Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The last IPP prisoner I met was in HMP Birmingham—I think I was there three weeks ago. He was back on recall and facing further charges. The nature of the conversation was quite troubling, because I learned from him that he felt safer in prison than in the community. Also, he did not think that open prisons were always that good for long-term complex prisoners, which surprised me because I am a big fan of open prisons, having recruited lots of people from them. I went away with the challenge of how we ensure that IPP prisoners, when they go to open conditions, are not brought back. Too many go there quite quickly and then come back.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s recent report, published last week, acknowledges the obvious point that self-harm, violence and behavioural instability among IPP prisoners are linked to the long-term distress caused by the sentence itself, yet those very reactions may be liable to be relied upon as grounds to refuse release. Does the Minister consider that additional assessments and, indeed, progression plans are going to be sufficient to break that terrible cycle, or is more needed? Are we not required to be a little more courageous about the release of these long-term prisoners?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord is right to bring this up because they are often the most complex individuals in our whole prison estate. The level of self-harm among this cohort can be pretty terrifying. There are a significant number of IPP prisoners in secure mental health hospitals, and that is the right place for them. However, we need to ensure that we have them in the right prison. As I mentioned, HMP Grendon and HMP Warren Hill are therapeutically informed environments, and the Phoenix wing we are starting next month in HMP Aylesbury is a specialist wing where we are trying things we have never tried before. The people we call our “red rated” are those who are the furthest away from release and they are often the most challenging IPP prisoners. We need to get progression support around them and give them hope, because we need them to believe that they can get out—too many times they have seen people go to progression panels and not get out. We need to make sure we do what we can to give them hope.

Employment Tribunals

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Will I make myself popular if I simply say yes? I will give a bit more detail than that. The law is absolutely clear that workers should receive the payments to which they are entitled, and we are committed to strengthening enforcement options. At the moment, a claimant can instruct a High Court enforcement officer, and using the officer is free of charge. That is intended to encourage the employer to pay the award. But, as part of the plan for change, we are looking at ways of strengthening enforcement options, including through the employment tribunal penalty scheme, which has moved to the Fair Work Agency. The agency will work closely with HMRC, the Insolvency Service and other relevant enforcement bodies to do this as effectively as possible.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, it is the unqualified duty of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition to hold the present Government to account—not the previous Government.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

With the backlog in the employment tribunal now exceeding 50,000 cases, the Law Society has warned that lengthy delays leave employees and businesses in prolonged uncertainty. What target have the Government set for reducing the outstanding case load, and by what date do they expect waiting times to return to pre-pandemic levels?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Of course I accept that the noble and learned Lord is entitled to hold this Government to account, but I am also entitled to remind noble Lords about the record of the previous Government.

Simply to deal with the question, it is true of all parts of the justice system that we are working hard to help parties to resolve cases before they get to court. Court should be the end of the process, not the beginning. It is the most expensive bit and the bit that is most stressful for all those involved. But for cases which must reach court, we are maximising sitting days; we are increasing judicial recruitment; I have already mentioned the virtual region; we are looking to roll out digital systems and pilot AI transcription; we have invested in centralised telephone support so that litigants get a better service when they ring; and work is being done to see how legal officers can better support the judiciary. Judges are our expensive and scarce resort. We want to see how we can support them better and maximise judicial time.

Imprisonment for Public Protection

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the Independent Sentencing Review chaired by David Gauke recognised the unique challenges posed by the remaining IPP population and recommended further reforms to support progression towards release. What progress have the Government made in implementing those recommendations, and will the Minister commit to publishing regular updates on outcomes for IPP prisoners so that Parliament can judge whether those reforms are actually making a meaningful difference?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to reassure all your Lordships that the Government completely understand and share the concerns about this very troubling cohort of prisoners, but the first duty of every Government is to keep the public safe, and that must come first. So, in order to try and reduce this cohort safely, through the action plan the Government are working on licence reform, progression work, recall improvements and support for those prisoners in order to demonstrate risk reduction. We have now provided those serving the IPP sentence with an earlier opportunity for licence termination and an additional opportunity for those serving these sentences thereafter. The IPP annual report and action plan for 2026-27 will be published in July.

