narrow and does not cover the wider range of crimes that victims are covered by in Part 1 of the Bill. Secondly, the pilot has not even started and will run for at least a year. I hope that the Minister will consider expanding it a bit—at least for the pilot to cover other crimes, but also to ensure that it is not a wonderful pilot that will then sink into the long grass. I beg to move.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in this amendment. I pay tribute to her and to Sarah Olney, who has been meticulous in her pursuit of clarity on this issue.

At a trial, the judge’s summing-up and sentencing remarks in particular are of obvious and great importance to victims. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said in the debate on the previous group, for many victims the experience of being in court is highly stressful and often quite traumatic, and one would not exactly have total recall of what was going on. Indeed, I suspect that most of your Lordships would not have total recall of many of our proceedings here. The ability to read and review the summing up and sentencing and ensure that they are taken fully on board is surely a fundamental right.

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[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I recognise the nature of the problem.

The modern versions of AI, or whatever generation of technology we are talking about, have opened up recent possibilities for us. Of course, any Government have every incentive to reduce cost. Why should we spend money on transcription, if it can be done more effectively and cheaply? The view currently taken is that a 99.5% accuracy is required. When we last trialled this in 2022 that level was not achieved, so we have not further proceeded with that development at the moment —but it remains a distinct possibility.

There is a specific situation with the magistrates’ courts whereby we do not even have recordings, let alone transcription. But again, if those courts now have screens that can be adapted in some way, the further development of technology is going to be the answer to the problem. At the moment the Government, although very sympathetic to the point, do not feel that they are in a position to accept a statutory obligation to provide a victim with a free transcript of the trial. We are working through the development with regard to sentencing remarks.

Of course, I will keep this under review and discuss it further with my noble friend Lady Newlove and others. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, makes very sensible points about the nature of some of these transcripts. We are going to have to be very careful in some cases. That is a quite separate issue.

With regret, I do not feel that the Government can accept Amendment 20 in its present form, but I hope I have explained the direction of travel as far as the future is concerned.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who talked about their personal experiences, which was extremely valuable. I will not rehearse what has been said and repeated by others. I think the Minister needs to understand that the opinion of those who have contributed is somewhat different; certainly, the issue is worth discussing. I hope he will be prepared to have a meeting with those of us who are here. For example, we have just had a debate about the importance of being able to find rooms, but many speakers said that it was still too early for a traumatised victim to be able to take in the proceedings.

To give noble Lords my own experience, when I went into the court to hear my stalker being sentence, I was not just near his family; I was next to him—that far away. The result was that I did not hear a word of the sentencing, so thank goodness journalists covered it. I missed the absolute key bit, because all I was thinking about was how close he was to me. Extra rooms would be enormously helpful, and I believe the court system needs to find a way to make sure juries understand that victims should not be penalised if they wish to listen. I do not have an answer to that but, if the Minister agrees to a meeting, perhaps we will have that as one of the topics for discussion.

My final brief point is that in your Lordships’ House we already use Zoom and Teams. I chair a disability committee for the Local Government Association— I am a vice-president of the LGA—and we have deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the group. I use close captioning for every single one of those meetings, and it can be saved. This is not a future technology; it is available. If the Government and the court system do not recognise where these are, we will lose the benefit of what is happening now by not harnessing the technology available to help victims who really need it. I hope the Minister will agree to a meeting.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, before my noble friend withdraws the amendment, as I suspect she is about to, I ask the Minister whether the Government could make some representations to the Sentencing Council, if that is the appropriate way to do it, after hearing what noble Lords have said about their experiences. This is a matter for sentences as well.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

I am going to give the Minister an opportunity to respond, if he wishes.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly and cover all the amendments, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. I put on the record that I am a governor of Coram, the oldest children’s charity in the United Kingdom, and I am a trustee of the Foundling Museum.

Like other noble Lords, I have had the privilege of listening to some of the child survivors of child abuse. It is difficult for them to speak of their experiences; it is also extraordinarily difficult to listen to them—it really is. I pay tribute to Poppy, who described the trauma she went through in the most brilliant, clear way, without undue emotion or embellishment, and it was far more powerful than anything I—or, I suspect, any of us—will say this evening. It is an honour to try to speak on their behalf, although I fear we are poor substitutes for the way in which they are able to describe what they went through.

What they are asking for is very simple. It is one word: recognition—that is, recognition of the fact that they are not adults. The vast majority of victims whom we are going to talk about during the course of the Bill, including, of course, the part about prisoners, are adults. However, a very significant proportion of victims are not adults, and children have very specific needs and are particularly vulnerable and open to manipulation. They can often have great difficulty in understanding what is going on around them and discerning what is right and what is wrong, depending on who is telling them what. To help them navigate their way through some of the situations which adults—usually—have landed them in, requires particularly sensitive, careful and deeply knowledgeable treatment. At the moment, the reality is that it is a postcode lottery for children.

My colleague on the Cross Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, is well known for his theory about some of the difficulties we appear to have got ourselves into in this country. We still seem to subscribe to what might be called the “good chaps” code of government: assuming that, if you tell people what it is they should do, that is what they will do. If one has a law, a code or guidance, the assumption is that people will read the guidance and then follow and adhere to it in a consistent manner. However, the evidence we have is overwhelming. When it comes to the treatment of children, there is a total and utter lack of consistency. There are statistics to back this up, and financial statistics which explain the cost of it. It is unacceptable that large parts of the country are effectively a desert when it comes to helping children who might get into the same sort of ghastly situation that Poppy was in.

As a Cross-Bencher I am not going make a political point, but, if I was a member of His Majesty’s Government, after being in office since 2010 and looking at the state of the way in which children are treated as victims at the moment, it is not a record I would feel proud to defend. It would be nice, for a change, to hear people say, “We have tried various things and spent money on them, but it is not all working and we acknowledge that. We have learned from it and we are doing something about it”. But to try and continue with the “good chaps” version of government—in which you tell people what they should be doing and they do it—is just fantasy. We need to wake up to that and do something about it, for all the poor children who deserve much better.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak on Amendments 108 and 109, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, who would have made a contribution. She comments that child abuse and exploitation can happen to any child, in any family, in any location, and, as she would always say, “Childhood lasts a lifetime”. Child abuse and exploitation can have a detrimental impact on children that stays with them for the rest of their lives, harming their mental health, their development and sense of trust. Right at this moment, there is a child experiencing this type of trauma. Of course, it also has a devastating impact on their family and friends, and society as whole. As a country, we still do not provide or fund anywhere near enough for specialist support services to stand up for children’s rights and those who have experienced devastating trauma and abuse. It is shameful that, as a nation, children are left with the horror of abuse, and suffer in silence without any statutory right to support.

Support services are vital for child victims. They give children a space to work through their trauma and begin to recover, offering mental health and counselling services, and advocacy services which help children and their families to navigate the complexity of statutory agencies and the criminal justice system. Child-centred services, such as the Lighthouse, which was described earlier, can also reduce the impact of harm and other risks later in life, including going missing from home, alcohol and drug misuse, homelessness and interaction with the criminal justice system.

