Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

Amendments 154B and 154C agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

If Amendment 154D is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 155 or 156 due to pre-emption.

Amendment 154D

Moved by

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156ZB: Clause 55, page 56, line 34, leave out “written”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on new subsection (3A) of section 27A of the Marriage Act 1949, inserted by my amendment of Clause 55, page 57, line 19.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)]

For the convenience of the House, as we have just agreed to de-group the amendments, it would be helpful if the Minister could introduce this group.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

We are now on what was group 6. In any event, the Government are bringing forward Amendments 156ZB to 156ZD and 156ZE to 156ZH. These are technical amendments and do not change the policy, which remains as set out on previous stages of the Bill. The amendments make minor revisions to the drafting of Clauses 55 and 56. Importantly, they ensure that registrars have all the information they need at the point they consider an application to marry or to enter into a civil partnership. The information needed is whether an applicant or their intended spouse or civil partner is a whole-life prisoner and, if so, whether they have been granted an exemption from the Secretary of State. They also make some minor changes to clarify the procedure and to update related legislation in line with the reforms. For the reasons that I have just given, I ask that Clauses 55 and 56 stand part of the Bill and invite noble Lords to support these government amendments.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 2, I shall speak also to other amendments in the group.

Amendment 2 deals with the victims of a homicide that has taken place outside the United Kingdom. I am very glad to see the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, behind me, as this amendment was in her name in Committee and, but for a slip of the pen, she would be the person standing here speaking, rather than me. However, because we wanted to get this amendment down, it has my name on it, so she will speak in due course about this, very knowledgeably indeed.

In essence, this amendment seeks to ensure that victims of homicide outside the United Kingdom are guaranteed to receive adequate support and are provided for adequately in the victims’ code. At the moment, no single UK agency has an overarching view of the end-to-end experience of victims of homicide abroad. Families fall through the gaps between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Ministry of Justice, the jurisdiction of the crime and our own police. I am aware that the Government are likely to argue that expanding the remit of the code will bring cost and place greater pressure on services, but we would suggest that the cost is relatively minimal. We are looking at between 60 and 80 cases in total per annum, and the number of cases has been going down year on year. That is less than 0.01% of the total number of victims in the UK.

There is a precedent for giving victims of crime abroad access to criminal injuries compensation. Since 2015, if a victim is killed by a terrorist, the family has a legal right to claim compensation. We can see no apparent rationale for differentiating between victims of terrorism and other victims of homicide. To those bereaved families, murder is murder.

We feel strongly that the FCDO must be included as an agency with accountability under the code. The joint memorandum between the Foreign Office, the MoJ and the police, which is currently a document that does not have legal status, must be incorporated within the code. That is what this amendment seeks to achieve.

Three successive and very distinguished Victims’ Commissioners have all been very strongly in favour of this amendment, and remain so. I am talking about the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, who unfortunately cannot be with us today, as well as Dame Vera Baird and the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. If three Victims’ Commissioners, who, in total, have been arguing the case for this for the past 16 or 17 years, are still arguing for it and still feel passionately that it is something that needs to be addressed, that has a certain force. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say at the Dispatch Box.

By mistake, we put down Amendment 3 and Amendment 6, which the Public Bill Office discovered this morning were identical—better late than never. I will speak to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on anti-social behaviour and trying to ensure that victims of persistent anti-social behaviour are recognised as victims and provided with their own victims’ code rights. The evidence is that anti-social behaviour is quite frequently, in relative terms, trivialised by criminal justice agencies. We have had evidence from a great many different people about the devastating impact that that can have. Time and again, we also hear that victims are told that they have to put up with it: “If you can’t take the heat, why don’t you think about moving house?” That is not an adequate way of telling a somewhat traumatised victim of anti-social behaviour that that is the best that can be done for them. Effectively, it means that they have to help themselves.

This amendment would ensure that a victim who meets the anti-social behaviour case review threshold is referred to victim support services and receives the help they need. I know the Minister is well aware of the scale of the problem and that work is being done at the moment to try to achieve a resolution, but I commend this amendment as part of the debate to try to move this forward and see whether we can get something done. Again, I look forward to his comments on this.

I will speak briefly to Amendment 8 on child criminal exploitation, as others will cover it. Creating a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation would create a degree of understanding across agencies and professions that at the moment is not clear. If you asked a variety of people what child criminal exploitation was, you would get slightly different answers. In the interests of children, we feel that that is simply wrong. We need complete clarity on what it is and how it should be dealt with, and that is not the case at the moment. There is some way to go to make this happen. I look forward to hearing the contributions of others to this debate, but for now I beg to move.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful for the way that my noble friend Lord Russell introduced these amendments. I will speak to Amendment 2, which I tabled in Committee. I am also grateful to the Minister for having arranged a meeting for me, the noble Baronesses, Lady Newlove and Lady Brinton, and others with officials from his department, and for the positive conversation that took place.

I remind the House that there is more than one murder a week abroad, involving different countries, languages and legal systems, and very different circumstances. The report from the All-Party Group on Deaths Abroad, Consular Services and Assistance showed that there is a lack of consistency in contact and communication with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It highlights that there are protocols but that these inconsistencies seem to override them. There are particular inconsistencies about reporting a death and methods of communication. Staff rotation in the FCDO means that people are sometimes repeating their story time and again, which results in secondary victimisation, as they are retraumatised by having to repeat the same story to different people. In some countries, legal processes are very rapid and there are huge language barriers. Sometimes people have been given a list of lawyers with no details about their ability to speak English or even their specialisation, and have found themselves referred to a legal team who do not know much about homicide. In one case I came across, they knew about conveyancing property, which was completely inappropriate.

