House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 11th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a joy to follow a couple of Earls, except possibly into battle. It was a great pleasure to hail the noble Lord, Lord Brady of Altrincham, and bid farewell to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. I enjoyed both their speeches very much.

I spoke at length in the debate on the reform of the House of Lords, so I will stick to the Bill. At first reading, I was reminded of the words of the popular music group Bananarama when they sang

“Na na na na


Na na na na

Hey hey hey

Goodbye”,

for is a very simple Bill, somewhat terminal for some of us. I was tempted to draft an amendment adding the words “except for my friends and me”, but I did not think that the Public Bill Office would wear that one.

We have a problem: people like their hereditaries. We are house-trained, hard-working—we turn up. Considering this problem, I had one of those lovely conversations you have in the House of Lords. Walking down the corridor, I met a Peeress whom I knew by sight, and we got talking. We started talking about the hereditary peerage and she said, “The problem is, you have to separate principle from the people”. That is what we have to do here. How do we separate the emotion from the legislation?

As ever, we can learn from the American military. In his very fine book, “The Men Who Stare at Goats”, Jon Ronson talks about how American special forces trained. They had a kennel of dogs; they would take a dog, shoot it with a bolt gun, then train one of their men to give it a wound dressing as if it had been shot. The trouble was that, after a while, people got too attached to the dogs and could not do it. After a lot of experimentation, the American military discovered that no human can form an attachment to a goat, so the Americans now train on goats. Noble Lords need to start thinking of the hereditary Peers as goats.

My father served in your Lordships’ House for 25 years, retiring in 1999, when the House was dominated by hereditary Peers with perhaps a less diligent approach to turning up. When he was asked whether it worked, he tended to say, “Yeah, pretty well. The only time it gets weird is when there are debates on horseracing or fly-fishing and suddenly you get groups of men around the place who have no idea where the lavatories are””

When this is all over and the hereditaries have been moved out of the House, if noble Lords ever think of me, I hope they will think of me sitting quietly at home with my wife, with the butler ironing my copy of the Times Educational Supplement—or perhaps on a crisp morning riding to hounds on Hackney marshes. If they think of me at all, I hope they will think, “Ah, Hampton—he knew where the lavatories were”.

House of Lords Reform

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor.

On 13 October 2022, I won a Cross-Bench by-election by one vote, causing the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to describe me as the least safe seat in the country. I think he followed that by saying you could not make it up. There was 70% turnout and single transferable vote—democracy at its finest. Unfortunately, I was keenly aware that all 12 candidates and the electorate of 30 were all men, not exactly representative of the UK as a whole. Like my noble friend Lord Devon, I was also keenly aware that, as the seventh Baron Hampton—I am the youngest of three and my father was the youngest of four—an estimated 16 females had been bypassed in the passing on of the title.

It is difficult to justify, although some noble Lords have made a pretty good fist of it. However, it is the only way that a working secondary school teacher could get into the House of Lords. The head of an academy trust? Yes. An ex-Education Minister? Certainly. That is what I do, as do many of my noble friends among the hereditaries. We have some quite real jobs.

The House of Lords fundamentally works but needs a few tweaks. The age debate is strange to me. Why would you get rid of all this expertise? As many noble Lords have said, why not give HOLAC more power and let it decide? Obviously, the hereditary Peer by-elections would have to go, but those deemed useful and who had done good work could be turned into life Peers. This fulfils the manifesto pledge. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and others have said, all prime ministerial and party appointments should be stopped. HOLAC should have powers over who gets appointed. New appointments could be capped—two out, one in, perhaps—to bring the numbers down under the Burns principle. The numbers could be judged on the last general election. Cross-Bench numbers could be in line with the Official Opposition. Also, as we have said many times, all those who commit serious breaches should go.

Regardless of age, every Peer should have a seven-year fixed term, but they can reapply to HOLAC, if it feels that they have been useful. That decision is based on expertise and performance in committees and legislation, rather than just speeches—because let us face it, we do not necessarily need to encourage more speeches. This might get rid of the captains of industry, the captains of England and the party donors who turn up only one day a year to retain their right to sit.