Prisoner Early Release

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Lords Chamber

The previous Government left prisons on the verge of collapse. This Government are safely delivering the reforms needed to end the cycle of capacity crises and protect the British public”.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, victims of rape and child sexual exploitation have now received letters informing them that their attackers and abusers are soon to be released from custody, much earlier than would have been expected. Yet during the recent passage of the Sentencing Act, which paved the way for such reductions in custody, Ministers repeatedly assured Parliament that the most serious offenders would not benefit from these changes. Today we have been told that some convicted rapists and child abusers will be released only half way through their custodial sentence. I therefore ask the Minister two simple questions. First, does he consider that rapists and child abusers are not serious offenders? Secondly, will he explain why the assurances the Government gave to Parliament during the passage of the Sentencing Act have been so swiftly abandoned?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

First, I would like to express my sincere sympathy with the victims of all these appalling crimes. Convictions for child sex offences are at a record high, and we as a Government have made grooming an aggravated factor so that perpetrators face longer sentences. Without the Sentencing Act, the courts would be at risk of grinding to a halt, preventing sex offenders and others from being brought to justice. We have acted to avert that crisis. We are delivering the largest prison expansion since the Victorians, with 14,000 extra places by 2031, and we have already delivered 3,100 since taking office. But if we do not tackle this problem of prisons running out of space, we will be back to where we were again. Two years ago, when I first took on this job, there were some very dark days in the Ministry of Justice. When you have fewer than 100 prison places left, that is dangerous for victims and future victims.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Legal Aid: Anti-social Behaviour and Prevention and Investigation Measures) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2026

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin with a brief explanation of what this instrument is not. It is not a mechanism for extending legal aid, and it does not represent a change to legal aid policy. It does not introduce any new pressure on legal aid, and thus we do not expect it to result in any significant increase in cost.

It is a technical instrument—in effect, a piece of housekeeping—to ensure that the legal aid framework remains aligned with wider legislation and continues to operate in a clear and consistent way. It is needed because Parliament has approved several new measures, so this instrument ensures that the legal aid framework is appropriately updated. The instrument delivers three key things: continuity of legal aid where anti-social behaviour orders are being replaced; clarity in the legal aid framework for TPIMs; and consistency across the closely related TPIM and STPIM national security regimes.

I turn first to the anti-social behaviour measures. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 created or revised three anti-social behaviour injunctions: first, respect orders; secondly, youth injunctions; and thirdly, housing injunctions. All are new orders, but are broadly similar to the current anti-social behaviour injunctions that they are replacing. Civil legal aid is already available for anti-social behaviour injunctions under the existing legal aid legislation, but an amendment to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act—known universally as LASPO—is needed to ensure that civil legal aid is available for these provisions.

The policy intention is one of continuity, because without these amendments there would be a risk of unintended gaps in legal aid availability. This instrument therefore ensures that individuals subject to new anti-social behaviour orders continue to have access to legal advice and representation, subject to the usual means and merits tests.

I turn now to the national security measures. There are two aspects of what the instrument does in relation to national security. First, it makes clarificatory amendments to the legal aid regulations in relation to terrorism prevention and investigation measures—or TPIMs—to make clear in legislation the framework that already operates in practice.

Secondly, it aligns the legal aid arrangements for state threats prevention and investigation measures—STPIMs—with those for TPIMs, which reflects the close similarity of the measures and ensures consistency in their handling. TPIMs are civil measures imposed by the Home Secretary with the aim of preventing or restricting an individual’s involvement in terrorism-related activities; STPIMs are a parallel regime designed to prevent and disrupt individuals who are involved in hostile state threat activity. Both can place restrictions on an individual’s movement, associations and daily life. Strong legal safeguards are required in order to ensure fairness, accountability and compliance with human rights obligations. It is therefore essential that the legal aid framework applying to these measures is coherent, clear and fair.

Currently, civil legal aid is available for advice and representation in proceedings relating to TPIMs and STPIMs for those who are subject to such measures, which will not change. However, although legal aid is already available for TPIM cases, the legislative framework is complex and has given rise to ambiguity. This instrument takes how the scheme already operates in practice and puts it into legislation, thus ensuring both transparency and consistency.

Generally speaking, legal aid covers a number of aspects of legal representation, not all of which are subject to the same regime in terms of means and merits testing. This is in order to ensure that taxpayers’ money is targeted so that it is used in the best way. In this instance, this instrument confirms that, for TPIMs, legal help is non-means-tested, thus ensuring access to early advice, but legal representation for TPIM proceedings is means-tested. This reflects the fact that TPIM proceedings are treated for legal aid purposes as judicial review cases, because they apply the same principles. Legal aid for judicial review proceedings is means-tested. Therefore, in order to ensure consistency, this instrument makes it clear that TPIMs are treated in the same way.

