Lord Goldsmith
Main Page: Lord Goldsmith (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Goldsmith's debates with the Scotland Office
(6 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberWith respect, I have not suggested that the Government consider themselves as having no responsibility in respect of the matters disclosed in the Worboys judicial review.
My Lords, I want to raise one question about the funding for this appeal. Quite rightly, noble Lords have commented that it is inappropriate that the victims should have had to crowdfund in order to challenge this decision. From the Statement that the noble and learned Lord made, I understand that the Secretary of State for Justice himself had some impediment to bringing a claim—I am not talking about the substance of his claim here. Why did the Attorney-General not consider it to be part of his job to challenge the decision? After all, it is the Attorney-General who challenges inappropriate sentences and, to some extent, has responsibility for looking after victims. Would that not have reduced the problems, such that the Government, through what is in many ways the independent office of the Attorney-General, could have stepped in to bring this matter before the courts?
The noble and learned Lord makes an interesting suggestion. It is not a point which I recollect being addressed at the time, and the matter was looked at from the perspective of the Secretary of State for Justice. As the noble and learned Lord implicitly acknowledges, the Secretary of State was in something of a difficult position, given that the Parole Board—albeit an independent entity—has a link to the Ministry of Justice. But I take on board the noble and learned Lord’s observation.