The House of Lords is a House of experts. These changes that will weaken the House are driven by some doctrinal need to please an electorate that really do not know or care about reform of the House. Strangely, they are also being touted as a way of cleaning up politics. This is not stagnation—only 59.7% of the electorate bothered to turn up to vote in the last general election to get rid of a deeply unpopular Government. The interest in this House is negligible. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked, “Do you hear the people sing, my Lords?” Me neither.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 115 and would certainly have put my name to it had there been any space. I was shocked when I discovered this initially, and remain shocked, that victims are advised to postpone counselling and therapy, which goes against everything that I understand about the importance of counselling and therapy. It is another instance of victims being regarded as a sort of unwarranted hindrance to a prosecution. They are bystanders —somehow they are being too awkward, almost by their existence.

I very much support the amendment. However, I wonder whether the arguments do not extend to some extreme offences other than sexual offences—violence, modern slavery and so on. Since we will not be voting at this stage and, on an amendment like this it would be unusual for the Minister to say, “I agree”, and then sit down, if this amendment comes back at a later stage, perhaps thought could be given to extending it. It could be about not just victims of offences—I am not making the distinction between sexual and other offences—but about victims of acts which, if proved, would be offences. That may be a bit technical at this point.

I also support Amendment 106. There is something very perverse about the data subject being so hampered in the deletion of her or his own data, as if our personality and humanity were somehow lesser than our data presence.

My name is to the first two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which are about independent legal advocates and legal advice. We had a long debate on Monday about the skills that are needed by advocates, and Amendment 78 seems to bring those skills together. An advocate needs a range of skills, which should include legal qualification. I do not know whether it needs to be that of a solicitor— I am a solicitor; a legal executive with experience in this could do it equally well—but it is about the combination of the legal skills and other skills that are needed to work in support of victims. I do not suggest that solicitors would not have those.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendments 103 and 103A, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has already talked about. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Russell of Liverpool.

These amendments would simply add the Children’s Commissioner as a statutory consultee for the codes of practice alongside the Information Commissioner, the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses and the domestic abuse commissioner. The Minister might well say that this is covered by the phrase

“such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, pointed out proudly earlier in our debates that children are mentioned in the Bill three times; this is an opportunity to add them two more times, making five in all. By simply adding the Children’s Commissioner to the list of names in the Bill, the Government can, with no effort or watering down, show the importance of children as victims. I look forward to the Minister’s answer.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support most of the amendments in this group, which is quite lengthy. One of my key priorities for the Bill is that it delivers greater safeguards to protect the privacy of victims of sexual violence. That is why I am speaking in support of these valuable amendments.

The Government’s rape review was in response to the concern at collapsing charging and prosecution numbers. The review found that most victims did not see a charge or reach court, and one in two victims withdrew from the rape investigations. Privacy concerns led many to withdraw. It had become standard practice for victims who reported to the police to be asked to hand over large quantities of private information. This included digital data from mobile phones, but also what is known as “third-party materials”—personal information about an individual held by organisations.

“Third-party materials” is a seemingly innocuous phrase, but it belies a greater meaning and significance. In reality, it means education records, medical files, social services records or therapy notes. These can all be requested as part of an investigation—an investigation that focuses on the victim, not the accused. I quote one sexual violence survivor:

“I felt anxious, confused and infuriated. I was under far deeper investigation than the rapist (who I have no doubt would have had questionable material had they searched the same). They had refused to take physical evidence—my clothing from the night of the attack—but wanted to investigate my private life. I asked them to justify each request but they could not, so I did not provide it”.


This material often includes documents that the victim may have never seen. These can be introduced at court and used to attack the victim. As one victim told me:

“I had good support for the criminal court. Good preparation. But it made me angry. I was made out to be a liar and it made me feel low. That came as a surprise—it was dreadful. I wasn’t expecting it. Afterwards I was very upset and couldn’t control myself. I started having dreams and flash backs. I was asked about things in my records that I knew nothing about—my past and I didn’t know why”.


In effect, victims are being forced to choose between seeking justice and their right to a private life. That is not a choice; that is an ultimatum. The Government made reassuring noises when they announced an amendment to the Bill over the summer. They promised better protection for rape victims from invasive record requests, but I am concerned that their proposals do not offer the level of protection that we are calling for or that victims need. We need provisions that will offer the protection required. For this reason I am in full support of Amendments 101, 102 and 173, tabled by my noble friend Lady Morgan, which my noble friend Lady Finn eloquently addressed today.