STPIMs are closely modelled on TPIMs. This instrument ensures that the legal aid scheme operates fairly and consistently across these two national security measures so, as with TPIMs, legal help is available on a non-means-tested basis for STPIMs, enabling individuals to access immediate advice where they are the subject of one. However, legal representation for proceedings in relation to an STPIM remains subject to the standard means and merits tests, consistent with TPIMs and for the same reasons that relate to judicial review proceedings.

As with the amendments made in relation to the anti-social behaviour measures, these amendments do not reflect a change in legal aid policy. Rather, their purpose is to remedy ambiguity and avoid differences in treatment between comparable regimes. This instrument is a necessary and important housekeeping measure: it preserves continuity of legal aid where existing anti-social behaviour injunctions are being replaced; it clarifies the legal aid framework for TPIMs; and it ensures that STPIMs are treated consistently with the comparable TPIM regime. It is a technical instrument that helps maintain access to justice, coherence in the legal aid scheme and consistency across related statutory regimes. I beg to move.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for laying this instrument. We on these Benches support the order. As the Minister explained, this is a largely technical instrument. It ensures that legal aid continues to be available where new civil orders introduced by the Crime and Policing Act replace or mirror existing arrangements. In particular, it extends legal aid to proceedings relating to respect orders, youth injunctions and housing injunctions, and makes sensible technical amendments concerning terrorism prevention and investigation measures, and state threats prevention.

Continuity in access to legal aid is an important principle. Where Parliament creates a new legal mechanism with potentially significant consequences for individuals, it is right that the legal aid framework keeps pace. This order achieves that objective without altering, as the Minister indicated, the underlying policy on eligibility or legal aid provision.

We particularly welcome the inclusion of respect orders. During the passage of the then Crime and Policing Bill, we consistently argued that these orders should be robust and effective tools for tackling persistent anti-social behaviour. Indeed, we sought to strengthen them further by amendments that would have lowered the age of eligibility. Communities clearly require swift action where anti-social behaviour blights neighbourhoods and damages public confidence but, if respect orders are to command confidence, it is equally important that proceedings are fair and that those subject to them have access to appropriate legal representation. This instrument sensibly preserves that continuity.

In closing, I pose one question to the Minister. The Explanatory Memorandum states that the Government do not expect this order to have any significant impact on the public or voluntary sectors. Can she confirm that the Legal Aid Agency and legal aid providers are fully prepared to implement these changes immediately upon commencement, so that there is no gap in provision before the relevant provisions of the Crime and Policing Act come into force? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, for welcoming this statutory instrument. The answer to his question on the legal aid agencies is yes; we are ready for that. This instrument, as the noble and learned Lord said, is a necessary step to ensure that the legal aid framework remains aligned with wider legislation. It supports access to justice and ensures that the legal aid scheme operates coherently.

Youth Offending

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and I pay tribute to the work he has done in relation to youth justice over the years. While proven offending has reduced significantly, that itself has placed pressures on our partners in youth justice services. For that reason, we need to reassess where our focus is best placed in order to ensure that we can add the most value. It is for that reason that the Youth Justice Board is going to be reformed, so that we know that it is using its independence and skills to ensure that we get the best outcomes for children.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the team leader for children and young people at His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons said recently that what is needed is not further diagnosis but action, in the form of immediate investment in a functional youth custody estate. Why are the Government ignoring his advice and instead indulging in further diagnosis of a well-established problem?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, we are tough on crime but we are smart on prevention. We are focusing on what works: protecting the public and preventing reoffending. It is well known that locking children up, particularly on short sentences, does not work. Some 60% of children who receive short sentences of custody go on to reoffend, whereas those who are diverted at an early stage do not re-enter the justice system and have better lives, which also prevents increasing cohorts of victims in future.

Youth Justice

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Lords Chamber

It is not a choice between punishment and rehabilitation. It is about what works: protecting the public, cutting reoffending, and stopping vulnerable children—so often victims themselves—becoming tomorrow’s dangerous adult offenders. This Government will do whatever it takes to give more children the chance of a better future, and to keep the British public safe. I commend this Statement to the House”.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches welcome any measures that genuinely and effectively prevent young people falling into a life of crime. Every young person diverted away from violence and offending is welcome. The continued reduction in the number of children held in custody is welcome. The fall from around 2,800 children in custody in 2003 to approximately 1,400 today reflects significant progress across successive Governments. We also recognise that the nature of offending has changed. Cases involving county lines, online exploitation, organised gangs and serious violence are often more complex than those faced by the justice system a generation ago.