After all that, there is a real problem with repatriation of the body, which can be very expensive. Some people have had to resort to crowdfunding because there is no assistance. The other problem that families face when they come back to this country is that, if there have been difficulties with the body or it has been disposed of abroad somehow, they then have to prove that the death has happened and the veracity of whatever processes went on.

I am most grateful to the charity Murdered Abroad for an extensive briefing, which I will not go through because this is Report. It is very keen to work with the FCDO. It has a great deal of experience and could be involved in training and drawing up clear protocols. It could provide the resource, which would not be expensed to the FCDO; in fact, it would probably be cost-effective because it would avoid duplication of work that is going on. It could ensure good communication skills and the language and translation that need to occur. One problem with having a small team in the FCDO is that staff change and move on and collective memory, which is really important, is lost.

I am grateful to the Minister for communicating that he does not intend to accept this amendment, but I hope that in reply he will take forward that officials need clear protocols, with good education, liaison and learning from experience, rather than simply to be responding to cases as they come in from all over the world to embassies or consulates. Sometimes they come to somebody quite junior who happens to be on duty that day. The whole thing could be better streamlined and support should be given when they come back to this country.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 2 and would have liked to put my name to Amendment 8. I do not need to say much about Amendment 2 because it has been extremely well explained by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. I support everything they have said.

The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has not yet spoken to Amendment 8, but a very good example of this, and of slavery, is children who are called “county lines”. We regularly get situations around the country of children, largely in housing estates and often from families with very little money, who become carriers of drugs. Because the cities and big towns are inundated with drugs, they carry them, for money, to small towns and villages. Only relatively recently has the National Crime Agency appreciated that these are children who are exploited and, very often, victims of modern slavery, rather than children who are committing offences and to be put before the magistrates’ court, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, will understand very well. Of course, county lines is not the only situation in which children are exploited. This is a worthy point to make and I very much support it.

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[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—

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his response. In the plan he has just outlined of the three departments working together, does he envisage establishing a checklist that FCDO staff in every embassy and consulate will have that will mean they will prospectively know about interpreters and appropriate lawyers who could be pulled in, in the event of there being a homicide in that jurisdiction, so that some of the problems that have arisen to date would be avoided by each consulate and embassy being adequately prepared? Will the education behind that become mandatory guidance, so we would know that, in practice, a clear system had been set up? I would be grateful if he clarified that, because simply the three departments working together here might not influence what happens on the ground elsewhere, learning from the experience of other places.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think I can, at the Dispatch Box this evening, commit the Government to proposing such a checklist in that detail, because the details will have to be worked out. However, the Government hear what the noble Baroness says and it is an obvious matter to consider. That is as far as I can go this evening.

Finally, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will forgive me if I take the question of carers a little bit shortly. The central problem with the amendment is the extension of the code and the rather blurred boundaries that might lead to quite a lot of extra resource demands, extra entitlements and so forth, so the Government are not persuaded that we should go as far as that. However, this point is correctly raised as a social and quasi-legal issue, and I can commit that the Government are already working with the Children’s Commissioner specifically on children’s needs and looking afresh at the needs of vulnerable adults ahead of public consultation on the code. I can commit to considering the experience and needs of parents and carers as they support particular victims through the criminal justice system. As to whether that requires further provision, I can commit to carefully considering how the accompanying statutory guidance might best set out how criminal justice bodies can effectively engage with the very important group that the noble Baroness identifies, who are so key to the support of their loved one, the direct victim, but I think that is as far as I can go on this group.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

I hope that the Government will look favourably on this amendment. In particular, I ask the Minister to meet some of us between now and Report in order to look at this issue in more detail and see whether we can find a way through.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for the way in which she introduced this important group of amendments. I am also grateful to her and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for their support for my Amendment 2, which seeks to ensure that victims of homicide outside of the United Kingdom receive adequate support and are provided for in the victims’ code. The distress they experience can be exacerbated by having to deal with the criminal justice systems of foreign jurisdictions and other difficulties that re-traumatise.

There are approximately 80 homicides of British nationals overseas each year. In addition, there are suspicious deaths, accidents and unexplained deaths. Families bereaved by a homicide in the UK are recognised as victims in their own right and are able to access rights under the victims’ code. Yet these same rights are not extended to those bereaved by homicide abroad, for no reason other than that the homicide occurred overseas. To lose a person you love to murder is a devastating and traumatic event wherever the crime occurs, but there are many additional problems and hurdles for British families bereaved by a murder overseas. As has already been explained clearly, these difficulties include repatriation, travel, accommodation, language barriers, lawyers, foreign judicial processes and many more.

These issues are exacerbated by the fact that these families have no right to access support to help them deal with these problems, putting them distinctly at odds with their compatriots. Bereaved families frequently have great difficulty accessing financial support for advocates and witnesses to travel abroad to attend trials. They cannot claim criminal injuries compensation because the crime occurred in another jurisdiction. Yet we know that it does not have to be this way. If the victim is killed by a terrorist, the family have a legal right to claim compensation. This clear distinction between these two cohorts of victims has no apparent rationale. It appears discriminatory because, for the victim’s family, murder is murder.