In one study, more than eight in 10 male prisoners said they had experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, which includes physical and sexual abuse, and domestic abuse. Yet local services, mostly run by the voluntary and community sectors, are chronically underfunded and undervalued. The Centre of Expertise on Child Sex Abuse, which is hosted by Barnardo’s, has recently published a comprehensive study of the current landscape. I will not go into the detail because the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, has already covered the results. But just as much as Barnardo’s and the other children’s charities feel that they have a moral duty to support vulnerable children and young people, we cannot continue to see these vital support services as just a charitable add-on that is nice to have. These are life-saving services for a lot of children who have experienced abuse and exploitation. We must ensure that enough are available to support the number of children who, every year, face abuse and exploitation.

From these Benches, we support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Polak, which would place a duty on the relevant authorities to commission sufficient child-specific support services for child victims of abuse and exploitation.

My own Amendment 100A in this group follows on from the very thorough report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which gave the Government 20 recommendations, of which the first is a statutory duty of mandatory reporting, by which those in certain employment, whether paid or voluntary, and regulated professions should report allegations of child sex abuse to relevant authorities. The Government have yet to respond on these recommendations. I hope that will change soon.

This Bill is not the right place for an amendment on mandatory reporting. The amendment would provide children and young people with the status of a victim if a person in a regulated profession had a suspicion that they were a victim of child sex abuse. As we have heard from most speakers on this group of amendments, children and adults react differently to trauma. Children need specialist help right from the start. Giving them that recognition as a victim is vital.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the discussion on this group has been remarkable. I agree with everything that all noble Lords have said. Indeed, I went to many of the same meetings about which other noble Lords have spoken so eloquently.

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[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all speakers in this debate. Like others, I particularly salute Poppy and her story. The whole purpose and point of the Bill is that the system should function as it apparently did in Poppy’s case; I am glad that it did. We should bring everything up to that level. It is part of levelling up. The Government have brought forward quite an extensive framework in which the improvement in the rights of victims, victims’ awareness, accessibility of services and the duties of police and crime commissioners and local agencies are being given a tremendous shove. I think that was the phrase I used at Second Reading. I respectfully do not accept the description by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, that this is “good chaps” stuff. This is serious stuff to deal with a serious problem.

I support the last comments of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that it is a bit sterile to argue whether this word or that word should or should not be in the Bill—whether it should be “must” or “should”—and get all legalistic about it. We should really be discussing the practicalities, the costs and how we do it. That is more about what we do with the code itself than about having a sterile debate on the statutory framework. Those who are pursuing the interests of victims should not, I respectfully suggest, get hung up on exactly what the statute is saying; they should be thinking about what we should do in practical terms. From the government side, I rather welcome that general suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. Let us get down in the weeds on some of this.

On the general question of the treatment of children in the Bill, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that children are already quite extensively referenced in the statutory framework. Clause 11 is about:

“Guidance on code awareness and reviewing compliance”.


Clause 11(2)(b) says that the guidance may include provision about

“the way in which information is collected (and in particular, how information in relation to children or individuals who have protected characteristics within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010 is collected)”.

Clause 13 is about the crucial stages of needs assessment and the collaboration of the relevant authorities. Clause 13(4) says:

“When making an assessment under subsection (3), the relevant authorities must have regard to the particular needs of victims who are children or have protected characteristics within the meaning of the Equality Act”.


Lastly, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has just pointed out, a similar phrase appears in Amendment 74 —the proposed new Clause 15. The same phrase is in the existing clause as well. Talking about guidance about specified victim support roles, proposed new Clause 15(5) says:

“Guidance under this section must (where relevant) make provision in relation to victims who are children or have protected characteristics within the meaning of the Equality Act”.


We already have a statutory framework for getting to where I think all your Lordships would want to be.

What, then, is the next stage? In the Government’s view, it is to make sure that we have it right in the code. The code already deals with children on page 7 and provides that they and other victims who have protected characteristics have enhanced rights, so that you have the right to receive information earlier, or better information, in various ways, and those enhanced rights are there in the code.

What the code does not do at the moment is to distinguish clearly between children and other vulnerable or intimidated persons or those who have protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Therefore, the Government are very open to considering how we develop a section in the code that deals specifically with children, and we are working with that aim, with the Children’s Commissioner, to deliver on that commitment to address children’s needs in the code. We started with a round table activity last week, attended by academics, criminal justice bodies and other important stakeholders, including the domestic abuse commissioner. We have to meld the respective roles of the Children’s Commissioner and the domestic abuse commissioner, who I think jointly wrote an article in the national press not very long ago saying that we must do better—indeed, perhaps arguably, we should.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

This is absolutely no criticism of the Minister himself. The Government have often tended to focus on domestic abuse, but child victims are not always victims through domestic abuse. Can the Minister reassure the House that while it is important that the domestic abuse commissioner is involved, the focus will remain on the experience of the child victim, wherever it has happened?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I am extremely grateful for that important intervention. As a number of noble Lords pointed out, although from various quarters adults can—sometimes quite vociferously—speak for themselves, children cannot, on the whole. They are the silent ones. We have heroines such as Poppy but on the whole, we are dealing with a cohort that does not have the ability to raise its own profile, for that fairly obvious reason. I am grateful indeed to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for making that point. For myself—I cannot commit the Government—I would say that we need available a part of the code or something that is particularly child friendly, so that at least some children can themselves consult it and understand their rights. So the Government’s door is not at all closed on this point. If I may say so again— I am conscious that sometimes I sound a bit like a broken record—can we please work on the practicalities of the code and on bringing everybody up to the same sort of level, rather than getting hung up on rather dry legal points?

I think I have covered in general terms the spirit, drift and direction of the amendments. I have to make one point on Amendment 100A which it does not at all please me to have to make. The difficulty with that amendment, as the Government see it, is that it relates to cases of suspected abuse. We have in the Bill a definition that turns on the existence of criminal conduct, and if there is criminal conduct, there is a victim. The Government at the moment are reluctant to extend that to suspected criminal conduct. That is a difficulty.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Any suspected child sexual abuse would be a crime, as covered under Schedule 1. In that context sexual abuse is covered, particularly that of minors.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

We may slightly be dancing angels on a pin. It may well be that if a regulated professional says to an authority, “I suspect there is criminal conduct”, there is enough there to say that there actually is criminal conduct to enable—

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure that we are really in disagreement on this. As I think I pointed out several times on the last occasion, criminal conduct does not depend on whether something has been reported; I had a discussion with the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about that before. We are discussing what level of evidence there has to be before somebody has to say that there is criminal conduct. Somebody has to judge whether there is criminal conduct if the thing has not been reported to the police, prosecuted or charged. It may well be that, in the circumstances the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, refers to, the fact of that kind of reference may be enough to establish criminal conduct. However, if it turns out that the suspicion is wrong, there has not been criminal conduct. That is the only point I am making: it is either covered already, or it should not be extended to the situation being envisaged. I do not think I have made myself very clear, but I was struggling to do so.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. As the debate we have just had demonstrates, the problem is that we need more clarity. If it is covered in the Bill—we are not convinced that it is, which is why we tabled the amendment—for children it needs to be made clear in the Bill, because of IICSA’s first recommendation about mandatory reporting, which we hope will come in due course. I understand that the Government have not made a decision on that, but at least it would nod to that recommendation, saying, “If somebody in a regulated profession believes that a child is a victim, and has a suspicion or belief that they have been the victim of CSA, then they are a victim”. It would be clear, and I am not sure that it is clear in Clause 1(5).