Some noble Lords may recognise these provisions: my predecessor as Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird, secured similar amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. These were designed to protect rape victims from overintrusive and excessive police requests for personal mobile data downloads. This amendment not only provides greater support for victims but provides police with a consistent approach to handling requests for digital material and third-party material. Their job is difficult enough as it is, without lawmakers adding to the complexity of their work by placing two very different processes and criteria side by side.

I am also pleased to support Amendments 78 and 79, which call for free legal representation for victims of rape and sexual assault to ensure that their privacy is also protected. Requests for information are often a clear violation of our human right to privacy—our Article 8 rights, to use the legal jargon. My predecessor argued that there should be a right in law for victims to be given free legal representation where these rights are threatened. I wholeheartedly and absolutely agree. Put simply, a lawyer advises and makes representations on the victims’ behalf, cooling police requests for data and improving victim confidence in proceedings. In their rape review, the Government committed to consider a pilot, and I will push hard to get this up and running.

I also support Amendment 115, which if enacted would enable rape victims to seek therapy to help them cope and recover. I am always concerned when I meet victims of rape who tell me they have declined to seek counselling. They are rightly told that notes from counselling sessions might be disclosed to the court. Worse, they might be disclosed to the defendant: intimate, personal details shared with their abuser. That cannot be right. As a result, many victims will wait until the trial is complete before seeking therapy. This can mean years without support, suffering alone and in torment. Some may take their life. It is no surprise that many withdraw so they can access counselling sooner. That is no good for the victim, no good for justice and no good for society.

Currently, notes are routinely requested and can end up being the subject of cross-examination at court. As one survivor said when appearing on “Newsnight”:

“The defence said ‘Are you truthful?’ and when I said yes, she said—‘Well, you’re not exactly truthful with your husband are you? Would you like me to read your therapy notes out about what you’re currently discussing with your therapist?’ I said no. It was like a physical punch because I wasn’t expecting it. That someone would bring that up in a courtroom, about my current sex life. How, how is that relevant? It was violating—like another trauma”.


That is why I want to see records of therapy and counselling received by victims of sexual violence made subject to a form of privilege that would make them exempt from disclosure. It would not be an absolute privilege: judges could waive it if they considered a substantial value to the notes being disclosed. It is a model that balances the defendant’s right to a fair trial with a victim’s right to access counselling. We know it works. As my noble friend mentioned, it has been in place for many years in Australia, where the criminal justice system is comparable to ours. It is about a fairer model, and that is what the Bill needs to deliver: a level playing field for victims.

I also support Amendment 106. Like many others in this Committee, no doubt, I was appalled to hear that malicious individuals are weaponising legislation designed and put in place to protect vulnerable children. As we have already heard, if an individual makes a malicious complaint about someone to the police, the police can act to remove that record.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendments 30, 31, 37 to 46, and 53. Compliance with the victims’ code goes straight to the heart of what the Bill is about. This year, the code will have been on the statute book for 20 years. Its creation was based on good intentions, and the many entitlements, if properly implemented, would deliver the support and treatment deserved. On that we all agreed.

As discussed in the previous debate, the same piece of legislation sought to underpin the code by setting up the role of an independent Victims’ Commissioner, whose role is to

“review the operation of the code”.

Twenty years later, I think we all agree that the expectations created by that piece of legislation have never been fully met. Victim Support has found that as many as six in 10 victims do not receive their rights under the victims’ code, two in 10 are not referred to support services, and six in 10 are not referred to a needs assessment. In my most recent victim survey, fewer than three in 10 respondents were aware of the existence of the code. Only 29% recalled being told about the entitlement to make a victim personal statement.

In December, we had the report of the joint inspection on how well the police, the CPS and probation supported victims, which also found that the focus on complying with rights under the victims’ code has led to an emphasis on process rather than quality of service. The police, the CPS and the Probation Service did not always consider the needs of victims. As for police sharing information with victims, the report found that this was often a box-ticking exercise, with no evidence of quality. We love tick boxes, but we are missing the whole point of issuing this information and supporting victims. As the recent case in Nottingham has shown so powerfully, the quality and timeliness of communications with victims are crucial.