When it comes to supporting bereaved victims of homicide abroad, the responsibilities of the UK seem unclear. Of course each case is different, but it is unclear which UK agency has an overarching view of the end-to-end experience of the victims. Families frequently feel unsupported, describing falling through gaps between the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—FCDO, the Ministry of Justice, the jurisdiction of the crime and our own police. The FCDO is the key body that the victims will interface with when homicide occurs abroad, but this department is not included within the remit of the victims’ code. The only document that exists to help provide a minimum standard of assistance to victims is a memorandum of understanding between the FCDO, the association for chief police officers and the Coroners’ Society of England and Wales. This memorandum is not legally enforceable, and the Homicide Service, which is contracted by the FCDO to support victims of homicide abroad, is not a signatory to it.

There is therefore a complete lack of accountability and oversight when it comes to support for victims of homicide abroad. The damage that this absence of support causes is immeasurable and often has a long-term and wide-reaching impact. There are numerous case studies of victims who have been let down by UK agencies. In one shocking example, the FCDO gave a family a list of local lawyers based in the location where the murder occurred. The family was not told whether any of the 12 names supplied had been vetted or whether they spoke English, and the FCDO refused to give advice or a steer about which lawyer to use. As a result, the family ended up with an unreputable lawyer, costing £3,000, further compounding their enormous family pain.

A harrowing example of a family having to deal with the criminal justice system of a foreign jurisdiction is illustrated by the case of Halford and Florence Anderson, a British married couple. The 74 and 71 year- olds were both murdered in 2018 near their home in Jamaica, after reporting being victims of fraud. A senior coroner in Manchester, where the couple was from, concluded that they were both unlawfully killed. However, no one has been charged with their killings. Their son, Mark, has expressed the devastation that the family is going through, with still no sign of justice and no official updates on the case. This contrasts starkly with the positive experiences of victims who receive support from the charity, Murdered Abroad, which provides valuable support, both practical and emotional, as well as putting victims in touch with reliable lawyers and providing peer support for victims through group meetings.

But the burden of support should not be solely on charities. UK agencies have a duty to British citizens and should provide support to families impacted by homicide, regardless of the geographical location of the crime. That is what this amendment seeks to achieve. I have worked with, and have the support of, the Victims’ Commissioner, which is reassuring. I know that she has been calling for this change since her last time in that office. I hope the Government will look favourably on this amendment and be prepared to discuss it further before Report.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I of course understand the point that the Minister is making—procedures in other countries and what is available in other countries by way of support are different—but should that stop us requiring part of the Government, the organisation in this country which has immediate, close responsibility, to take on a role of proper signposting, which may be to equivalent services? Partly, it is interpreting, but it is obvious that there is a lacuna here.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

If there has been a homicide abroad and those families are living here, there is a real danger that the message will be that the Government think that that homicide does not matter as much as a homicide that happened here. The Government might say that they do not have the resources. I pointed out that it is about 80 homicides per year—the numbers are not huge—but those people who are so severely traumatised, retraumatised and carry on being further damaged by the experience often become enormous consumers of resources because of mental health services, because they are unable to work and so on, and eventually they may need benefits. There are all kinds of things that they may need. It is a false economy to look at it in terms of resources to the FCDO. I hope that the Minister will meet me and others to discuss ways that the victims’ code could be asterisked where there are things that may not be as appropriate if the homicide occurred here, but it would say that the lives of British citizens are of equal value wherever they are in the world and that whether it was a terrorist attack, a homicide here or a homicide overseas, those lives are of equal value.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, of course I am prepared to meet the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and any other noble Lords on this point to discuss it further. There is certainly a point about the signposting in the code, what the code should say about all this, whether we should give further additional priority to homicides abroad, and exactly what the role of the Homicide Service is and other related resource issues, as well as where the earlier point I raised about priorities comes in: we cannot do everything. This is an important topic for further discussion, and I do not rule out examining further how far we can go in response to the very legitimate concerns raised.

I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will forgive me for coming to her last, but I think her point was about the definition of a victim where the person is a victim as a result of the criminal conduct of a close family member. The obvious example would be a road incident where somebody who had been driving over the limit or driving dangerously had killed themselves, leaving behind bereaved children. On the wording of the code, those children would be victims. The Government do not think that even in those circumstances should we reduce or limit the concept of a victim. It is conceivable that somebody could be a perpetrator and a victim at the same time, because if you have driven dangerously, had a crash and killed your child, you may both be guilty of criminal conduct and a victim of your own conduct, as it were. That may be a highly theoretical and hypothetical example, but the Government are not proposing any change to Clause 1 in relation to those very tragic kinds of case.

I hope I have dealt with the main amendments proposed in this first group, and I respectfully invite your Lordships not to pursue them at this point.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my non-remunerated role as chair of the Commission on Alcohol Harm. That is relevant, as up to 70% of prisoners indicate that they had been drinking at the time of committing their offence. Overall, alcohol-related crime costs England alone £11.4 billion each year, consuming 53% of police time. Where a child is killed or maimed, over one-third of cases have antecedents in parental alcohol use. Following my noble friends Lord Meston and Lord Hampton, I shall focus on children overall as victims. I will come later to the cross-border issues relating to the devolved Governments.

Despite the Government’s 119 amendments in the other place, they still have not adequately ensured that the concept of victim recognises that a person of any age and any degree of mental capacity can become a victim. A child can be a victim of many types of events, including domestic abuse, that do not reach the criminal conduct threshold. Child victims need independent support that does not intimidate them and which is appropriate for their level of emotional and intellectual development. It is important to understand that these do not necessarily coincide and may be quite different from the child’s chronological age, particularly where the child has been a victim for some time and their emotional development may have been impacted as a result. The Bill stipulates broad criteria that the victims’ code should meet, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, pointed out, it does not state that it must meet them, giving rise to concern that the flexibility in the Bill is so great about the provision to victims that it may remain as inadequate as it is today.

