Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 28th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, we all share the distress of the victims of the appalling crimes which have given rise to this Bill, and I associate myself with all the remarks that have been made in that regard. However, the key speech of this debate was made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, about how much the approach taken in the Bill changes things in practice. As he rightly said, all the Bill does is impose a statutory duty in place of the current requirement on the Parole Board to consider these matters in any event.

That being the case, will the Advocate-General tell us what difference in practice the Bill will make to the operation of the system? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, made the point very well that, given the public importance of these issues and the huge emotive and personal importance to the relatives of the victims, having a process in open court and creating a new statutory offence seems a more logical and justifiable way forward.

Perhaps I could ask a related question. Since it appears that this Bill does not change the way the Parole Board operates, might it be possible for relatives of the victims in question to address the Parole Board? Given that in the Bill Parliament is seeking to highlight one particular factor among others which the Parole Board must consider when deciding on release and the significance of that factor, might victims be allowed to address the Parole Board directly? Can the Minister say whether that was considered by the Government—and, if it was considered, why it has not been allowed?