After 20 years, it is disappointing that we need to have this debate yet again. During that time, there have been many well-intentioned attempts to drive up performance: a tweak here, a nudge there, and yet another revision of the code. This Bill must not be allowed to become another nudge and another tweak.

There is much in the Bill to commend it. It will set up a structure whereby data is collected locally, with the Secretary of State issuing guidance on the data required. There will be an internal process to oversee monitoring of compliance, a programme board, and a ministerial task force. If an agency fails to deliver, it will eventually be issued with a notice of non-compliance. These are all positive developments.

Yes, I do have some concerns—for example, about whether the police and crime commissioners will be resourced to undertake the required data collection and analysis, and about the influence they will be able to assert over national criminal justice agencies at a local level—but let us not focus on those for now. The question we must ask ourselves is: will regional directors of, say, the CPS or the Probation Service lie awake at night worrying about an MoJ notice? I very much doubt it. Where are the transparency, the public accountability, the independent scrutiny and the challenge? By itself, will this worthy framework deliver the culture change we have all been talking about?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said last week—I know we have had a weekend in between—we might ask: does it have teeth? I fear that it does not. I support the amendments in this group not because I want to undermine or devalue the work that has been done in government, but because I want to give the Government the tools to make it succeed.

Amendment 30 sets out a framework for the Government to hold the criminal justice agencies to account should they fail to deliver a minimum level of compliance with victims’ rights. This proposal is not a straitjacket; it is a framework. The Government set the threshold, and the timeframe is two successive years. A failure to meet the Government’s set thresholds will result in an inspection, which in turn will result in a published report highlighting shortcomings and making recommendations for the change. This holds agencies fully to account and provides much-needed transparency. To put it bluntly, it has much more clout than an MoJ non-compliance notification.

For the same reason, I support Amendment 31, which gives holders of my role the opportunity to issue non-compliance notices where there is evidence of persistent non- compliance.

I turn to Amendments 44 to 46, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. The systematic collection of compliance data offers an opportunity for proper scrutiny and accountability. The publication of the data will be a significant development, but the Government propose to give themselves the responsibility for delivering the assessment of the data. Therefore, they decide on the data to be collected. They fund the PCCs, victim activity and data collection. They also publish their own internal assessment of the data. As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, says, this smacks of the Government marking their own homework.

This framework lacks independent scrutiny and challenge. We can do better than this. This assessment needs to be undertaken by the person who has statutory responsibility for reviewing the operation of the code—in other words, the Victims’ Commissioner: someone who has the freedom to report without fear or favour, and who is able to challenge both the Government and the criminal justice agencies. As a person independent of government, his or her findings would be viewed as credible by victims, the public and the media. I add that my term expires in October, so this responsibility would fall to the future commissioners.

A former CEO of the office of a police and crime commissioner watched the debate last Wednesday, and she emailed me to say that the concerns from speakers about the approach of the criminal justice agencies to the code resonated with her. She said:

“On the additional ‘A’ being added by Lord Bellamy of ‘adaptable’, I understand the point he was making, but I would suggest the agencies sat around the Local Criminal Justice table have made full use of the adaptable nature of the code to date and the lack of governance around it which is why we are in the position we find ourselves with only a third of victims having awareness of the code”.


This needs to change. From the outset, I have constantly said that the credibility of the Bill rests on delivering code compliance and ending the culture within our agencies of adapting themselves around it. This is something on which we are all agreed, and I hope the Minister and the Government will, at long last, listen and act upon our concerns.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendments 30 and 44 to 46 in this group, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. Others have spoken at length and much better than I can about these, so I really just want to echo the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, here. These amendments are about compliance, accountability and the Victims’ Commissioner. The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, talked about tweaks and nudges, which we do not want—just give the Victims’ Commissioner teeth, because independence and rigorous scrutiny are vital if the Bill is to have the confidence of victims.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have signed Amendments 31, 51 and 83 in this group. Amendment 31 would give the Victims’ Commissioner an additional role in ensuring the victims’ code in the event of non-compliance. As other noble Lords have said today and last Wednesday, the real problem with the Bill is that there is no duty on agencies to comply. I support the two previous speakers—nudging agencies will not create the right effect.