To state that the Bill requires provision for victims of different descriptions, which by implication covers all ages, is inadequate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, pointed out, the Bill needs amending to ensure independent children’s advocacy. Such provision must apply up to the age of 18. When a person over 18 has learning difficulties, they will need to be able to access the age-appropriate support that should be built into the Bill for those under 18. Currently in the Bill, a child under 18 appears to forfeit their right to engage directly with their case in certain circumstances, such as when receiving direct support from the independent public advocate.

Wherever a child is interviewed, the process needs monitoring and quality assurance, particularly the communication skills and management of distress, with interviews recorded and independently reviewed. Communication must be child-centric, not speaking over them, to provide the child with a sense of control in a situation that is difficult and traumatic. It is important to remember that a great deal of violence, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and negligence occurs within families, as well as in relationships outside the home. These children may already feel failed by social services’ involvement, and they need completely independent and consistent support. Let us not forget that four in 10 victims of modern slavery are under the age of 18.

In major incidents, children are often secondary victims. When their parent or sibling is killed or injured, even if they were not present at the time, they will be a secondary victim. If a parent is a paedophile or they witness financial abuse in their family, they will feel tainted as secondary victims. The terrible ongoing trauma to children and young people following the major incidents in this country that we have heard about, such as the Manchester bombing and the Grenfell Tower fire, and indeed the infected blood scandal, cannot be underestimated. That was starkly illustrated abroad following the terrorist bomb at Brussels airport in which 32 victims died. Although Shanti De Corte, age 17 at the time, miraculously was not physically injured, she was so psychologically traumatised by witnessing the event that she eventually sought and received euthanasia six years later.

The Bill’s requirement for a victim assessment is not enough. As well as calling for a mandatory multiagency needs assessment for a child victim specified in the code of practice, there must also be a requirement to act on that assessment. If little or no action is taken then the child or young person can feel further exploited by the system itself and further alienated. I hope the Minister will listen to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, in her new role, which she has taken up again, as Victims’ Commissioner. Sadly, she has a great deal of experience.

I turn to cross-border working. Many aspects of the Bill will involve services that fall within the devolved competencies of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I want to concentrate on Wales because the territorial extent and application of the Bill is far more extensive in relation to Wales than to Scotland or Northern Ireland. However, the Explanatory Notes to the Bill suggest that legislative consent has been sought only on Clause 15, concerning independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisers, and Clauses 28 to 39, concerning major incidents.

So I ask the Minister why no legislative consent has been sought on the other clauses—excepting 12 to 14, as we heard—since the Bill in many cases involves the health services, relevant authorities and so on in the devolved Governments. What discussion has been held with Welsh Ministers in all the relevant departments, particularly health and social care, justice, education and local government? Can the Minister explain how a crime or major incident that occurs in Scotland, with the victims living in Wales, will be dealt with under this Bill? On cross-border issues, who will be responsible for appointing the standard advocate? Turning to the funding for the victims of contaminated blood payments, will all the funding come from the Treasury, because the events all occurred prior to devolution settlements?

Domestic Abuse: Defence for Victims who Commit an Offence

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, these are difficult issues and I completely understand the concern of the noble Baroness and others who have raised them. Taking the law into one’s own hands is a very big step and there should be a very high bar to taking life, whatever the circumstances. The question of whether one should change the law on the defence of homicide is complicated and the Government will continue to consider it.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, do the Government recognise the role that alcohol abuse has in the perpetration of domestic abuse, including severe domestic abuse? The spring Budget provides an opportunity to correct some of the relative drop in its price, particularly of low-cost alcohol, which is consumed in great quantities and contributes greatly to domestic abuse situations which then escalate completely out of control.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

However, on rereading this speech, I was so pleased with the evidence-based arguments that I had advanced—which, as I say, I am not going to repeat this evening—that the more I read it, the more I realised what a shame it was that although the Bill went through this House, and I remind my colleagues here that they voted for it last time around, the Government would not give it time when it went to the Commons for it to be dealt with there.

Since 2015, matters have got worse rather than better, particularly in the last two years. The figures plateaued between 2015 and 2018, but we saw some serious injuries and deaths in 2019—a total of 2,050. A total of 230 people died, up from 200 in 2015, when I last addressed this issue. There was also an increase of 8% in seriously injured casualties compared to 2018. Will the Minister confirm whether the figures I am quoting are correct? If I am not right then I would be pleased to be corrected, but I think I am on the right track.

This country had a very good record in the last century. We led most of Europe. We trailblazed in addressing injuries and deaths on the road and all the aspects of them. However, over the years our leadership has started to diminish. This is in part because we have been unwilling to change. Had we gone back to my 2015 data, I would have been talking about Baroness Castle and the way that she introduced it, and asking how we alighted on the 80-milligram figure. It was plucked out of the air with not a great deal of evidence behind it, and work done subsequently indicated that it was very high indeed and should have been lowered.

We have ended up here, where we see that the rest of Europe is at 50 or below, with some as low as 20, and only two countries—England and Wales and Malta—have retained the figure of 80. The question is: have we done the right thing in persisting with holding to 80? Some of the Scandinavian countries that are doing extraordinarily well in reducing deaths on the road are way down at the 20 milligrams level.

