Rendition of UK Citizens

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I make it absolutely clear that we have not sent anyone abroad to face the death penalty.

[Baroness Stern (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Abolition of the Death Penalty. As the noble Baroness will know, the APPG has for years worked for abolition, alongside the Government, and has been proud of the Government’s commitment to seeing the end of the death penalty everywhere. Death penalty campaigners from all over the world express gratitude to the UK and are grateful for what it does to assist them in the countries in which they work. This development will be a huge blow to the death penalty abolition movement, and will be widely publicised. Is it possible that there will be some statement or reassurance or explanation—preferably an explanation—as to why this case is so different that it requires the Government to overturn a policy that has been maintained for so many years?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I pretty much agree with everything the noble Baroness says and I hope she will understand that I cannot discuss the details of this case. However, I can say, again, that the Government oppose the death penalty in all cases.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [HL]

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Stern]

69G: After Clause 41, insert the following new Clause—
“Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies in the British overseas territories
(1) For the purpose of preventing money-laundering, the Secretary of State must provide all reasonable assistance to the governments of—(a) Anguilla;(b) Bermuda;(c) the British Virgin Islands;(d) the Cayman Islands;(e) Montserrat; and(f) the Turks and Caicos Islands,to enable each of those governments to establish a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies registered in that government’s jurisdiction.(2) No later than 1 January 2019 the Secretary of State must prepare an Order in Council, and take all reasonable steps to ensure its implementation, in respect of any British overseas territories listed in subsection (1) that have not by that date introduced a publicly accessible register of the beneficial ownership of companies within their jurisdiction, requiring them to adopt such a register.(3) In this section a “publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership of companies” means a register which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, provides information broadly equivalent to that available in accordance with the provisions of Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006 (information about people with significant control).”

[Baroness Stern (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 69G in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Kirkhope, who regrets very much that he cannot be here. The amendment continues the debates that began in what is now the Criminal Finances Act 2017. It reflects the widespread and continuing concern about how the lack of transparency in the offshore financial centres of the British Overseas Territories—that is, Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos—enables the corrupt and criminal to find a haven for their ill-gotten wealth.

The publication of the Panama papers in April 2016 revealed information about thousands of questionable financial transactions. Half of the companies disclosed by the Panama papers—around 140,000—were registered in the British Virgin Islands, which we have heard mentioned a number of times today in relation to property transactions. Those revelations brought home to many the highly damaging effects of the lack of transparency in those overseas territories. During the proceedings of the Criminal Finances Bill, a similar amendment to this was debated, which would have required the Government to help the British Overseas Territories to produce publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership by the end of 2018. Should any of the territories fail to produce such a register, the Government would require them to do so through an Order in Council no later than the end of 2019.

The amendment became victim to the wash-up before the general election, and an alternative government amendment became part of the Act. This requires the Government to,

“prepare a report about the arrangements in place between … (a) the government of the United Kingdom, and (b) the government of each relevant territory, for the sharing of beneficial ownership information … The report … must be prepared before 1 July 2019, and … must relate to the arrangements in place during the period of 18 months from 1 July 2017 to 31 December 2018 … The relevant Minister must … publish the report, and … lay a copy of it before Parliament”.

Considering the impending dissolution of Parliament and the lack of time, the government amendment was very welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that, with that rather detailed response, the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, will be satisfied that we are making good progress. We are raising this matter at the highest level. Indeed, the intervention of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister underlines how important she considers this issue to be, as did the previous Prime Minister.

[Baroness Stern]

I thank all those who have spoken in support of the amendment and those who have spoken strongly against it. A debate is always very good for the brain. I thank the Minister very much for the information he has given us, for the hard work he has done at the joint ministerial council and for the progress that is being made. It is likely that this matter will be returned to on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 69G withdrawn.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I feel very privileged to have the 54th slot on the speakers list and to be the last Back-Bench speaker in this fascinating debate. I want to concentrate solely on matters relating to the International Criminal Court.

I welcome warmly the support that the UK Government have given to international criminal justice before and since the Rome statute came into effect. I paid a visit to the court last month under the auspices of the parliamentary network, Parliamentarians for Global Action. The officials whom I met at the ICC spoke most warmly of the UK Government’s support for the ICC system and for the co-operation extended to the ICC in its investigations and prosecutions. The UK was one of the few states to condemn the visit of Omar al-Bashir, for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant, to Chad. All that is much appreciated.