Amendment 51, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, would ensure that the justice agencies are properly trained. As with Amendment 83, the aims and objectives of Amendment 51 are something I have laid repeatedly over the decade and more since I have been pushing for training, particularly on matters to do with victims. I am really pleased that the noble Lord has tabled the amendment; I am also pleased that the family courts are beginning to understand that there is a crossover between what happens to victims in the criminal justice system and their experiences in the family court system. I will not say more, because we will be debating a group of amendments on that on Wednesday. However, none of that will happen unless everybody involved in the criminal justice procedure is fully trained. I understand that the justices are extremely concerned that Parliament should ask them to be trained, but it is not just about people sitting on the Bench. This is about everybody who is engaged.

I know that I have said in private and perhaps in public that, when I went to the sentencing of my stalker, I was placed literally next to him. I had no choice of where to sit—that is where the clerk who took me in sat me. It was the first time I had seen him since he was arrested, and it was a real shock to the system. So, when I talk about right through the system, I mean absolutely everything, including the people who help manage the seating areas in the court. Above all, we need a system whereby the family courts will ensure that victims are not victimised twice. It is broader than that, and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for tabling that amendment.

Amendment 83 would ensure that front-line agencies are trained to recognise stalking. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for expanding it to include higher education places. Stalking in its most unpleasant form is manipulative and coercive. Families and friends of those being stalked are also stalked, meaning that people who come into contact with them, including in schools, colleges, universities and the health system, need to understand when they are being played by a stalker. Because stalkers are very good at it—every single day cases come to court with stalkers behaving in this appalling manipulative way. It is extremely unpleasant and frightening. To train everyone to recognise it, to be able to ask the right questions and, as we discussed last week, to signpost people to the right services, is vital.

There is another reason why Amendment 83 is important. One problem of the Domestic Abuse Act is that it has downgraded non-domestic stalking. The priority in the system is for domestic stalking, and without a specific amendment providing for stalking in one form, we will not see this form of discrimination, which happens simply because it is not domestic—and I am afraid that some people in the criminal justice system think that non-domestic stalking is not as severe.

Overall, from these Benches we welcome the amendments. The deluge of amendments that the Minister is facing is because we know that the victims’ code that the Government have put forward, with which we all agree in principle, will not work without the strengthening of the responsibilities of the Victims’ Commissioner and other agencies involved in managing the lives that victims have after they have become victims.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Hampton]

53: Clause 12, page 10, line 20, at end insert—
“(4A) Collaboration may include the co-location of services in accordance with the Child House model, as defined by the Home Office guidance entitled “Child House: local partnerships guidance”, published on 6 September 2021.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would include within the duty to collaborate the use of the Child House model, described by the Home Office guidance as “a multi-agency service model supporting children, young people and non-abusing parents, carers and family members.”

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 53, which would insert the concept:

“Collaboration may include the co-location of services in accordance with the Child House model”.


We have heard much talk about the child house model pilot project at the Lighthouse in Camden. It is a multiagency model for children and young people who have experienced any form of sexual abuse. I urge noble Lords to visit this place; it is a shining example. It is an extraordinarily light, welcoming and unthreatening place where children and young people can go to receive medical help and counselling, but also where they can tell their story. As we have said, children tend to tell their story only once, so if we want justice from these places, this is the place to do it. It is a pilot scheme that needs to be rolled out.

At the moment the Bill seems to be in either/or mode when it talks about local authorities. The amendment would clarify that a multiagency, multiborough or multi-council format could be used as best practice for child victims when, as must happen, this model is rolled out across the country. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to a variety of amendments. I support the amendment just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, but I will leave it to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, to talk about it when he winds up. I will speak to my Amendments 54 and 81. I support Amendments 56 and 59 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. I will then speak to my Amendments 58, 60, 62 and 64.