Why do these countries have lower limits? It is because all the evidence shows that 80 milligrams in the blood increases the risk of a driver’s involvement in a collision, by three times for collisions leading to injuries and by about six times for collisions leading to death. Even at the lower BAC level of 50 that I am advancing in my amendment, and I am grateful to my colleagues who are supporting me—the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Finlay, have put their names to this amendment—carries substantial risks for people who are inebriated at that level. It is not an easy ride; it is a risky one. Those levels of risk, if the Government are prepared to accept our figures, would be reduced respectively to about 1.5 and 2.5 times more, by comparison with the figure of 80 milligrams. That is a stark difference.

I ask the Minister to say why the Government declined in 2016 to make the change and whether these academic assessments are right that we are permitting people to legally drive at a limit that is a danger to life and limb and we refuse to change it. Where is the evidence for continuing with what we are doing at the moment?

The Scottish Government, as we are aware, cut the limit to 50 milligrams in December 2014, Northern Ireland has legislated to follow suit, and the Welsh Government would like to do the same if they had permission from us. Initially, Scotland saw a decrease in the number of deaths and injuries, but later reports show that what has been happening there is not quite so encouraging as they first experienced.

I will be very straight about the facts. I am not going to pretend that it produced as good a result in Scotland as we would have liked, but there are some other factors to be taken into account there. They did not run any particularly big advertising campaign to try to drive it home. They did not give any further resources to enforcement. There is a range of things they could have done to make it more effective. Initially, certainly, there was some beneficial change. Lives were saved. If a few lives were saved, I am sure they would argue that it was worth doing. They probably need to do more now. The Minister was nodding. I anticipate that he will quote Scotland and say that they need to keep an eye on it—the Scottish results are not convincing enough for us to change.

I have identified a weakness, and I share the view that enforcement is vitally important. With the help of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, we have produced a solution on the enforcement front in Amendment 164, to which he will speak at greater length. We always try to be helpful. It is important to cut the number of deaths and the rising number of serious injuries. We must find any possible way to discourage people from drink-driving. Reducing the limit to 50 would be a discouragement. Support for the second amendment, to introduce random breath testing, need not necessarily mean incurring the use of greater resources. We believe that, on balance, it would provide a deterrent which would have a very dramatic effect on the way thatusb people who still continued to drink and drive would respond.

There is evidence from abroad. It has been particularly effective in Australia, where they have followed this practice. Australia had a very bad record on drinking and driving. The introduction of random breath testing has changed it quite dramatically. People no longer drink and drive as they used to do. Lifestyles have changed. We can do the same in this country.

The life of each individual is unique. It behoves us to take every opportunity to end the selfish killing and maiming by drunk driving. There is a particular category of repeat offenders. The reality is that the police often know who these people are, but unless they commit a traffic offence, the police cannot stop and breath-test them. If the second amendment is adopted, along with the first, I believe it would make a quite dramatic change in lifestyles and in respect for each other. Random breath testing would reduce deaths and injuries.

Driving under the influence of drugs is also an important issue to be addressed. We are not endeavouring to do this, or to complicate the issue here. In this context, we are simply dealing with alcohol. We will need to come back and look at people who take drugs. For the moment, this is about alcohol. It is about a relatively modest change with no great requirement for additional resourcing. It is about focusing on the area that really needs addressing. I trust that, this time round, the Government are prepared to support it, rather than to oppose it in the way that they did last time.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment. I declare that I chair the Commission on Alcohol Harm.

This amendment would simply bring us in line with other EU and Commonwealth nations. It has been estimated that this amendment alone could save at least 25 lives a year and prevent 95 casualties. This may not sound like a large number, but the majority of those who die on the road are young adults or children in accidents involving drink-driving. Men are far more likely to have been drinking: 78% of male drivers were involved in drink-drive accidents, against 69% of men in other types of accidents. Where casualties are involved, the numbers are also higher for men—67% where alcohol was involved, against 60% for all reported accidents.

Sadly, Wales does particularly badly, with a higher percentage of casualties in drink-drive accidents than in Scotland or England. When we look at the age of people involved, it is quite chilling. Most of the pedestrian casualties are children and young adults, most of the pedal cyclist casualties are children and young adults, and the motorcyclists are young adults. The car occupant casualty rate is higher when alcohol has been involved in the accident. The drink driver does not only kill themselves; the tragedy is that they will kill somebody else’s child or parent. If death is not the outcome, life-changing injuries often are. It has been estimated that around 5%—one in 20—of all casualties in reported road accidents involved alcohol in one way or another; often at least one driver or rider was over the drink-drive limit.

I look back in horror at my childhood, when “Have one for the road” was said as somebody left the house after coming round for dinner. The accident rate then was absolutely appalling; many people of my age can probably remember somebody who died in one of those accidents. However, if we look at 2019, despite Covid looming across Christmas and the festive season, there were 230 verified drink-drive fatalities, with a provisional estimate of 280 fatalities for that year involving drink. That constituted 13% of all casualties on the road, and there were 7,800 drink-drive casualties, accounting for 5% of all casualties on the roads.

In the report from the alcohol harms commission that I chaired we pointed out that in 2017, the Department for Transport estimated that 310 pedestrians and 110 cyclists were casualties in drink-drive accidents, including 60 children aged nought to 15. One police witness, Sergeant Mick Urwin, described the impact of drink driving. Apart from the perpetrators, who lose their licence and often their job and may be imprisoned, the greatest impact is on the family of someone killed or seriously injured by a drunk driver. It is devastating. He explained that

“delivering a death message to a parent, brother, sister, son or daughter to inform them that someone has been killed by a drink driver is not something I ever got used to.”