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I need to think about this point. The amendment came in a little later than some of the other amendments, so I will take it under advisement. I see the point that is being made.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the justice committee, and I endorse everything that has been said by speakers in this debate. I do not need to repeat their reasons; I shall be expanding on them in the same vein when we debate Amendment 51.

We have to give teeth to this. There has to be cultural change and it has to be a change that affects those in the Crown Prosecution Service and police at ground level because those above them will know that, if they default, something not so nice—a failure to get promotion or something practical—may happen because they will have a black mark against them by having failed to implement the victims’ code. We need teeth.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with everyone who has spoken so far. I say to the Minister that, given the mentions earlier today about putting the victims’ code on a statutory footing, the brevity of this debate is in inverse proportion to the importance of the amendments. We appreciate that the Government have not come as far as us. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who helpfully set out the concerns of the committee that she quoted about this not being strong enough to get compliance.

I want to go back over a little bit of history. When I joined your Lordships’ House in 2011, a number of inquiries were going on relating to victims of crime. I became vice-chair of the all-party group on victims of crime. That group introduced the stalking inquiry report, which led to stalking law reform. Between 2011 and 2019, this House debated the role of a victim’s code and the victims of crime on many occasions. I had a Private Member’s Bill on the issue which had its Second Reading in July 2019. Not only did the Conservative manifesto of 2019 mention it but there was more detail about it in an addendum to it. I have no doubt that that was due to the work of the then Victims’ Commissioner, who is the Victims’ Commissioner again, sitting on the opposite Benches.

All that was because the current system does not work; it is quite simple. Until the services that have to provide the victims’ code are made to do so, there will be no incentive for them to deliver it if they have other pressures. It is the old thing: if you have to do something, then you will. You will have targets and you will be judged by your performance. Without that—if this is just a “thing too much—it will not happen.

As we come to the end of this Parliament, I want to say that it was a key tenet of the Conservative manifesto to make sure that a victims’ code was enshrined in law, but what we have seen is not what was spoken about during that general election campaign.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

I find myself in a difficult situation, because in the previous group I had said that we should not have a sterile debate about whether we should have all the victims’ code on a statutory basis, and I challenged the Minister to look at individual provisions that should be on a statutory basis. I understand that that is not the tenor of the debate that we have been having in this group. However, Amendment 108, which was spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Polak, in the previous debate, looked at a specific element—namely, to do with the relevant local commissioning of bodies for specialist support for children who are victims, and whether that should be on a statutory basis, so as to put it on a similar basis to that for domestic abuse victims. I do not think that the Minister answered that amendment. While on the one hand I acknowledge the point that having an all-or-nothing approach may not be the best use of our time, on the other, it would be helpful if the Minister addressed the specific proposals in the amendments in the previous group.

Having said that, we are at a relatively early point in Committee, and there will be opportunities to bring these matters back. As my noble friend said, she has a further group of amendments looking at the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner. Having explained my position to the Minister, I look forward to his response.

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[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

I am sorry, but I think there is a miscommunication here. The courts may be saying that these are your rights, but they are not legal rights. My inbox is full of victims not getting their rights under the code. I have been doing this since 2012 and have been at every code launch—you name it—but it just does not happen because the profession does not see this as law. It sees it as a code, so there is no legal route to accountability. It is all down to agencies which, if we are to line all the ducks up, have no funding and are short of staff—and again, the victim has not had that communication. My noble and learned friend talked about raising awareness of the code because nobody knows about it, so I am at a loss to understand this impression that “They have a right and they should do this”. As we saw recently in the Nottingham case, there is a miscommunication of rights and what they do: it is not being delivered.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Before the noble and learned Lord gets up—I know that is the inverse of the usual statement—perhaps it might be helpful if I cited something from the code and then asked a question. The second right states:

“You have the right to have the details of the crime recorded by the police without unjustified delay after the incident”.


We know that there are a lot of delays, but let us put that to one side. Where does it say in legislation that governs the actions of the police—whether that is primary legislation, secondary legislation, codes of practice or statutory guidance—that they have to do this? The problem is that we cannot find any of the rights in the victims’ code reflected in the statutory duties of the agencies listed in it. Please tell me I am wrong; I would be delighted to be wrong.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

If I may say so, sometimes one is in the middle of the flow of one’s argument and people jump up and down when one has not quite finished explaining the overall framework. The essential problem here is not the code itself, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, kindly said—it is not a bad document, I venture to suggest—but a lack of awareness, police not doing their job and nobody knowing quite what should be done if that were to happen. The idea behind the basic framework of this legislation is to force the relevant bodies to take steps to comply with the code. That is why Clause 6 says:

“Each criminal justice body which provides services … must … take … steps”


and “must … keep under review”. Clause 7 provides that they must provide various activities, et cetera, and must collect information, that a local policing body must do this, that and the other and that the various constabularies referred to later must do these things. The idea is that we have a code and a framework, and we must make sure that the bodies responsible for enabling victims’ rights do so.

In the Government’s view, you do not materially increase the likelihood of them doing so by putting the code into a schedule, any more than you increase that likelihood—to deal with another point—by converting a “should” into a “must”. That is another bit of fine tuning. The principles of the code are set out in Clause 2; for example, that you “should provide information”. You could say that you “must provide information”, but that does not really change the enforceability unless you have a whole statutory framework for what the information should be, who should provide it and how it is to be done. That is all in the code at the moment, where it should be.

I do not want to refer again to angels dancing on pins, but I think we are slightly at cross-purposes as to what we mean by things “in law”, “legal enforceability”, or “statutory codes”. That is the Government’s basic position on this.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have my name to Amendment 49 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, on the duty to co-operate—which seems to me not something that should have to be said, but clearly does. It is another aspect of compliance. As ever, it is important to have the data on which to make recommendations and directions, give advice, or whatever. That is what Amendment 49 is about. It is about providing the tools for the independent Victims’ Commissioner to be effective. The amendment is based on the importance of monitoring compliance with the code, and one would think that the commissioner will be expected to be on top of the data. That needs co-operation. I think that is probably enough said. I am very much on the same page and the same paragraph as other speakers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

From these Benches, I will be extremely brief, because I agree with everything that has been said. I signed Amendments 27 and 29 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and I absolutely support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which my noble friend Lady Hamwee has also signed. We cannot have commissioners who are commissioners in name only. They need clear roles, responsibilities and powers, and clear limits to those powers. The problem at the moment is that they do not, so we support the amendments.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said it right when she said that it is time to give the Victims’ Commissioner the statutory place and rights that are appropriate. That is exactly the point of this suite of amendments. They aim to do two things. One is to give the Victims’ Commissioner the right status to be able to get the right information and have the right relationships to make them most effective, but it is also placing duties on other organisations to co-operate with the Victims’ Commissioner. That is what this suite of amendments is about. That means that they are very important. They also reflect the powers that other commissioners have in this space.