However, while some of the Government’s individual proposals in this White Paper may sound reasonable in isolation, a deeper concern runs through the paper. Once again, the Government are at risk of confusing rehabilitation with the dilution of accountability. The White Paper is right to identify young people not in education, employment or training as being at heightened risk of offending. But, if the Government are serious about prevention, they must confront the economic conditions affecting young people across the country. The most effective intervention for many young people is not another review, another pilot scheme or another bureaucratic framework; it is to deliver an economy that can provide them and their families with stability.

There is a reference in the White Paper to reshaping the justice system. The paper records the Government’s proposal to undertake what they describe as a “fundamental look” at the role and purpose of the criminal courts for child defendants. This work will consider whether entirely different court processes should apply not only to children but potentially also to vulnerable adults and young adults. This raises material concerns. If the Government wish to reform sentencing policy to reduce reoffending, that is one debate, but gradually reshaping the philosophical foundations of our criminal justice system itself is quite another.

The Government appear to be intent on treating long-standing justice structures not as constitutional safeguards but as obstacles to be removed or redesigned. We have already seen proposals to weaken jury trial and other proposals designed to keep offenders out of prison. Now Ministers appear to be questioning whether traditional criminal courts themselves remain appropriate for wider categories of offenders. But where does such a process end? Accountability and punishment are being steadily downgraded within a system increasingly defined through the lens of vulnerability.

At this point, I turn to the issue of victims and public confidence. The Government proposed further consultation on the victims’ code, including consideration of a separate code for children. Once again, this Government are drawn towards creating new frameworks and pursuing new consultations rather than improving the operation of an existing system. If there are gaps in protections for child victims, strengthen the existing code. If the Minister believes the current code is unfit for purpose, why was that not addressed during the passage of the Victims and Courts Act just a matter of weeks ago? We must break from a constant cycle of consultation and restructuring. Improving outcomes is not synonymous with endless consultation and the expansion of bureaucracy.

The Government’s underlying philosophy of justice is perhaps laid bare in the sentencing proposals in this paper. For example, they explicitly reject vehicle theft as deserving of a custodial sentence, no matter how many vehicles an individual may have stolen. We do not argue that custody should follow in every case, but sentencing in all cases, youth and otherwise, must reflect individual circumstances. The issue before your Lordships is whether the Government still believe that custody serves any meaningful deterrent or punitive function. The message increasingly appears to be that more or less all young offenders should remain in the community. Once they remain in the community, the Government now stipulate in their White Paper that they

“do not intend on making electronic whereabouts monitoring mandatory”.

So offenders are not to be placed in custody, but nor are they to be monitored. The public are right to ask in these circumstances where the balance is between rehabilitation and public protection.

The White Paper also touches on the issue of remand in respect of young offenders. But the average number of children on remand in England and Wales at any time is now about 183, and some of those may be on remand for their own protection, so I wonder to what extent it is really a major or material issue for consultation at this stage.

The White Paper then turns to the age of criminal responsibility, and it is a concern to see that there is a specific section in the proposals on this issue and the idea that it should be a raised age. The Government state that they will consider a wide evidence base before making a decision on this important issue.

I wonder whether the intended consultation will consider the opinion of the Minister, who declared less than two months ago: “Raising the age risks removing an important safeguard in those exceptional cases where serious offending does occur”, and “setting the threshold too high may have unintended consequences, including the potential for older offenders to exploit younger children who fall below the age of responsibility”. We look forward to considering the scope of the consultation that is to follow.

The fact that this issue now appears in the White Paper inevitably raises questions about the Government’s intention. Ministers may try to present this as a neutral review of evidence, but many may recognise that this is the soft launch of yet another policy reversal. Once again, under the veil of consultation, the Government are moving further away from the important issue of accountability within the justice system.