The court is now at the beginning of its second decade of applying the rule of law to crimes against humanity. The Foreign Secretary said in March:

“I am pleased to hear today that Bosco Ntaganda is on his way to The Hague. This is a hugely significant day for victims of conflict in the region. I hope it will contribute to a resolution of the problems in the eastern DRC along with determined efforts to implement wider peace agreements”.

When he said that, he summed up the huge change that the existence of the court has brought to victims, to helping resolve conflicts and to bringing peace.

The Rome statute represents a leap forward in international criminal justice in a number of respects. First, the court has severe punishments for those who are convicted, but it does not have the death penalty. That sends a message around the world about the proportionality of the use of the death penalty in those countries which retain it. I particularly welcome that, as I chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

Secondly, the court gives victims a right that they never had before to participate in court proceedings by expressing their views and their experiences through their own legal representatives. Victims also have the possibility of reparations. The UK Government’s announcement of a contribution of a further £0.5 million to the criminal court’s trust fund for victims, the third such contribution, is enormously to be welcomed.

Thirdly, the court has the most advanced gender provisions. The Rome statute is the first international treaty to identify crimes against women as crimes against humanity, as war crimes and, in some cases, as genocide. These provisions are all exemplary. The Government’s initiative on sexual violence and the G8 declaration on preventing sexual violence in conflict are a great encouragement to all those trying to respond to this particularly terrible aspect of war and conflict.

Against this background of the Government’s long-term support for the ICC, perhaps I may raise with the Minister just two issues. First, there is the question of the crime of aggression and the Kampala amendments. These are the amendments to the statute agreed in Kampala in 2010 that will enable the court by 2017 to begin a process to exercise jurisdiction with respect to the crime of aggression. Some 30 notifications are needed for the amendments to be activated. The UK played an important role in Kampala in achieving a consensus on the amendments. What is the Government’s thinking now on ratifying the Kampala amendments? Are the Government working with other states’ parties, especially in the European Union and Commonwealth, to encourage ratification? Are the Government proposing to incorporate the definition of the crime of aggression in our domestic legislation?

Secondly, there is the very difficult question of the ICC budget. Clearly there are financial difficulties and the court must seek efficiencies and use its money wisely, but the Minister must be aware of the great concern among a large number of those involved about the approach being taken to the ICC and the imposition of a zero-growth budget. This is happening at a time when more cases are being undertaken and there is wide encouragement to take more action against sexual violence. This approach to the budget could bring the danger that there will only be enough funds for conducting cases before the court, so that all the other work essential for justice to be done will be reduced. In particular there is a fear that work with victims and outreach to affected communities will be seriously impaired. Are these concerns being recognised and addressed? I do not expect the Minister to answer these questions tonight: he has not had very much notice. Perhaps he will be able to write to me sometime in the near future.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I put my name to the stand part debate for exactly the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, has outlined. In his letter to us of 12 December, the Minister said that a curfew can be an effective tool in punishing offenders, preventing reoffending and giving respite to victims. At the same time, the National Audit Office said in a report that such curfews were a problem for employment and could pose real barriers to people finding work. That seems to be the antithesis of preventing reoffending through helping people to live purposeful lives.

I have two comments, one about Clause 67 and one about Clause 75. There is a particular problem with women who are disproportionately affected by such increases, especially if they have children. I cannot believe that this has been thought through.

The other people I am particularly concerned about are those with mental health problems. They certainly do not need to be locked up under virtual house arrest—they need the stimulus of company and everything that goes with it. Again, I do not think that extending such a curfew for a year would serve any useful purpose.

I will always remember visiting young offender institutions where the youngsters were locked up all day, and watching what happened when they were let out for an hour at about 6 pm. They were just like puppies, all over each other. The prison staff, who did not know how to handle this, called it assault. It was not—it was the letting off of the adolescent steam which is a normal part of growing up. Locking up youngsters who come from a dysfunctional family, living in a small number of rooms, surrounded by others, for 16 hours a day for a year, is not a civilised way of coping with the problem. It is punishment, punishment, punishment, to the exclusion of civilisation.

The present system, which has a 12-hour curfew lasting six months, is in many ways causing the problems which the National Audit Office has commented on. Therefore, an extension would make things worse. As the noble Baroness said, we are setting these people up to breach the curfew, and then all we will do is make the problem worse. So I beg the Minister seriously to consider this extension and preferably to omit these clauses from the Bill.