We had evidence from the ex-wife of an alcoholic about how difficult it was to persuade her children not to get in the car if they thought that daddy had had a drink. Fire officers told us that they now rescue more people from road collisions than house fires, and many of them are due to drunk-driving. A survey by Drink Wise, Age Well of 16,700 people over 50 found that drink-driving was commonplace among high-risk drinkers: 30% reported that they had driven when they thought they were over the legal limit in the preceding year. That is a huge number of people who are aware that they have drunk too much but who think they will get away with it.

If one young parent dies in a drink-drive accident, they are likely to leave orphaned two or three children. Those children’s life chances are seriously damaged, with higher rates of mental health problems and lower school attainment; they are less likely to get into higher education; and they are at a higher risk of suicide later in life—in other words, this year’s drink-driving fatalities leave decades of societal difficulties ahead. The tragedy is that these are avoidable accidents. The simple message: “Do not drink and hold the car keys” is the one to give the public. We all know that simple messages work. We all know that legislation gives messages. That, combined with the simple message that one in eight road deaths involves a driver over the limit, can be enough to bring about the change that we need across society. I do not know of anybody, other than perhaps those in the alcohol retail industry, who objects to lowering the drink-drive limit. We have an NHS that is struggling, a court system with backlogs, and terrible backlogs for psychological support services for young children who are bereaved.

We had a debate earlier about road safety. Nobody will be damaged by lowering the drink-drive limit, but every year hundreds of people will die, and thousands will be damaged, by not acting now. I hope the Government will see it is time to come in line with the rest of the Commonwealth.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare all my roles in the register. My experience extends to caring for several thousand dying patients. The horror stories we have heard today must be followed up. But here Parliament is being asked to sign a blank cheque for the unscrupulous. As the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, warns, be realistic—never assume the best of human nature when legislating. At first sight, the Bill is seductively simple, but its safeguards are bland statements for an ideal world out of touch with reality, and it seems potentially incompatible with Clause 60 of the Mental Capacity Act.

Thirty years ago, three senior doctors and I predicted that a distressed man desperate for euthanasia had three months to live. However, today he is glad of the years of joy and sadness—prognosis is a guess. The criteria drawn from Oregon are very elastic and case law will expand them rapidly—as in Canada—as some today have already indicated. Very few palliative medicine doctors would be prepared to be involved in any part of gatekeeping for lethal drugs. In Canada they are leaving the specialty, and in Oregon most doctors will not touch it. Therefore, 90% of people are stewarded by campaign groups to a willing prescriber of lethal drugs, who knows nothing about them beyond their case notes—no basis for sound decision-making. Last year one such doctor wrote 31 lethal prescriptions.

Nothing in the Bill plugs deficits in care. The experience of other countries shows that palliative care does not flourish, nor do violent non-assisted suicide rates fall—they do not—when such legislation is in place. When explored, public support reveals that 42% of people think it allows people to stop treatment and 10% that it is hospice care. Two-thirds of hospice doctors report that people think that hospices practise euthanasia and are already getting frightened.

The Bill will not solve suffering or improve care. It suggests to terminally ill people that ending your life is something you should consider. Even the strongest are vulnerable to influence when fearful or when their lives are shattered by disease. Some 53% of people dying by lethal drugs in Oregon were concerned at being a burden; pain was way down the list. Two-thirds of Oregon hospices do not take part in assisting suicide. In Belgium, two-thirds of all dying people do not access specialist palliative care. In Canada, as we have already heard, hospice funding was withdrawn for hospices that refused to participate. Belgium and the Netherlands have had no growth in palliative care services since 2012. Now in parts of the Netherlands one in 19 of all deaths is assisted. In Belgium, one in 60 deaths is non-voluntary euthanasia. Numbers escalate everywhere—up 281% in Oregon in the past 10 years—with reports relying on a tick box after the event.

It is not always a quick and easy death. The eight who reawakened did not repeat the experience. Last year, over half took more than three-quarters of an hour to die; some, more than four days; and 6% had complications—higher than the 4% of difficult symptoms referred to in the debate. Doctors know that they cannot make many of the life or death judgments that the Bill asks. This is not a job for doctors already on their knees after the pandemic, in a country where palliative care provision to provide dignity in dying remains largely outside the NHS, reliant on voluntary donations, leaving 320 people daily not getting the care they deserve. Modern symptom control is moving fast: you do not have to kill the patient to kill the pain. No law stops pain control, but ignorance does. The Bill is not safe.

Child Trust Funds

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, let me give a short answer to a long question. It is not a question of whether going to court should or should not be necessary: it is necessary because Parliament passed the Mental Capacity Act, which requires it. In 1995, the Law Commission recommended a small payments scheme. That was not taken up by Parliament, but I am now consulting on it, because it seems to me that that is the right way forward.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum. Will the consultations specifically consider how to exclude coercion, malintent or diversion of the person’s funds for use other than purely in their interest, if there is no lasting power of attorney or court-appointed deputy?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has put her finger on the point. What we have to do here is balance the need to protect vulnerable young adults—because that is what they are—with their desire and that of their parents and guardians to access small amounts of money speedily and efficiently. It is that balance which the consultation will be aimed at.

Child Trust Funds: People with a Learning Disability

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, people need a court order because, in the Mental Capacity Act, Parliament provided protection for young adults to make sure that their funds—and the funds are theirs, not their parents’—can be accessed only by people with a proper court order. The working group meets monthly, and the next meeting is later this week. It has engaged with people across the industry and, as I said a few moments ago, because of the work of the working group, we are now amending the GOV.UK pages to provide more information to parents in that regard as well.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, should be congratulated on the Mental Capacity Act, which is a precious piece of legislation that protects the most vulnerable? Does he agree that any erosion by creating exceptions to its established processes would fail to ensure long-term provision for the vulnerable person’s welfare as an adult over 18, while increasing the risk of child trust funds being diverted without accountability?