In conclusion, of course we support the objective of reducing youth offending and preventing young people entering a life of crime—early intervention and diversion have important roles to play within any functioning justice system—but rehabilitation cannot come at the expense of accountability. This Government appear to view punishment, deterrence and public protection as outdated concepts to be eroded, rather than as essential pillars of a justice system. A system in which offenders are neither placed in custody nor monitored when out in the community, where courts themselves are the subject of constant redesign and where accountability is repeatedly softened under the language of reform is not a system in which the public will be able to retain confidence.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, the success in reducing the number of children in custody has been a great achievement, and we should still be concentrating on further bringing down that number. That success has been largely achieved through the work of the Youth Justice Board, in which my noble friend Lord McNally played a major part during the coalition. We note the commitment to reform of the Youth Justice Board, but such reform should be constructive and committed to rehabilitation and reform, turning lives around, whether or not the youth justice service is at some stage in the future housed within the MoJ.

The Statement rightly emphasises how often the criminal conduct of children and young people is the result of instability, trauma and neglect, accompanying violence, addiction and abuse among those around them. But we must also address those factors that lead to Black children being so much more vulnerable to ending up in the criminal justice system. The Statement is right about that, as David Lammy was when he did his review in 2017.

On these Benches we have long sought to address these issues, but the Government now rightly highlight new hazards facing children and young people and leading to crime: online harms, criminal grooming through social media and exposure to extremist content. The £46 million to be invested in the turnaround programme is of course welcome, and the Statement is also right to call for early and effective intervention. But the likely success of new and recent measures—including parenting orders, youth diversion orders, youth intervention courts or reforms to the out-of-court resolution service—cannot yet be assessed. All these measures will take resources, and the amount is difficult to quantify. Can the Minister say a little more about the resourcing of the reforms promised? How, for example, was the £46 million figure assessed?

In proceedings on the Sentencing Bill, now Act, we discussed the extra resources needed for the Probation Service and others, not only for extra handling of early release, tagging and post-release supervision but to improve both the quantity and quality of the supervision of offenders and the help that the Probation Service necessarily provides to the courts.

So how, we would ask, is the need for resources to be kept under review, and what extra resources may there be to meet a need that is currently unforeseen? Is there sufficient flexibility to avoid the increases in offending that inevitably follow from underresourcing? Spending in this area is largely spending to save, given the massive direct and social cost of crime, and particularly of reoffending. Annexe A to the White Paper rightly sets out eleven “golden questions” for further research, saying there are “key evidence gaps”. What plans have the Government to fill those key evidence gaps?

Finally, the age of criminal responsibility is at last to be reconsidered. I remember the noble Baroness defending the present age of criminal responsibility— I disagreed with her then, and I do now—and I note the endorsement by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, of her former views. There is also to be reform of the childhood criminal records regime, or that too is mooted and is welcome. We have long argued that to criminalise a child at the age of 10 flies in the face of all the evidence on developmental reform, and that it is inhumane and wrong. I ask, because this is an all-party and an all-public issue, how will this consideration proceed? Will there be formal public or all-party consideration? I certainly look forward to discussing these issues in depth, as I know others do.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 15th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister, her ministerial colleagues in the justice department, officials and staff, who have been available for conversations both during the passage of the Bill, especially since Report, and the helpful discussions reflected in the Government’s Motions in front of us today.

My Motion B1 on the horrendous issue of homicide abroad differs from the amendment that I laid at earlier stages of the Bill, because I listened carefully to the Minister, both in the Chamber and in our meetings. I have accordingly removed the element about enshrining the rights of bereaved families—of course, they are also victims, because their loved one was murdered—in the victims’ code. I still believe that it is possible to draft something that reflects that, but time is not on our side.

I pay tribute to the Government in that the new code of practice—just brought in for use by the Home Office, the Foreign Office and other government departments and officials such as coroners—is much more comprehensive and should, as it is now being implemented, improve the experience of families found in this horrendous position.

The one area that I do not want us to lose is the ability to review how the new code of practice is actually working. My amendments today set out a mechanism to ensure that within 18 months of the section on these arrangements coming into force,

“the Secretary of State must review the effectiveness of how the victims’ code applies to victims … who are close family members of a British National resident in England and Wales”

who is murdered or a victim of manslaughter or infanticide, and that the Secretary of State must lay a report of that review before both Houses of Parliament. However, I am very grateful to the Minister for our discussions and note what she has said at the Dispatch Box, that the Government will set up a joint review with the FCDO and the Home Office that will focus on access and experience for the families of those murdered abroad, to be published next year. It is especially welcome that the Government will work with the Victims’ Commissioner and, I hope, with victims’ organisations that help these families too.