Amendments 54 and 81 return to the subject of stalking. There were 1.6 million victims of stalking in the year ending 2023, so it seems strange that there is relatively little mention of stalking and stalking victims in the Bill. That is something we hope to persuade His Majesty’s Government to consider. Part of that is the importance of independent stalking advocates, which we will come to in a later group. We particularly welcome the Government’s new measures to expand Clause 15 to include guidance about a number of specialist support roles, including, we hope, independent stalking advocates. But I stress that, although what they propose is extremely welcome, it is obviously a very good idea to think about this and develop the list in close co-operation with some of the organisations and bodies closest to the front line in dealing with victims and experiences.

Stalking should certainly be included within the scope of the duty to collaborate in Clause 12. The Minister said in considering the previous group that the Government are looking carefully at the super-complaint made by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust about stalking not being dealt with effectively, but again, we know that it is being dealt with extraordinarily well in some parts of the country. So we know that there are ways of tackling it, but unfortunately that is being done in only a handful of parts of the country. If you are unfortunate enough not to live in those parts, you will have a pretty ghastly experience, like Gracie Spinks and so many other people. That is probably enough on stalking; I think the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, can be relied on to talk about that in more detail, and, very importantly, from direct personal experience, which has its own power.

The two amendments put forward by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester try to ensure that funding for victims and witness support services is sufficient to meet the needs across the country, particularly the demand for specialist domestic abuse services. While the idea of a duty to collaborate is a wonderful one, to be truly effective we judge that it would be helpful if there was a requirement on the Secretary of State to support duty-holders to meet the needs identified by providing adequate and sustainable funding. The figures are not insignificant. Women’s Aid estimates that it would cost at least £238 million per year to meet the need for community-based services across the country. We feel that the Bill is an opportunity to put in some safeguards to provide a legal framework through which sustainable community-based services and funding could be provided.

Turning to Amendment 59, some “93% of frontline workers” surveyed for Refuge’s Local Lifelines report said that

“their service was being impacted by staff shortages”,

and

“64% said their service was impacted by short-term contracts”.

Therefore, the principle of multiyear funding to try to enable these services to be set up to a sustainable and effective level is extremely important. I am sure that the right reverend Prelate will expand on that in a minute.

I come to the last set of amendments—Amendments 58, 60, 62 and 64—which come from working closely with Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, and her team. There is a patchwork of provision for victims, survivors and their children when trying to access services. Community-based specialist domestic abuse services are literally life-saving and life-changing for many of these victims. Despite this, there is no duty to fund these community-based services, and in the current economic environment, you can imagine that they are not necessarily at the top of every cash-strapped local authority’s “must do” list of services to which to try to apportion diminishing funds.

Without making too much of it, this is a crisis, and in the Bill we have an opportunity to ameliorate that. We must really try to focus our minds on what is required to deliver sustainable, entrenched, well-run, effective services across the country. This Bill is a chance to try to do it right, so I hope we will take that opportunity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I think we come back to the guidance on this—to get the guidance right and ensure that the focus on victims’ needs is there, and on teasing out what we mean when we refer to certain terms. Again, the process of formulating the guidance is not by any means complete. I am sure the whole debate that we have had today will be extremely helpful for officials in the work that they are doing on that front.

I am also grateful for the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for his Amendment 81, which seeks to improve the process for assessing the numbers of ISVAs, IDVAs, stalking advocates and other specialist support services in England and Wales. I reassure him that I fully recognise the importance of understanding both provision and demand so that resources are targeted, as they should be, and the right victims’ services are commissioned. I am confident, in the light of advice that I have received, that measures are already in place to appropriately assess support provision through existing reporting measures, and I believe that a central annual report risks duplicating work.

I also point to the Bill’s duty to collaborate, which will enhance transparency around what local services are being funded by requiring the relevant authorities to publish local strategies, which is the point I made a little earlier. These strategies will be informed by joint needs assessments that will assess the needs of victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and serious violence—which can include stalking—and consider whether and how those needs are being met. This will encourage joint local efforts to rectify data gaps, and drive evidence-informed decisions for prioritising funding to address local needs. The noble Lord suggested that too often he was hearing from the Front Bench a kind of government top-down view of life. What we have tried to emphasise through these measures is our desire to see local needs defined, and those needs—the needs assessment—being the bedrock for any service provision that commissioners decide upon. So we are encouraging, I hope, a victim-focused process.