We have a group of amendments which give the Victims’ Commissioner a statutory duty to review the operation of the victims’ code, placing a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult the commissioner when making any changes to the victims’ code or issuing any statutory guidance relating to it. The amendment refers to the duty of the Secretary of State to consider any representations in relation to the drafting of the victims’ code in consultation with the Attorney-General. Again, I thought, “Why do you have to say that?” But, actually, I think we have to.

Amendments 27 and 29 alter the procedure for amending the victims’ code to require formal consultation with the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses—I did not think that was necessary either, but if we need to say that, then we do—and affirmative parliamentary procedures.

Amendment 28 refers to

“the duty on the Secretary of State to consult the Attorney General on any revisions”.

Amendment 35 refers to

“the Secretary of State’s duty to issue regulations on the information to be collected by PCCs at a local level”.

Amendment 43 also places a duty on the Secretary of State to

“issue regulations on the timing and format of the information”.

This is about relationships that the Victims’ Commissioner needs to have to do their job effectively—with the Attorney-General, with PCCs, with the agencies with which the commissioner has to work.

My amendment—again, you would not think it would be necessary, but it clearly is—states that there is a specific public authority duty

“to co-operate with the Commissioner in any way that the Commissioner considers necessary for the purposes of monitoring compliance with the victims’ code”.

If we do not give the Victims’ Commissioner the power to ensure that the code is being complied with, we are not taking victims seriously. If we do not do that, we do not place the right kind of duties on the Secretary of State. We also need to make sure that the way the Victims’ Commissioner works is joined up with all the different agencies that she—it has always been “she” so far—needs to have.

We are very keen on this group of amendments because it does those two things: it gives the Victims’ Commissioner power, and it places a duty on different parts of the state to provide, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said, formal parts of criminal justice infrastructure. This a powerful suite of amendments that I hope the Minister will agree to, and certainly will discuss with us as we move forward.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am mindful of the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove: because the Victims’ Commissioner is not a statutory consultee, consultations often arrive as the policy is announced. It is a tick-box exercise. The point of making someone a statutory consultee is that they have to be notified as the process starts, not as it ends. If the Minister is going to have a discussion with the noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, it would be really helpful to understand how the position outlined by the noble Baroness can be prevented.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that that point deserves full consideration alongside other points.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Brinton]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
“(aa) witnessing criminal conduct,(ab) having subsequent responsibility for care because of criminal conduct,(ac) experiencing vicarious harm due to criminal conduct”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment aims to extend the definition of a victim under Part 1 to include people who support and provide care for victims of serious sexual and violent crimes.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, as we start this Bill, from these Benches we are pleased to see that the first part of it relates to victims. Even though we want to improve the Bill, I thank the Minister for the meetings and dialogue we have had so far and look forward to more as the Bill progresses.

Amendment 1, in my name, starts this group on the definition of a victim. I thank Restitute, the lived-experience CIC, which supports third-party victims of crime—whether they are the parents, carers, partners, siblings or loved ones of people who have survived sexual abuse, sexual violence or other serious crimes including domestic violence and stalking. It specialises in building the service that its members wish they had received, and which professional service providers often do not spot, nor have the resources to be able to provide: namely, crisis support in the short term and, above all, someone to help them and their loved one, who is the direct victim, to navigate the new world of professionals they encounter during their case.

Why is this important? Unless you have been the victim of such a crime, you cannot understand how it affects those who care for you. Most professionals would not recognise that your loved ones may also be victims of vicarious harm due to the crime. More than that, parents may have to give up work, partners need time off and children have poor educational outcomes. Families that have previously had two incomes often see that cut in half at a stroke. Carers are not entitled to any therapeutic or emotional support. The impact on their health and well-being is devastating. That is before we even face the problems related to family breakdown.

Most of Part 1 of the Bill focuses on the rights of the direct victim of the crime, and the services that they will encounter afterwards. One of the worst examples is the impact of child sexual abuse on victims/survivors, including on non-perpetrator family members. The impacts on mothers, for example, can mirror the experience of their child. Social services can also force them to make rapid and difficult decisions at the exact moment they are coming to terms with the abuse that their child has suffered. Healthcare and the criminal justice system often do not recognise that the impact goes beyond the direct victim.

This can include siblings who are children themselves but who, under the Bill, would not be able to access any support under the victims’ code. The siblings of abused children may have feelings that they have let down their sibling because they could not prevent the incident, or may be fearful that in the future it may happen to them. These children also see distressed adult carers struggling to navigate the system, which currently does not recognise them as victims either. Without support these families struggle, and it becomes harder for all of them to recover from the incident.

Amendment 1 extends the definition of a victim of crime to include someone who is

“witnessing criminal conduct … having subsequent responsibility for care because of criminal conduct … experiencing vicarious harm due to criminal conduct”.

I have also added my name to Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, which would ensure that bereaved victims of homicide abroad are given the same support as victims of homicide within the UK. These victims not only face the extreme distress of losing their loved one in a horrible way but have to deal with the criminal justice systems of foreign jurisdictions.

Many years ago, my sister worked for Thomson Holidays. Her role was to deal with the immediate aftermath of death—including homicide—of her holiday- makers. Once the families had returned home, for many, having to deal with an overseas criminal justice system was even more bemusing, and they felt very isolated. We know that just being the family survivor of a homicide is hard enough.

I also support the other amendments in this group, all of which raise key questions about the definition of a victim of crime or try to establish how victims can get parity of treatment at their review—as in Amendment 8—whether they are victims of a perpetrator serving a custodial sentence or a perpetrator being detained under the Mental Health Act 1983. Amendment 3 adds in a person being killed by a family member such as a dangerous driver. Amendment 4 adds serious anti-social behaviour. Amendment 12 takes us into the debate on the content and context of the victims’ code, and states which services must be involved in decisions regarding leave or discharge for the perpetrator. Currently, the victim is far too often the last person to hear that the perpetrator has been released. That is unforgivable. Amendment 19 would ensure that victims have information to understand the justice system and relevant state agencies.

The Government will have gathered that noble Lords across your Lordships’ House believe that the definitions in Clauses 1 and 2 are too narrow and will exclude certain people who are seriously affected but not defined as a victim. I look forward to the Minister’s response. In the meantime, I beg to move Amendment 1.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, Amendment 3 acknowledges that the definition of victim in the Bill is quite broad, and that will mean, I hope, that as many victims as possible are supported by the victims’ code and related services. However, I want to probe the Government as to whether they intended the definition of victim to be so broad as to include the close family of a person who died as a direct result of their own criminal conduct; for example, by dangerous driving or possessing and consuming illegal drugs.

Clause 1(2) defines a victim as including

“where the death of a close family member of the person was the direct result of criminal conduct”.

This appears to include where the deceased caused their own death by their own criminal conduct. This broadness is underlined by Clause 1(5), which makes it “immaterial” whether anyone has reported the criminal conduct, or if anyone has been charged with, or convicted of, an offence.

The family of someone who dies as a result of consuming illegal drugs are victims of the Government’s ideological war on drugs. The Government refuse to treat drug use as a health issue and to implement a safe, regulated market of drugs that would take the multi-billion pound drugs trade out of the hands of criminal gangs.

