Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 (Consequential Modification) Order 2020

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, my eye was drawn to this debate because it is about taking money from benefits. As the noble Lord, Lord Wei, said, people on benefits do not have a great deal of spare money and every time we look at justifiable benefit reductions, we must consider what happens to that person and, more importantly, their family.

It is accepted that economic pressure tends to make certain groups consider criminal activity more frequently, especially those who come from an environment that is used to criminal activity. Increasing economic pressure on those people can lead to them taking that option. Anyone who has worked in any part of the criminal justice system has had people tell them that. They say, “I don’t know what to do. I’ve got no money and a way to make money was presented to me. It was illegal, but I took it”. Whether in the grey or black economy, it does not matter.

Having said that, we must remember the principle that if you assault a policeman, a member of the health service or a fireman you are not only breaking the law but attacking someone who is trying to make society a better place. So, what is the balancing act here? Are we considering it properly? If we do not get this right, we may well create more problems for those in the emergency services than we are solving.

The restitution fund is a wonderful idea, but the sums involved are comparatively small. I hope that we can be assured that the fund will not collapse if this action is not taken and no benefits money is transferred into it. We are not talking about raising big sums, in terms of government expenditure. What will happen to that fund? Will it continue? Will there be an impact assessment? As has already been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, there does not seem to be any mandatory impact assessment. We must look at that.

The principle sounds great, but what about the practice? What is happening? Are we ensuring that we are making the situation better and not doing that wonderful thing of marching forward with good intentions and ending up at the back door of hell? We must look at how this works and the impact on the group in question.