[Baroness Stern]

I support the proposal that the clauses should not stand part of the Bill and the comments of the previous two speakers. Liberty has sent me a very helpful brief which I will be using. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Civil Liberties Trust.

Liberty points out in its brief that the Green Paper which led to this Bill envisaged that if there were tougher community sentences, prison would be used less because those sentences would be used instead. This is indeed a worthy idea, but I point out to the Minister that it is supported by absolutely no evidence whatever. Making community sentences tougher instead of making them more positive, rehabilitative and socially useful, simply adds to the number of such sentences and leads to more failure and imprisonment.

On the extension of curfews, it is hard to envisage a beneficial effect on the normal life of a curfewed person. How can a curfewed person become interested in going to work or jobseeking? How can they become involved in caring for a relative or in some activity which will take them away from crime? A curfew is a very blunt instrument with very little penal value. Has thought been given to the effect on the rest of the family? What will the effect be on the other siblings who may be on the straight and narrow and have to spend all their time in the house with the one member of the family who has been deemed not to be on the straight and narrow? What will be the effect on the family if it is the father who has to stay at home for 16 hours for 12 months? That person may spend his time at home drinking, so what happens to his wife and children? These points apply especially to the impact of curfews on children. Surely this measure will be a real hindrance to normal teenage development. It is hard to envisage anything else.

What is the objective of these clauses in terms of ensuring a more effective criminal justice system? In the other place, the Minister said that they would give courts more flexibility. But the flexibility to increase a curfew from 12 hours to 16 or six months to 12 seems more like punitiveness. If it is to give an impression of toughness, I would counsel the Minister against this. The public will not register the difference between 12 and 16 hours and six and 12 months. As a result, more people will fail and the public will then say, “There you are—he should have gone to prison. These non-custodial sentences never work”.

Finally, it might also be worth bearing in mind the cost. These proposals come with a price tag. In terms of change, rehabilitation, giving up drugs and alcohol and developing a social conscience, they add nothing. There are many better ways of spending money.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, I strongly endorse the proposal of the noble Baroness that both clauses should be deleted from the Bill and the criticisms of the clauses that she and other noble Lords have made. The noble Baroness, Lady Stern, has just referred to a statement made by the Prisons and Probation Minister in the House of Commons, in which he argued that this 33.3 per cent increase in the hours of the curfew and the 100 per cent increase in the maximum period over which such a curfew might be imposed—from six to 12 months—would enable the court to use curfews “creatively and flexibly”. However, there is potential for flexibility in the present system. That is not to say that one is entirely convinced by the present system but even it makes it clear that the 12 hours do not have to be a single period; they do not have to be consecutive. They can be in two or more blocks if the court thinks that is right. The curfew can be for a longer period at weekends than during the week. An element of flexibility is currently available.

I have yet to hear of an evidence base for this proposed change. What has persuaded the Government that a change of this kind will be effective? For that matter, what leads the Government to think that the present system is all that effective? We have heard from my noble friend Lord Ponsonby—no doubt rightly—that he spends much of his time dealing with breaches of community orders, of which this would be one, and sending people to prison for short sentences. It seems that the effect of these amendments would be to place a larger number of people on a conveyor belt to his court and other courts, and thence to prison, with consequences that have hardly been calculated.

A 12-hour curfew is difficult enough. It would be very difficult for anyone with a job, voluntary work or training to fit them in with a 16-hour curfew. It would make it virtually impossible for anyone to travel any kind of distance to work or some other establishment. That cannot be consistent with the aim of getting people—in this case mainly adults—into employment, which is one of the principal ways of avoiding reoffending.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Stern, has pointed out, the curfew is effectively a negative form of community sentence. For community sentencing to be effective it ought to be positive, for example through community pay-back and restorative justice, which we will come to on later amendments. This is simply temporary containment. Indeed, one wonders what the effect will be of children being cooped up in the dysfunctional homes from which too many unfortunately come, and which are probably at the root of their problems in the first place.

I do not know whether the Government propose any assessment of the impact of the current system, let alone—if these clauses stand part and the Bill goes unamended—of the lengthened periods that these two clauses would impose. A proper evaluation should be made before proceeding with any change in either direction, but I am not aware that any such evaluation has taken place or is being planned. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us. The figure for the number of breaches that the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, cited at the beginning hardly suggests that the system is all that effective, particularly for children.