Can the Minister please clarify whether it is the Government’s intention that family members of people who die as a result of their own criminal conduct will be supported by the victims’ code and the associated support services provided to victims?

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[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention and entirely accept the point he makes about the variability across the country. Although this evening we are not on Clause 6 and supplementary Clause 11, for example, or Clause 10, about code awareness and reviewing compliance by criminal justice bodies, one of the main drivers of the Bill is to raise the standard of victim support equally across the country; to publish league tables; to have the data; to put pressure, if you like, by almost shame and stigma on those that are not performing as well as they should so that it is publicly known; and, in extreme cases, to give directions that they need to improve and so forth.

The steps we need to think about are how we make the various parts of the legislation consistent and operational, what role the code plays in anti-social behaviour when it is criminal conduct, as it often will be, and how we operationalise the way in which particular police forces and other agencies offer consistent services across the country. That is my thought on this point.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

On this particular point about anti-social behaviour, Louise Lotz was a friend of mine. The problem was that her local police force did nothing about the earlier stages of anti-social behaviour. One of the things that this amendment is trying to achieve is that police forces just watch the pattern of anti-social behaviour; if they see it going up, their response should also start to change. I wonder whether the Minister will take that into account. I look forward to joining any meeting about that as well.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I certainly take that into account. I again think that we collectively need to understand a little more about what the Criminal Justice Bill progressing through the other place is doing about this, because the problem of anti-social behaviour is that it exists and is not being controlled. That Bill is trying to address that problem. Here we are dealing with the victims, which in some ways is the end result, rather than the fact that it is happening in the first place, so tackling it and what is happening in the first place is probably a very important aspect that we need to understand further. I take all these points, and I think we should take it further collectively as soon as we can.

Then we come to the difficult issue of homicide abroad. I hope that nobody infers that the Government do not have enormous sympathy for those who suffer these very difficult situations, but I respectfully suggest that a crime of homicide committed abroad is in a slightly different category, as far as the victims’ code is concerned, from a crime of homicide committed in this country. Clearly, the various rights under the code —for example, the right to make a victim statement—as well as the nature of the offence, what the criminal processes are and so forth are rather different if we are talking about a crime that has been committed in South America or somewhere outside this country. The responsibility for looking after victims of homicide abroad falls primarily on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which offers support through the homicide service. Noble Lords may well say that it is not adequate support or enough support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his detailed responses to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate on a range of different issues, even though they are all part of the concern about some of the holes in the system. I thank him for offering some meetings, which I think is extremely useful, because as I think he will have heard from the debate, we all have a reasonable amount of knowledge and not necessarily the same knowledge.

On his comments on my Amendment 1, I absolutely accept that my proposed new paragraph (aa), inserting “witnessing criminal conduct”, might already be covered earlier in Clause 1. Proposed new paragraphs (ab) and (ac) are not covered at all. They are the direct consequences for a family member or person close to somebody who has had a very traumatic experience. They would have their life changed in all the ways that I described. I would also welcome a meeting on that to discuss how the Minister believes that it is already covered, because as far as I can see, it is not.

I want to make a more general point about the Bill. The Minister, uniquely, has his four As for what we should seek to achieve—the victims being aware, access, accountability by those providing services, and it being affordable. One of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made is that costs may not actually be so great, providing that the first, second and third categories are completely fulfilled. That is an area where—as we have said to him in private meetings already—there will be cost savings. Not all of them will be to the Home Office or the justice system, but there will be substantial savings in healthcare and in social services, particularly where children are involved, if the victims’ code is on a statutory footing and applied across the board. He is right that changing the culture is vital. The problem is that if you do not give public organisations targets, they do not work to them, and the real problem we have here is that there is no onus on the services to make sure that those are provided for. With that, I beg to leave withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to which I have added my name digitally. We start on the thorny subject, to which I think we will return, of children. I declare my interest as a secondary school teacher in Hackney.

I am delighted to have my noble friend Lord Meston with me, because he can say it far better than I can when we are trying to persuade the Government that children should be defined separately as victims. I will speak more about that in the sixth group of amendments.

I join the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, in saying that we need a definition of victim, which is not contained in Keeping Children Safe in Education—there seem to be variations on that—and we need to deal with the children of victims of modern slavery. I support all the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we add our thanks to the Children’s Commissioner for her very helpful round table and briefing notes. We also thank Hestia. I thank other noble Lords for their amendments, which specify children in the definition of a victim. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lady Benjamin made strong arguments to include who victims of abuse and criminal exploitation are, as well as those who are victims of modern slavery or human trafficking.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is a salutary reminder that children can be damaged by verbal harm. Intense and repeated verbal abuse is damaging. That is somewhat different from the point the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was trying to make, which was about young people having arguments about matters of principle and offence; that is not what we are talking about.

Some years ago, I lived next door to a family who used the most extraordinary bad language to their toddler, time after time. The example I can just about repeat in your Lordships’ House was his name, which was “Paul, you little bleeder”. It went on, from worse to worse. As he grew up, we heard his own language mirroring that of his parents. One of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is right to propose this is that a child like that needs help and support from other agencies, as do his parents. It can be within a house, or it can be separate, but it is very different from the argument the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was trying to make, and I hope she would accept that.

In a later group, probably next week, we will come to a group with much more detail about the protection required for child victims. All these amendments would ensure that definitions at the start of the Bill recognise that child victims have as many needs as adults. Agencies need to remind themselves that child victims may not always present in the same way as an adult and may not always need the same services as an adult. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, the lessons of Rochdale show that too many agencies do not always see children as victims. There, I am afraid that the police and some other agencies saw them as perpetrators. That is absolutely unacceptable.

I apologise again to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, but I am picking up on the arguments she made about the lack of sympathy from officialdom and police. She went on to argue that it is important that people recognise that these children are victims. But this is not about sympathy; it is about getting help and support for these children. Sympathy may be part of it, but these amendments are not put forward to get sympathy for children; it is to change their lives, and to recognise that they are victims and will need specific services thereafter.

I am mindful of Nicky Campbell and others who were abused at the schools he attended and how their experience of not getting support early in their lives has affected them for their entire lives. This is not just an issue about children; it is about how those children grow up and manage their own lives. As I said at the end of the previous group, one can save money in the longer run on services by ensuring that victims—in this case child victims—get support as early as possible.

Finally, I echo the points made by my noble friend Lady Hamwee in Amendment 7 on the child victims of modern slavery or human trafficking. Hestia’s briefing was very helpful in reminding us that everyone in a family unit, especially the children, is affected by modern slavery and human trafficking, the consequences of which have long-standing impacts. So it is becoming clear from all parts of the House again that we need a separate definition of child victims. Their experiences, needs and the services they seek are all different.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this very important debate on how we assist, support, improve, validate and value children who have suffered various kinds of abuse. The question—I respectfully suggest it is a somewhat technical question—is whether we need to amend this Bill, whether we should do it through further sections of the code, and how we should approach the problem.