The Minister knows that from these Benches we will continue to talk to victims’ groups and that if concerns remain in the future, we will raise questions and, as appropriate, amendments in future legislation, but until then we look forward to seeing the Government’s review next year. I will not take my Motion any further today.

I now turn to Motion A on court transcripts. Over the years, we have tabled amendments about the ability of victims to access parts of court transcripts. It has been too easy to gloss over why too many victims feel excluded from the court process, whether by accident or worse. This can be through poor advice. For example, victims are told—far too frequently, I am afraid—that if they sit in the court after they have given evidence, it is a bad look and it might harm the views of the jury, because victims are seen as ghoulish or, worse, vindictive.

Also, too many victims are not aware of what they are entitled to. Here, I pay my respects to the Minister for her outrage at the Dispatch Box during an earlier stage of the Bill when she outlined her fury about when arrangements for victims are not followed properly in court. In theory, this should not happen, but it does. For those who also do not have the support of professionals to guide them through what is happening in a court case, there is bemusement and often a lack of knowledge. It really affects whether they feel that the process has been as fair to them as it has been to the defendant.

The amendments on court transcripts are invisibly but inextricably linked to the amendments on reforms to unduly lenient sentences, but because of parliamentary procedure and the way the Bill is laid out, they are separated. However, access to information and support to understand it is at the heart of whether a victim feels the need to submit an appeal to the Attorney-General for a sentence to be considered unduly lenient. I will talk about this more on the next group, but that link is there, so getting both matters right is vital.

I am very grateful to the Minister for her helpful discussions on the practicality of making court transcripts available to victims, and for the announcement yesterday, which she has just outlined in her contribution, that the Government will conduct a study to look at how AI transcription can be used accurately—including, importantly, appropriate redactions for the safety of victims and witnesses—and considerably more cheaply than the vastly expensive current arrangements. From these Benches, we understand the pressure on the court system from imposing the current expensive system further.

We will watch for the outcomes of this study and any consequential actions. As the Minister knows, we will hold the Government to account from our Benches in both this House and the Commons. This includes an amendment that my honourable colleagues have already tabled to the Courts and Tribunals Bill, but I am very grateful for the progress we have made. That is why I did not retable my original amendment today.

Motion C1 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, is for sentencing remarks to be published online within 14 days of a request being received by anyone. On Report, we were very concerned that this particular action would lead to victims and witnesses being much more vulnerable than they would under the proposals we have been discussing on other amendments, where the transcripts are specifically for the victims and would have to be carefully redacted to keep them safe. This amendment would take us back a complete step, leaving a victim having to receive notification within a short period of time—we know this fails on other issues—and having to formally request anonymity. This makes victims the afterthought in the process rather than putting their safety, as judged by experts, at the heart of publication of any information. I am afraid that is why we cannot support it today.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, Motion C1 in my name would insist on my amendment from Report regarding the publication of court transcripts. It would require sentencing remarks by the Crown Court to be freely published online, while also informing applicants of their right to request anonymity if they wish it.

Open justice is a fundamental principle of the institution of democracy and the public confidence in that institution. This Motion would make it easier for victims, journalists and the wider public to understand exactly what is happening in the court system. This is of particular relevance regarding grooming gangs and the formal inquiry that the Government launched just this week. It would help to facilitate the transparency required to hold the guilty accountable.

As faith and confidence in public institutions continue to dwindle, many believe that the state does not operate to serve their best interests. The Sentencing Act now has the effect of an automatic presumption of short sentences—a policy that in practice effectively abolishes custodial sentences of one year or less. It is more important than ever that the public can access the reasoning behind sentencing decisions, so that confidence in the rule of law and the integrity of judicial decision-making is preserved.

In the other place, a Labour MP said she was confused about why the Minister was not accepting Lords Amendments 1 and 3 at that point. The Minister said in reply that the Government

“are willing to go further, and we will look to see what more we can do in the Lords”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/3/26; col. 326.]

Yet the Government have taken no action on this issue other than to reject my amendment in its entirety. I therefore feel compelled to move Motion C1.

I thank the Liberal Democrats for their consistent support of this amendment and the principle that it upholds. It was the combined effort of 160 Conservative and 55 Liberal Democrat Peers that saw this amendment’s successful passage. I also thank the 56 Liberal Democrat MPs who supported the amendment in the other place. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat Justice spokesman said:

“I urge all colleagues to vote for all these excellent Lords amendments, which are incredibly important to victims and their families”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/3/26; col. 337.]