This is very much a retrograde change. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, referred to Dickens earlier. I feel that this is almost a Dickensian proposal and one that we should not be developing in the bicentenary of that great writer. I think he would have had some pointed things to say about this type of legislation, and rightly so. I hope that the Government will think again and not press the changes that have been so effectively criticised by Members of the Committee and those outside.

Female Genital Mutilation

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I am participating in this debate for two reasons. First, I want to take the opportunity to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, both for instigating the debate and for her untiring work to develop awareness of FGM, to support the many groups working to get it stopped and to support the doctors who do the reversal surgery. Secondly, I want to take the opportunity to mention very briefly—and I must stress that I am no expert on the subject—what I learnt in Kenya during my stay as a volunteer, arranged by Voluntary Service Overseas, with the Coalition on Violence Against Women, an experience which I hope has some relevance in the UK. I participated in the programme the coalition is involved with in the rural areas to persuade whole communities that the time has come to stop this practice. Kenyan law makes it clear that FGM is unlawful. It is illegal under the Children Act 2001 and official figures show the numbers dropping considerably since 2001, although some commentators think all that has happened is that it is now being done in secret.

In Masai communities, with which I was involved, young girls are traditionally circumcised amid great ceremony in preparation for a hoped-for marriage. To avoid this, some girls, who dream of a different life for themselves, run away to safe houses where they are looked after. I visited a school in a rural area which a number of these girls attended. They were being clothed, fed and educated with money raised by various sources from the coalition as their parents would no longer support them. They seemed very determined to avoid the circumcision ceremony and early marriage and to stay on at school. However, the pressure on them to give up and go home was enormous, so I heard. Their parents were telling them, “You will never get married. What will become of you?”. Their peer group was saying, “I had it done. I got lots of presents. Now I am going to get married”. The girls I met were very brave and defiant—standing there in their hand-me-down clothes—and very admirable. Their lives were very difficult.

The Coalition on Violence Against Women also organised educational efforts in the villages, spearheaded by men, to spread the word that men would be better off with educated wives who had not been circumcised. While the law is essential and it is imperative that it is clear that this practice is outside the law, it is education of men and wider opportunities for girls that will in the end make it no longer culturally accepted. I was impressed with the Government’s multiagency practice guidelines and I thank the Library for providing me with these. Can I ask the Minister whether they are widely known and distributed? Since we are expecting people to resist a powerful traditional force, how far are the Government able to support civil society groups, which can support women and their mothers who want to resist this and to have a very different life?

Violence Against Women

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, for initiating this debate and for encouraging me to participate at rather short notice. It will come as no surprise to noble Lords that I will concentrate my remarks on matters to do with rape.

Rape is of course mainly, although not exclusively, directed against women, and is one of the most serious, invasive and damaging aspects of violence against women. The work that I carried out for my review involved meeting a number of rape victims and listening to what they had to tell me. That made clear to me how damaging rape is and how long lasting its effects are. The report of my review was published last year. Therefore, I will look at some of the developments since then—most of them positive and welcome—as well as seek some guidance from the Minister on where she sees this work going.

Let me start by saying how welcome is the approach that the Government have taken in the document, Call to End Violence against Women and Girls, which agrees on the need for a broad response. Criminal justice is undoubtedly important, but equally important is prevention and support for the victims. I also welcome the way in which the Government have set the discussion in the document within the framework of international norms and standards on women’s equality and the Government’s obligations under those international instruments, which were listed comprehensively by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. People who have suffered serious violence are entitled to support and help. That is not a favour or a charitable act but a right.

Moving to specific points, I think that one of the major issues surrounding discussion about rape is the question of outcomes in the criminal justice system. In that context, I shall first mention some steps that have been taken by the Ministry of Justice to ensure that the information in the public domain about how rape is dealt with is more useable and comparable than has been the case to date and is less likely to lead to misunderstandings and ill-informed argument. Alongside the announcement of their sensible decision not to proceed with providing anonymity to defendants in rape cases, the Government also published a report that pulled together research evidence. I was glad to have the opportunity—pre publication—to advise on the report. The report, Providing anonymity to those accused of rape: An assessment of evidence, gives for the first time a breakdown of the outcomes in rape cases that come to court.