The Government’s position at the moment is that a child who is a victim of abuse and exploitation which constitutes criminal conduct is already a victim under the Bill. So the large numbers of children, rightly referred to, who have apparently suffered domestic abuse in the past—children who have been through the recent domestic abuse inquiry and so forth—would, in the ordinary meaning of words, I think, have been subject to criminal conduct under Clause 1(1)(a). As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, pointed out, a child is undoubtedly a person, and the Government’s position is that this is very largely covered.

The phrase “child criminal exploitation” in itself implies someone who has been exploited by criminal conduct—which is already covered. So I hesitate to recommend to your Lordships that we need to further complicate the Bill itself, or the Act as it will eventually become, one hopes, by having further definitions. I accept the point made by my noble friend Lady Sanderson that there probably is some confusion at the moment in some of the guidance out there, and there is probably a great deal of inconsistency in how it is applied by different authorities in different parts of the country. As I said earlier, one of the purposes of the Bill is to ensure a much more even and consistent approach across the country by all relevant agencies.

It is important to clarify two things—and I respectfully suggest we should do this in the code rather than the Bill. The first is that we need, perhaps, to clarify that the phrase “criminal conduct” in the Bill does not imply that there has been a prosecution, let alone a conviction. It is whether, on the facts, this is a person who has suffered from the relevant conduct. Secondly, I suggest to your Lordships—and I cannot officially commit the Government tonight because I do not have the authority to do so—that we need when revising the code to have a detailed section on children, and special reference to the particular problems that have been rightly raised tonight, so that everybody has full guidance on what they are supposed to do with child victims of various kinds. That is probably a more apt way of proceeding than trying to redefine what we are talking about in the Bill. With the greatest respect, I suggest that “child criminal exploitation” is a somewhat difficult concept to define.

I could add that the act of manipulating, deceiving, encouraging, coercing or controlling a child almost certainly amounts to a criminal offence in itself—it does under Part 1 of the Modern Slavery Act, and we have been talking about modern slavery. We also have the wide terms under the Serious Crime Act 2007, in which encouraging or assisting an offence is also an offence. So I respectfully suggest that almost all the examples one can think of are already covered by the definition of “victim” in other Acts. At the moment the Government are not persuaded that we should be tinkering further with this particular definition, but I see the force of the argument that we need to have special mention and explanation as regards children when we come to revise the code and the guidance that accompanies it, and the duties of the various agencies to provide their services.

I suggest that the same broad analysis covers the important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in relation to verbal abuse. It is already in Clause (1)(4)(a) that “harm” includes physical, mental, emotional or economic harm. I think that most kinds of verbal abuse are covered—but, again, this is a matter that is more for the way one drafts the code than it is for the Bill itself. That would be, I think, the Government’s position at the moment.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, and his officials for the helpful meetings and discussions that we have had so far. I look forward to further discussions as the Bill progresses. I also thank the very many organisations that have sent us briefings. I also look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carter.

My victims of crime Private Member’s Bill was introduced in July 2017 because, despite promises in the 2015 general election, the Conservative Government had done nothing up to that point to deliver it. So it is something of a relief that the Government have finally produced this Bill, which has come from another place—although, as I will outline later, it falls short of what is needed for victims. A year ago, the proposed Bill was only about victims, and it is helpful that there was pre-legislative scrutiny in May 2022, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, outlined. But the Bill published in March this year had two new substantive parts, one on victims of major incidents and one on prisoners and the parole system. Neither of those was subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, which is to be regretted.

It is also to be regretted that, despite arguing that this Bill is a priority repeatedly in public, it has taken months for it to be given time to be debated in both Houses. We on these Benches have repeatedly asked the Government to take action, but I am afraid that there has been dither and delay, with many more victims of crime lacking the statutory support that they need after their lives have been affected by some of the worst attacks, whether physical or psychological, and with no changes to a criminal justice system that is patchy in its support at best and downright dangerous and damaging for victims at worst. As we heard in a recent survey, 71% of victims are deeply unsatisfied.

There is one key and fundamental failing in Part 1, which echoes the failing in the current victims’ code. There is no statutory duty on those agencies that come into contact with victims to deliver the principles outlined in the Bill. It is absolutely no good saying to victims that they are entitled to a series of rights but then not placing a duty on service providers and agencies to deliver those rights to them. There are a number of uses of “should” in this Bill that we wish to see changed into “must”. Without that, there is no liability for failing to deliver the support and the code.

The reason for that is evident from the many briefing we have received, with horror story after horror story of how victims are traumatised twice: first by the crime and, secondly, by the system that fails to support them properly. The problem is that the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 has not proved enforceable, as I discovered in 2008 when my stalker and harasser was finally caught. I wish that I could say that things have improved in the intervening 15 years, but they have not.

At the heart of the problems is inconsistency in application, whether in police forces, courts—criminal, civil and family—judgments, or all ancillary support mechanisms, often including local government. There are pockets of excellent practice, yes, but far too often for victims it is a complete lottery. This Bill is the perfect opportunity to remedy that. Training is needed throughout the criminal justice system, not just for specialist teams. I have been laying that training amendment for nearly 10 years now. Let us hope that we get some progress in the Bill on that.

When victims of rape have a first encounter with the police, it should be supportive, knowledgeable and understanding, rather than accusing them of “asking for it”, or—in the case of victims of spiked drinks—telling them it was their fault because they were drunk. This still happens. Independent legal advice and access to free transcripts of Crown Court hearings are also very necessary for victims of crime.

I echo the compliments about the role of the Victims’ Commissioner nationally and in London. Vera Baird, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and Claire Waxman have done an amazing job, which none of us could have foreseen they would do with the few resources they have been given. It is working well. I wonder whether we now need to consider local victims’ commissioners, perhaps covering the same areas as police and crime commissioners; but it cannot be done by PCCs—it is a very different role.

Not all victims of stalking and harassment are domestic. The progress of legislation relating to victims of domestic abuse, welcome though it is, has left a legal hole for victims of serious crimes that are not considered domestic. Stalking is the key issue there.

While the definition of a “victim” in the Bill is helpful, there remain gaps for family members or third-party victims of crimes such as sexual abuse, sexual violence and other serious crimes, including domestic abuse, which is omitted. Only where a murder or death has happened are family members included. Family lives are often shattered by these crimes.

We also need an immigration firewall to ensure that the details of those who are victims and also migrants do not end up being used against them in any action in the migration system. The exploitation of children and vulnerable adults, whether in modern slavery or other forms, also needs to be dealt with in this Bill.

The approach to violence against and abuse of children specifically needs to be strengthened. We have long argued from these Benches for mandatory reporting of child sex abuse, as has happened successfully in Australia, Canada and many other countries. This was a recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, but the Government have done nothing to implement it yet. The Children’s Commissioner makes a strong argument for separate identification of the needs of child victims, seeking an advocate for every child victim of the most serious crimes. This will give children agency when involved in the criminal justice system, and a victims’ code that is designed with and for children, because their needs are very different from those of adults.