Requiring separate reporting will, I fear, duplicate the activity that I have outlined and put an additional burden on victim support services to share information, which would inevitably take resources away from direct front-line provision for victims. However, I know that my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy is, again, open to considering what could be included in the supporting guidance for the duty to help ensure better understanding of provision.

I hope that what I have set out demonstrates that we already have the necessary mechanisms for assessing need and provision for victim services. So I hope that the noble Lord and, indeed, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester will not feel compelled to move their amendments on this topic when they are reached.

Amendment 53 from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, would include the “child house” model in the duty to collaborate. I listened very carefully to what he had to say about that. It is right that we continue to innovate and trial different ways to support victims, such as the “child house” model, exemplified in areas such as Camden through the pilot programme. The duty to collaborate aims to create a strategic and co-ordinated approach to commissioning services, ensuring that victims—including, notably, children—receive the necessary support. I assure the noble Lord that the services which the “child house” model co-ordinates will already be caught by the duty to collaborate where they provide support to child victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and serious violence. Moreover, the statutory guidance for the duty will suggest that local commissioners refer to Child House: Local Partnerships Guidance when considering how good commissioning practices can help address the needs of children. I hope that is helpful, because I do not think that we should be specifying operational models in primary legislation. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw that amendment.

Turning finally to Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bach, I am grateful to him for raising the issue which it covers. The amendment would ensure that the duty to collaborate will apply to elected policing bodies across England and Wales, while respecting Welsh devolved powers. There is already similar legislation in Wales under the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, which I will refer to as the 2015 Act. The 2015 Act places a duty on Welsh local authorities and local health boards to jointly prepare, publish and, from time to time, review a local strategy setting out how they will help improve local arrangements and support for victims of these crime types.

The noble Lord, Lord Bach, is right to state that elected policing bodies in Wales are not required to collaborate in this duty, but the statutory guidance states clearly that Welsh local authorities and health boards must invite PCCs to participate in their activities under the Act. Engagement between the Welsh Government and Welsh PCCs has shown that Welsh PCCs are active partners in the delivery of the Welsh Government’s 2015 Act strategy through the blueprint, which is the shared governance structure to support delivery of the strategy, and also through regional boards. As a result of ongoing engagement and collaboration with the Welsh Government, we have come to the collectively agreed position that we do not currently consider a duty on Welsh PCCs to be necessary, per the intention of the noble Lord’s amendment.

There is a subsidiary point on the drafting of the amendment, but I do not need to go into that, unless the noble Lord would like me to. However, I reassure him, because this is a significant issue, that we will continue to work with the Welsh Government on the implementation of the duty to collaborate and any interactions between this duty and that under the 2015 Act. On the basis of the points I have made, I hope the noble Lord will not feel it necessary to move the amendment when it is reached.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in this extraordinarily wide-ranging debate, which seemed to come down to three strands. The first was collaboration and how local services, the police—any groups—can work together better. Secondly, we had powerful discussions again about stalking and how we can make that work much more efficient so that these ridiculous repetitions cannot go on; the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, gave some extraordinarily good examples and a very amusing one I will take away. The third was how on earth it will all be funded, with some eye-watering numbers being talked about. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, asked the very interesting question about where the victims’ fund goes.

I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, is drinking a soothing hot lemon and honey somewhere, perhaps taking two aspirin and lying down, but I thank the noble Earl the Minister for another very collaborative series of answers, with lots of words of reassurance on the needs assessment, the forum being set up for national funding assessments, the duty to collaborate, talk of transparency—which is always good—and of exposing to daylight, about stalking being tremendously important, and what statutory guidance will make clear. A lot of points were made and I am afraid my pencil got worn down to the nub trying to write down the different funding strands pouring in that will be used, so I cannot get too technical on that.

There was talk of more efficient use of money and full agreement on funding victim support—quadrupling the funding of that. The victims’ surcharge is being topped up and multiyear funding is happening—the Government are committed to that—although the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has concerns there as well. This genuinely sounds great, but partly we need to make the money work not harder but smarter, which I think is what we are all trying to do here. The proof is inevitably what will come out of the oven at the end of it all. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 53.

Amendment 53 withdrawn.