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I respectfully agree that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, should be congratulated on his work on the Mental Capacity Act. He described it as

“a vitally important piece of legislation, and one that will make a real difference to the lives of people who may lack mental capacity.”

I respectfully agree. I also congratulate the noble Baroness on hosting a very good briefing event on 17 June. I urge all Members of the House who are interested in this topic to look at the materials from that event, which are available on the Social Care Institute for Excellence website.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

At end insert “and do propose Amendment 9B in lieu of Amendment 9—

9B: In Clause 55, page 35, line 19, at end insert—
“( ) ensure all child contact centres and organisations that offer child contact services regularly check their employees, agency workers and volunteers for compliance with national standards in relation to safeguarding and preventing domestic abuse as specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State.””

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, the amendment I have tabled is a modified and simplified version of the previous amendment regarding child contact centres. I am most grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, for meeting the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Burt of Solihull, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and me yesterday. We were hopeful that the Government would want to commit to making regulations rapidly, but, alas, no.

In redrafting I have taken into account the concern expressed by the Minister in the other place that a statutory framework governing local authorities could be costly and bureaucratic. However, I take issue with the statement that the Government have not seen evidence to suggest that the framework used by the National Association of Child Contact Centres—or NACCC, as I will call it for short—and agreed with Cafcass through a memorandum of understanding, is not needed. A lack of evidence being brought forward does not mean that a problem does not exist; it simply means that it is currently going undetected.

I share with the House the words of our previous Prime Minister, the right honourable Theresa May, who said on this issue in the other place:

“May I say to the Minister that from my experience of more than 20 years as a constituency MP, telling me that CAFCASS has an involvement in something does not necessarily fill me with reassurance?”


She went on to say that

“it is important to make sure that those protocols are sufficient and that they are doing the job that needs to be done.”—[Official Report, Commons, 15/4/21; col. 531.]

Unfortunately, because there is no statutory requirement, such monitoring is left to voluntary sector services such as the NACCC.

There are individual cases of concern, but it is not appropriate to go into such details at this stage. Yet the Government’s own recent harm report, which assessed the risk of harm to children and parents in private law children cases, identified that professionals involved in child arrangement cases show a

“lack of understanding of the different forms that domestic abuse takes, and of the ongoing impacts of abuse on children and victim parents”.

The report identified systematic minimisation of abuse and unsightly, unsafe child arrangements in an adversarial system with silo working. Some respondents felt the risk-assessment processes to be inadequate, providing examples of courts bypassing risk assessments altogether and simply ordering contact without assessing the ongoing risk for the non-abusive parent, without considering the risk of potential future harm and without consultation with the child. Surely the Government can see that their own report highlights that staff need specific training on domestic abuse.

That is why I find the Government’s email to me today about my amendment deeply worrying. In it, the Government recognise that individuals can set themselves up outside NACCC-regulated or Ofsted-regulated activities such as childminding. These people are not even eligible to seek such a certificate on criminal record should they wish to demonstrate their commitment to the welfare of those for whom they are providing a contact service. Parents using such contact services have no assurance that these people, who have not been screened by enhanced criminal record disclosure and barring service checks, do not have unspent or spent convictions and cautions. Those of malintent towards children and others who are vulnerable can hide.

The Government said that local authority arrangements safeguard public law cases, and in private law cases they did show that protocols are in place—but, again, there is anecdotal evidence that some parts of the judiciary are unaware off the full content of the judicial protocol and the memorandum of understanding between NACCC and Cafcass. In some communities where there is greatest suspicion of statutory bodies, child contact services may be harder to monitor and are not necessarily focused on a child contact centre. An individual may be complicit in abusive behaviours being perpetrated or have a history of inappropriate behaviour towards children that has gone unnoticed.

My amendment simply gives the Government powers to make regulation as they wish to ensure that all child contact centres and organisations offering child contact services regularly check for employees’, agency workers’ and volunteers’ full compliance with national standards in relation to safeguarding and preventing domestic abuse. At a minimum it is essential so that these vulnerable children are not exposed to further danger. All the personnel involved should have, as a minimum, the enhanced disclosure and barring service checks, and I hope the Government would also require them to have up-to-date specialist domestic violence training to be able to detect and appropriately manage situations of ongoing abuse.

We must not let domestic abuse legislation go through and leave a loophole in our protection of children who are victims. It is consistent with the approach in the Department for Education document Working Together to Safeguard Children and with the welcome given by the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to the Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill, debated last Friday in the House. The Minister said then that

“the provisions in the Bill will ensure that young people are accorded the highest protections to safeguard their physical and psychological health.”—[Official Report, 16/4/21; col. 1579.]

In January 2021, the Government published their tackling child sexual abuse strategy. So, I ask, when will the Government make sure that all those working with children and vulnerable people are subject to enhanced DBS checks? Can the Minister explain why the Government are resistant to providing the highest protections to children who are victims of domestic abuse and potentially open to ongoing abuse or even predatory activities from people with criminal intent who could masquerade as providing child contact services?

Unless I have a firm and comprehensive assurance from the Government that this loophole will be closed, and of when it will be closed, I will seek the opinion of the House, as I believe this House is committed to the welfare of children. I beg to move.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and I congratulate her on the work she has done in this regard and on bringing forward a revised amendment at this stage. I declare my interests: I am vice-president of the National Association of Child Contact Centres; I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Child Contact Centres; and I am a non-practising Scottish advocate, so I did have some limited experience of family case law at the Scottish Bar.