Part 2, on supporting “victims of major incidents”, needs to include the Bishop of Liverpool’s recommendations on public authority accountability—the “Hillsborough law”. There also needs to be careful scrutiny of the role of the standing advocate for victims of major incidents. The charter proposed by the Government, and amendments in the Commons, are all helpful, but there needs to be further strengthening and, above all, a commitment to fund the office of the independent public advocate. We on these Benches remain concerned that the powers of the Secretary of State over the independent public advocate might jeopardise their independence.

It is good to see a new Part 3 providing some legal status for the victims of the infected blood scheme. However, the new Clause 40 is only the first step. There are concerns that the Government are already slowing down on the issue of interim payments. Like other noble Lords, I look forward with interest to the statement that is happening today.

I agree that most of the issues in the Bill are not partisan, and there is cross-party support for the truly transformative processing and treatment of victims, evident in the debates in the Commons and in your Lordships’ House. However, in Part 4, on prisoners and parole, we remain particularly concerned about the Henry VIII powers, the independence of the Parole Board and the Human Rights Act.

Lastly, there is real concern that the first three parts of the Bill all demand more of our public services, creating new and important roles, but do not provide support for them—unlike Part 4, which I understand is receiving around £500 million. The Autumn Statement Green Book notes on page 83 that there will be £10 million extra for domestic abuse for the financial year 2024-25 but the figure is zero in future years, and there is no mention of extra support for victims. Can the Minister explain why the victim elements of the Bill are funded only to a derisory level for one year and why victims once again appear abandoned after that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I am not sure that I entirely understood the noble Baroness’s point, but it is perfectly true that I am thinking—rather, the Government are thinking; I should not put it in personal terms—about the potential victims of people who have been released and the actual families of those who have suffered at the hands of the offender. We are simply saying that there might be some very high-profile cases where it is sensible for there to be a second judicial look. That is a very much modified position from the position originally in the Bill, but it is, I hope, a sensible one.

I have used up my time, but I hope that I have covered most things. I apologise to noble Lords whose specific points I have not met. Anyone is fully entitled to write to me or ask me questions and I will, of course, answer them. If I may just finish with the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who was kind enough to say he was going to be kind to the Bill. Let us be kind to the Bill and—

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

It is very generous of the Minister to say, as he has done with other Bills, that we should write to him with concerns, but given that he said at the start of his response that he was going to take a high-level approach, it might be helpful if he were to write to all of us about the issues we have raised. There might then be a subsequent correspondence. However, if we are thinking about tabling amendments, rather than waiting for us to write and say, I think he has most of our questions.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I warmly thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. I will ask my officials to go through this debate, identify at least the principal questions and see whether we can write to the House on the various points that have been made.

On that note, given the season of the year in which we find ourselves, we may not quite have reached

“Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled”,

but I hope we have taken the matter forward. I beg to move.

King’s Speech

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. I congratulate our three maiden speakers today, and I look forward to hearing from them in the future. I also echo the tributes to Lord Judge; he will be sorely missed. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

A journalist noted yesterday that this was the longest monarch’s speech since 2005, but the lightest in content for possibly even longer. It feels partly like a refresher on things in the 2019 manifesto that have not been achieved, and partly an inkling, perhaps, of what will be in the Conservative Party manifesto at the next election.

I will briefly comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. It is dangerous, almost a false equivalence, to look at pure statistics. We all know the adage about lies, damned lies and statistics. Our Cross-Benchers and Bishops add real value to our House, but, when we push them to vote later on in a Bill, they absolutely say to us, “No, it is getting too political, and we will stand back”. Very occasionally, they might vote at an early stage of ping-pong, but no further. That is because they, unlike many of us, understand that their role is not political. But they, like every Member of this House, recognise that our role is to scrutinise legislation, regardless of which party is in government, and to help improve it. I, for one, welcome their tabling and voting on amendments, whether they vote with my side or not.

The rail reform Bill says that it will “improve focus on customers through specific accessibility and freight duties”. This would not be the first time that people with disabilities have been lumped in with the baggage, but I am concerned that it is an afterthought in this Bill, not least because the 700,000 people who responded to the consultation on ticket closures have finally been listened to by government. I look forward to seeing the detail of the Bill. I hope we are not going back to the luggage vans.

There are a couple of missed opportunities that we need to comment on. It is a shame that the conversion practices Bill has not appeared. That was in the Conservative manifesto and is really important: conversion therapy is a form of torture with no place in our society. All the debates on television over the last few days assume that it is a complex issue. It is not, and that is why I hope it will appear in the future.

The other real shame is the mental health Bill. It is long overdue, because it was due to outlaw powers to detain those with autism and learning disabilities in secure units. The parliamentary Joint Committee report gave it cross-party support. This was a key manifesto pledge, and I do not understand why it has not happened. There is a further knock-on to the subjects we are discussing today. The pressure on mental health of having people locked up for 20 years for no reason at all means that valuable resources are diverted, which may be one of the reasons why we have some other pressures in our system.

Others have commented there has not been a royal commission on criminal justice. I regret that too, but I will spend the last couple of minutes talking briefly about the Victims and Prisoners Bill. It is good to see the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, back in her place as the Victims’ Commissioner; I know that I will enjoy working with her again. She understands better than most people what it is to be a victim. The problem with the victims Bill, as my noble friend Lord Marks pointed out, is that we still do not have a statutory duty for the agencies that work with victims to provide those services. It is really important that this Bill is strengthened. It is vital that it is more than just what was in the original Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, which has completely failed to deliver for victims.

I will also briefly mention stalking. I was stalked for two and a half years by my Conservative political opponent, who was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence. That was one of the reasons why, when I came into your Lordships’ House, one of my first achievements as a member of the all-party group on stalking was stalking law reform. Non-domestic violence stalking is a scourge and every time I talk about it in your Lordships’ House, a Member comes and tells me about their own experience. I do not understand why it has not been included.

We will have other suggestions to strengthen the victims Bill, but there is one other missed opportunity in Part 2. It is notable that, despite the Government proposing an independent adviser for victims of major incidents and disasters, the victims themselves will not be covered by the code because a criminal act has to have caused such an incident. I am afraid that there are major incidents such as floods and other disasters in which people are killed as a result, and they are still victims and still need that support, so I will be pushing to make sure that they and others are recognised. Indeed, there are problems with the family courts as well.

I do not want to end without thanking the Government for at least bringing the Bill forward. But as I said at the outset, it would be really good for this House to give them some advice on improving it.

Mental Capacity Act 2005: Small Payments Scheme

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, yes; I am able to fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. We identified two problems. The first was the clunky—if I may use that expression—procedures of the Court of Protection, and the second was a general lack of awareness of the general law under the 2005 Act. On the first, the Court of Protection has in the meantime been digitalised. As from this month, anyone can apply online for the relevant authorisation, known as a “deputyship”. The relevant pilot reduced waiting times from 24 weeks to eight weeks, and the court forms are being worked on at the moment with a view to making them simpler and more user-friendly. So, there is good progress at the level of the Court of Protection. On the second problem, the general awareness of the need to observe the 2005 Act, we are in the process of a cross-government consultation to improve and raise public awareness.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, some child trust providers such as OneFamily and Foresters Financial have developed a simplified process, working with families and using the DWP appointee scheme as a proxy to protect against fraud or abuse. In the recent MoJ consultation on this issue, 87% of respondents liked this way of working. Why have the Government rejected it?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, essentially, there was general support for the idea of some sort of scheme, or at least some simplification of the process, but no consensus on what safeguards we should have. In particular, most banks and financial services companies expressed concerns about what they would have to do to carry out the relevant checks. There would be quite a small demand and it would be quite expensive for most institutions to provide the relevant service. In those circumstances, the Government decided that this was a case where we should avoid legislation and work to improve the present system.