I want to get those figures on the record, because the more widely known they are, the more likely it is that victims will feel, first, that it is worth reporting what has happened to them and, secondly, that it is worth staying with the process, even though it is lengthy and can be painful. The Ministry of Justice researchers carried out a one-off analysis that found that, of all the 2007 rape cases where the trial was completed by the end of 2008, 42 per cent of defendants were found not guilty and 58 per cent were convicted of an offence, of which 34 per cent were convicted of rape, 17 per cent of another sexual offence, 3 per cent of another violent offence, 3 per cent of another indictable offence, and 1 per cent of a summary—that is, a minor—offence. Thus, 54 per cent were convicted of rape or another sexual or violent offence. This is new information and it is important that we have been provided with it.

I also welcome the report's statement that,

“the MoJ have been working with the National Statistician to explore fully the issue of conviction rates in rape cases … a wide consultation on full proposals for the measurement of conviction rates in statistical bulletins across all offences is planned”.

This is particularly welcome because we shall at last be able to compare rape outcomes with those for other serious violent offences. I am very grateful to the research and statistical staff at the Ministry of Justice for the hard work that they have done in beginning to sort out the confusions over outcomes in cases of rape.

The research report also looked at evidence on false allegations and announced a welcome piece of work that will look at the extent and nature of false allegations. That work,

“will help further knowledge about the circumstances under which false allegations of rape are made, and how these compare to false allegations made of other sexual and violent crime. It will also help shed light on what happens to those proven to have made false allegations”.

I particularly welcome the decision to undertake that piece of work. When I was carrying out my review, I found the matter of false allegations particularly concerning. Perverting the course of justice by making a false allegation of such a grave crime is serious—there is no doubt about that—but in some cases that I came across there was an anxiety about the surrounding circumstances, about the vulnerability of the accuser and about the level of culpability that suggested a more reflective approach might be appropriate. Noble Lords may have read about the case of the abused woman who retracted her report of rape under pressure and was jailed for making a false allegation, although she was subsequently released by the Lord Chief Justice. It is therefore much to be welcomed that the Director of Public Prosecutions announced in a recent statement that interested parties would be consulted about producing new guidance that in future the Crown Prosecution Service will consider before such cases are prosecuted.

I will move on quickly to the question of serious violence against street prostitutes. One of the most remarkable discoveries that I made in the course of the review was that much superb work is being done by a range of people to protect street prostitutes from violence and serious assault and to take the necessary steps to prosecute and bring to trial those who carry out such assaults. At the end of last year, I was privileged to attend a big meeting organised by the Metropolitan Police, at which specialist police from Liverpool, and the outstanding women who work as specialist independent sexual violence advisers with street prostitutes in Liverpool, were invited to share their experiences of the best way of convincing street prostitutes that it is worth reporting assaults and of helping them through the criminal justice process.

In that connection, I will mention a scheme called ugly mugs, which aims to collect intelligence on those likely to perpetrate violence against prostitutes and circulate the information to those likely to be harmed. After a pilot scheme, a plan for a national scheme has been put forward by the UK Network of Sex Work Projects, as there is evidence that such perpetrators tend to move from one city to another. Are the Government looking favourably at supporting the idea of a national scheme to take forward this valuable work?

Finally, I very much welcome the announcement by the Government of continued funding for sexual assault referral centres and independent sexual violence advisers. At the end of last November, I was happy to travel to Ipswich to cut the ribbon at the opening of the first sexual assault referral centre in Suffolk, which brings together the police, local authorities, health authorities and the voluntary sector in a co-ordinated effort to provide a complete service to rape victims of all ages. The opening of the centre was the outcome of years of hard work and a most heartening occasion. Therefore, I ask the Minister, whose commitment to this work is unswerving, to confirm that the Government are firmly behind the continued development of such centres to make them available as of right to every rape victim who wishes to attend one.

Women in Society

Baroness Stern Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stern]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, for her truly excellent maiden speech. She is clearly a formidable campaigner. As she told us, she is a former chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. She is also a campaigner against animal cruelty and she chaired the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals. We cannot be surprised therefore—and this I learned from the website of a local newspaper in Norfolk—that she chose to be introduced into this House in animal-free ermine. I was glad to hear that animal-free ermine is available. I am sure other noble Lords will also be glad to know this and will be grateful to the noble Baroness for sticking to her principles in this way.

She told us that she studied theology at Oxford—at Lady Margaret Hall, I believe—and it is therefore appropriate that when she joined the House she found herself sitting with the right reverend Prelates the Lord Bishops. I am sure that those who have heard her speech will be very pleased that they will be sitting with her. Her speech was clear, forceful and full of practical points about how policies on women still need to change. I am sure that we all look forward to hearing much more from her in the days and months ahead.