I thank the Minister for meeting us on a number of occasions—most recently yesterday. I took great heart from his confirmation, which his official gave us on the call, that the Government indeed have the power to make the regulations we are requesting, so that this amendment would not be needed. I draw attention to the letter sent by email today following the meeting yesterday, which states:

“At the meeting yesterday I indicated that my officials would look at the DBS regulations, to assess whether these could be amended to apply to individuals setting up contact centres and services, outside of the NACCC accredited services, in order to provide a level of safeguarding for both children and parents.”


I would like to know why the Minister has drawn back from what I understood was a clear commitment to make these regulations.

I remind the Minister that this is my second attempt at supporting this amendment. I had a Private Member’s Bill some two Parliaments ago as a relatively new Member of this House on this precise point. I welcome the fact that the Minister and others spoke in previous stages in support of this amendment, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Burt, and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. Our starting point is simply, as the Minister explained, that we want to ensure that in a family breakdown, the break-up of a marriage or any other relationship, the absent parent—normally the father, but possibly the mother—will continue to have contact with the child. It is extremely important for both the family and society that that is the case. I care passionately about families, and family law is at the heart of British society.

I will put a point to the Minister today that he has not answered to my satisfaction. GOV.UK states:

“You will need to have an enhanced check with barred lists from the Disclosure and Barring Service, if you want to look after children for a living … Who needs to be checked …You may need to go through a DBS check if you work directly with children or run the childcare organisation, for example as a … childminder … childminding assistant … nanny … playgroup owner … children’s home director”.


So I ask my noble friend a very simple, direct and straight question: why are those either working at child contact centres or offering services of contact being put in a less safe situation in relation to the children they are going to be dealing with than every other person working with children?

Let me remind the House that the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, has a Private Member’s Bill going through this House at the moment looking to close a similar loophole in the provision of education to children aged between 16 and 19, and I support that Bill. That loophole shows that safeguarding should extend to 16 to 19 year-olds, and the Government are seeking to close that loophole for a very good reason: nobody wants a terrible incident to happen, leading to a potential court case and huge trauma for all concerned, not least the Government, whose responsibility it is to protect 16 to 19 year-olds in education or enjoying educational services in any setting. So for what reason, as we seek to close that loophole for 16 to 19 year-olds, is a child or family in this case not enjoying the same level of protection as they do with every other category of a person providing a service?

I would like to humbly correct the Minister on one point. He stated that those supporting the amendment were claiming that there are large numbers of unaccredited centres at risk of domestic abuse. That has never been our claim. Our claim is that this small category is unacceptable because it is putting children at risk, and they are the most vulnerable in society. I would just like to correct my noble friend on that single point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I am mindful of the views which have been expressed across the House. I start with a point on behalf of the Government and of myself. So far as the Government are concerned, like the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, they are committed to the welfare of children—that is not a phrase with which any of us would disagree. For myself, if I may accept the point put by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I do have a human side. Notwithstanding that I am a lawyer and a Government Minister, something of a human side still pokes through occasionally.

There is nothing between us on the aim; what is between us is the means. I therefore remind the House of two points. First, of course anything said by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in this area has to be heard with care and listened to diligently, but it is the case already that the vast majority of people in child contact centres will have to have certain checks through NACCC accreditation and because of the local authority obligations. That is the first general point.

The second general point in response to one of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, is that the fact that the memorandum of understanding is being updated and revised is no indication whatever that there is a problem with it. For example, one of the revisions which is being made is to substitute the name of the previous President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, with the name of the new president, Sir Andrew McFarlane. Updating and revision of an MoU does not indicate that there is a problem. A lot of very good documents are continually updated and revised.

One is therefore back to the essential point, which is: what is the evidence which underpins the proposed amendment? It is all very well to talk of a loophole, but the real question is whether there is an underlying problem. It is the evidence base with which we have concerns. I say with genuine respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, that anecdotal evidence is not a sufficient basis in this area on which we should be legislating. Of course, staff must be trained and we must look to see whether there are legislative gaps, but we have to proceed on proper evidence.

So far as my email is concerned, I do not pull back from that at all; I stand by every single word of it. In particular, with regard to DBS checks, I am happy to repeat from the Dispatch Box precisely what I said in the email: “I am ready to explore whether there is a case for ensuring that there are appropriate arrangements in place for anyone who seeks to set themselves up as a provider of child contact centres to be subject to criminal record checks. The issue is that the regulations with regard to DBS are about eligibility for DBS checks, not whether they are mandatory.”

I suspect that where we end up is on the question of whether there is a proper basis to legislate in this space, given my assurances that we would be looking at the DBS point and that there is no cogent evidence that the current system is not working. The protocol is in place and has been endorsed at the highest level by the judiciary and Cafcass. There are statutory and regulatory requirements in the public law cases. Indeed, the only first-hand evidence which we have heard this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, has been that the matter is working well. As he confirmed, he sends his cases to an accredited centre only.

That is the position. Even at this late stage, I respectfully invite the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all who have spoken, and particularly to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss for her support, which I view as weighty. I stress to the House that a call for common standards seems to have come through in all the speeches in support of my amendment. I am slightly concerned that the Government decry an evidence base because I have seen no evidence that they have undertaken a systematic review of the standards of all the child contact centres and services around, nor have they looked at them systematically. When they asked for evidence, we brought it, and did what we could in the time available, and now it is being dismissed as anecdotal. We have gone round in circles and I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.