Humanist Marriages

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

With respect, I very much hope that the Government understand what the problem is. As the Government see it, we should have a regime for marriage in this country in which the civil preliminaries are common to all marriages, the persons who conduct marriages are authorised under one regime, we define what belief systems we will accept as people capable of authorising marriages, and we exclude extremists, cults and so forth. These are not straightforward questions. It is a very simple and, if I may say so, not complete answer to say that it is easy to do it for the humanists. We want to make sure that, for example, a marriage of a Muslim at home—which might not be a lawful marriage at the moment—is now taken forward and that we create a situation in which that becomes a lawful marriage and we have proper officiants, rules and regulations that regulate it all. That is the Government’s position.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I supported the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to the same-sex marriage Bill of 2013. The Minister probably feels rather beaten up by Members from all sides of your Lordships’ House, but we remember what Ministers said then. The provision that was arranged was deliberately simple to enable this to happen. I am sure the House would welcome other faiths being drawn into it, but this is long overdue. Please can he go away and look back at the history of the passage of that Act?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I will of course go back and look at the history. I am equipped with elderly but serviceable shin-pads and am quite used to having my shins thoroughly kicked when necessary, but in this case the Government feel that the country as a whole must go forward together and not favour a particular group.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Lords Hansard - part one & Report stage
Wednesday 15th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will be taking part remotely, so I hope she is there now. Baroness Brinton, are you with us?

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome this further opportunity to speak to Amendments 78C and 78D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on the unduly lenient sentence scheme, to which I have added my name, and to Amendment 82B in my name on home detention curfews.

First, I thank the Minister for trying to set up a meeting. It was unfortunate that he had to cancel it and that, because of the emergency coronavirus legislation, I was not free to meet him either yesterday or today. Further, as an aside, it is good to see the Government finally publish their consultation on a victims law and I hope that, after the consultation, legislation will swiftly follow. We have been waiting a long time and today’s amendments are very definitely there to help victims.

Turning first to Amendments 78C and 78D, in Committee, speakers made clear how the ULS scheme plays an important role in our justice system, providing the right for individuals to apply to the Attorney-General’s Office where they believe a sentence to be unduly lenient. As the Minister clarified earlier, the unduly lenient sentence scheme does not provide a direct right to appeal, but instead provides an individual, including victims of crime and bereaved family members, with the opportunity to have their concerns considered by the courts.

On Amendment 78C, we hope that the Minister will acknowledge both the intent and practicalities of such a proposition. The Government’s own victims’ code of practice is clear that victims deserve the right to be told about this scheme and that the responsibility for informing victims of crime about it is assigned to the witness care units. The problem is that the witness care unit is the wrong authority to have this responsibility, because it interacts with only those who are witnesses in court, thus excluding many victims, including bereaved family members.

Amendment 78D seeks to allow flexibility in the 28-day time limit in exceptional circumstances, which would remain at the discretion of law officers when considering the application. If the Minister is concerned about the perceived risk this poses to the certainty for the offender, we believe that allowing a degree of flexibility in exceptional circumstances, as is given to the offender in this case, at the discretion of law officers, does not pose such a risk.

Part of the current problem, and its true risk to finality in sentencing, lies in the current backlogs facing our court system. One recent unduly lenient sentencing case has taken 10 months to reach the Court of Appeal. This does not resolve the fundamental problem that victims face, which is that the criminal justice system should ensure that victims are aware of their rights, have sufficient opportunity to exercise them and have the same rights of flexibility in truly exceptional circumstances. We believe that these amendments, rather than posing a risk to justice and its efficiency, seek to ensure that justice is truly served and that victims of crime have the right—as the Government have set out elsewhere—to a fundamental role in this process.

I turn now to Amendment 82B, which seeks to amend the policy framework governing the use of home detention curfews to exclude those who have previously breached protective orders and who have a history of stalking, harassment, domestic abuse and coercive control. During the debate in Committee, we discussed the fixated and obsessive nature of these offenders and the risk this poses to victims and the public. We gave worrying examples of cases where high-risk offenders were released on home detention curfew, only to appear outside their victim’s home or work, often despite court injunctions not to contact their victim.

After Committee, Victoria Atkins, Minister for Prisons and Probation, wrote to the Victims’ Commissioner for London, stating that the scheme provides a transition to the community for lower-risk offenders. If we are to believe that this Government take violence against women and girls seriously, can the Minister explain how they can consider those convicted of stalking and domestic abuse as lower-risk offenders? The Minister himself stated, in a recent event held by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, that domestic abuse is at the top of the Government’s agenda and reforming and reframing their response is their top priority.

Support for this amendment would present a small step in the right direction to give victims of such violence the trust and confidence that the justice system is committed to tackling violence against women and girls. I will not press Amendment 82B to a vote, but would welcome a meeting to see if we can make some progress on reducing the contradiction highlighted by Victoria Atkins for something that would provide real support for victims.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate that the noble Baroness who moved the lead amendment in this group is concerned primarily with Amendment 78B, but perhaps I might be forgiven if I focus exclusively on Amendment 78A. This relates to the new clause, which would apply a minimum mandatory sentence of seven years to the offence of rape.

I am against this proposed new clause and think it profoundly wrong. I am against it for essentially two reasons. First, as one who has practised in the criminal courts for many years, I know that the offence of rape carries within it a very broad spectrum of culpability, from the most serious kinds of offence to ones significantly less serious. That should be reflected in the ability of the judge to impose the appropriate sentences.

Already a life sentence is the maximum that can be imposed. This takes me to my second point—that I really think the amendment is unnecessary. Anybody who goes to have a careful look at the guidelines published by the Sentencing Council as to how courts should approach sentencing for rape will come to the conclusion that public protection is already appropriately safeguarded. In fact, the spectrum of custodial sentences set out in the Sentencing Council guidelines is between four and 19 years. There is a whole host of considerations set out to assist the judge in determining what level of sentence should be imposed.

That takes me to the last point that I want to make. If you go to the Sentencing Council’s guidelines, as I am sure many of your Lordships have done, you will see a whole range of mitigating circumstances—as well, of course, as aggravating circumstances. Those mitigating circumstances are circumstances that a trial judge could take into account when imposing a determinate sentence of less than seven years. In the new clause proposed in Amendment 78A, nothing is said, for example, about what the consequences would be of remorse or contrition, nor about the making of an early plea, although that of course now attracts a mandatory reduction as a general proposition. Nothing is said about what happens if the defendant has been assisting the prosecution, nor about the time spent on bail. All those things are built into the sentencing guidelines of the council, but they do not appear in the proposed new clause.

If the amendment was to be accepted by your Lordships’ House, very considerable injustice would be done. I also happen to think that it is wholly unnecessary.