I put my name down for this debate in order to speak about rape, which is a sad and traumatic aspect of women’s lives. It is not much in line with the title of our debate today, which is much more about the good things that can happen in women’s lives. I wish to speak about rape because I carried out a review of how rape complainants are dealt with in England and Wales, which was published in March this year. That gave me some insights and new experiences which I welcome the opportunity to share with your Lordships’ House. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, who gave me considerable support, both personally and through her role as chair of the Women’s National Commission.

Rape, of course, is not only about women; men, too, are raped. We do not know the actual numbers any more than we do with women; we think they are no more than one in 10 of all rapes. However, men, too, are raped and the consequences for them can be very serious and long lasting.

Today, however, I shall concentrate on women. My work in preparing the report brought me into contact with some marvellous people. Not many people know—I certainly did not—that there are two specialist projects in this country, one in Liverpool and one in Bristol, which work with street prostitutes and encourage them to report to the police when they have been attacked, abused and raped by men paying for their services. Both projects work closely with the police and a number of men have been convicted for assaulting and raping women working in street prostitution. In one recent case, according to the BBC report, the prosecution told the court that the defendant would pick up the prostitutes and take them to his home, where he had transformed a bedroom into a “torture chamber”. This is particularly important work because those who attack prostitutes may well do so more than once. The costs of the projects which work with women on the street are very small but their value is very great.

I was also very impressed by the special units set up by many police forces to concentrate on rape. These units include many dedicated men and women who are specially trained to put the victim at the centre of the investigative process. In one area—Gwent in Wales—after the creation of a special unit, the number of those reporting that they had been raped went up by half. Surely we all want more people to feel confident enough to report what has happened to them to the police. I met specialist prosecutors, fiercely determined to get evidence and put together a case that would stand up in court, and I met many independent sexual violence advisers who get alongside victims and support them throughout the process and sometimes for many months afterwards. They are also marvellous people.

Where such work is in place, it is outstanding and as good as anything anywhere in the world. I have mentioned it in the hope that the Minister will ensure that there is some thought given to its cost-effectiveness and importance before the axe falls as budgets are cut. I also want to mention those who sit on juries in rape cases. As part of my review, I sat in a busy urban Crown Court for two days, watching all the rape cases that were being heard. The seriousness with which the juries seemed to be approaching the task was impressive and the outcome of jury trials is reassuring. Excellent research called Are Juries Fair?, carried out for the Ministry of Justice by Professor Cheryl Thomas and published earlier this year, concluded that they do a good job:

“Juries convict defendants more often than they acquit in all rape cases”.

I will end by commenting on two areas that I hope can be kept on the agenda of discussions about how rape is dealt with. The first is the place of the victim in the process. Sara Payne, in her report on the views of rape victims, said:

“Victims frequently expressed anger that their place in the criminal justice system is effectively as a witness in their own case. Many were disappointed that the prosecution represents the Crown, rather than the victim, in contrast to the defendant who has his own legal representation”.

In talking to victims and victims’ organisations, I, too, encountered that anger. In Ireland there is separate legal representation for complainants in rape cases for some parts of the trial. I am aware of the difficulties of importing aspects of other systems but I hope we would not close the door to these ideas and that they can be looked at further. Victims also feel that once their case seems unlikely to proceed, all the agencies lose interest in them. We need to do something about that too.

My second point is the need for a much more intelligence-based approach on the part of the police. Good policing in relation to rape is about much more than being victim-centred, important as that is. We are all aware of the gross mistakes that were made in the cases in London of John Worboys and Kirk Reid, who assaulted many women. The police missed many opportunities to arrest them. Using intelligence properly is key in investigating and prosecuting rape. I was concerned at the large amount of evidence I received that rape is particularly suffered by the very vulnerable, who are the least likely to be believed or seen as possible witnesses able to stand up in court and testify. It became clear to me that there was a group of very vulnerable, very young women who were easy to take advantage of and who may have experienced abuse from childhood, their only and whole experience of sex being that of abuse. They may even think that is the norm. As I learnt more about this whole area, I became more concerned that we have not yet got right the way to deal with this, and we need to become much more organised in trying to protect these young women.

Finally, I am most grateful for all the support I have had in preparing and launching my review and continuing to work on its outcome. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for her comments and for the positive replies I have had across government. I welcome the Government’s commitment to Rape Crisis centres and I hope we can continue to improve the treatment of victims of this particularly horrible crime.