There may have been a little wobble since—I am not clear why—but I hope that our efforts in the voting Lobby today will compel the Government to act.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions and for the thoughtful way in which they have engaged with this issue. I recognise the commitment and valuable contributions that all have made during the passage of the Bill. To those who spoke powerfully about the need for victims better to understand what has happened in court and why, I say that the Government are absolutely aligned with that objective. I thank again the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for raising that point about victims being either explicitly told or made to feel that they should not attend court to hear the rest of the trial. It is a powerful point. I have had experience of it personally. I shall take it away and see what I can do to improve the situation.

As I have set out, Lords Amendments 1 and 3 would impose statutory duties that risk being unworkable, would create delay and have effects that would not serve victims well. Our priority must be to ensure that the commitments we make are ones that we can deliver. That is why the Government have focused on delivery through the Sentencing Act 2026 and why we are now going further through the study in artificial intelligence transcription, about which I spoke a moment or two ago.

Turning very briefly to support for victims of homicide abroad, I repeat my absolute assurance that the Government share the ambition of strengthening the support available to families bereaved by homicide abroad. The commitments that I have outlined today do go further. Cross-departmental work to improve consistency and support through a comprehensive review will put families at the centre so that we can ensure they get the support they need. I urge noble Lords to support Motions A, B and C.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 3.”

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendments 4B and 4C in lieu—

4B: Clause 12, page 16, line 28, at end insert—
“(2AB) Before making any regulations giving effect to subsections (2ZA) or (2A), the Secretary of State must—
(a) publish an impact assessment evaluating the likely effects of the regulations, including, but not limited to, their impact on—
(i) the ability of private prosecutors to bring proceedings,
(ii) the charitable and voluntary sector, and
(iii) access to justice, and
(b) publish a response to that impact assessment.”

4C: Clause 12, page 16, line 30, at end insert—
“(4) In section 29 (regulations), in subsection (1B) omit “or 19(4B)” and insert “, 19(4B) or 20(1A)(d) in relation to private prosecutions”.””

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move Motion D1 as an amendment to Motion D. I begin by thanking the Minister for Motions E and F, which are an important step forward for victims. They provide for more time to submit an unduly lenient sentence application and create an exceptional circumstances clause when it is in the interest of justice to do so. Motion F will ensure that the victims’ code is amended to ensure that victims are notified of their right of access to the ULS scheme—an issue that unfortunately has acted as a barrier to the scheme in previous cases.

I must confess I am a little surprised to see Motion E in the name of the Minister. She said in response to my own amendment on Report:

“The victims asked us not to bring forward our amendment extending the time limit to 56 days, and so we have not done so”. —[Official Report, 10/3/26; col. 244.]


I wonder whether that is still the view of the victims now that we have an extension to six months.

Motion D1 in my name concerns the issue of private prosecutions and, while it is not my intention to repeat the debate in Committee and on Report on the importance of private prosecutions for charities or for dealing with the scourge of shoplifting, we on these Benches continue to harbour serious concerns about the manner in which Clause 12 is drafted. It was therefore unfortunate that the Government have not acted on any of the arguments raised by me, my noble friend Lord Sandhurst or the noble Lord, Lord Marks, with regard to these issues.

The Government have stated that, before any rates are set, there will be extensive engagement with stake- holders and a full public consultation, yet Clause 12 as drafted will give the Government the power to cap the amounts payable for prosecutors for their costs prior to any consultation actually taking place. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said on Report,

“that is the wrong way round”.—[Official Report, 10/3/26; col. 224.]

We on these Benches agree with that sentiment entirely.

However, as the Government have cited financial privilege as a reason for opposing our amendment to leave out Clause 12 from the Bill, I have instead tabled Motion D1, which contains two amendments in lieu. The effect of these amendments is threefold and seeks to mitigate the consequences of Clause 12. First, they would ensure that an impact assessment is launched on the potential effect of Clause 12, with particular regard to its consequences for charities and victims regarding access to justice. That need is underlined by the observations that the Minister made about there being some reservation about the way in which private prosecutions are being pursued. It is only appropriate, therefore, that these matters should be addressed. Secondly, my amendments would ensure that the Government publish a response to that impact assessment before they exercise the regulatory-making powers under Clause 12. Thirdly, the amendments would ensure that such regulation is subject to the affirmative procedure of both Houses, which is entirely appropriate in these circumstances. The Government have said that they have no intention of exercising the regulatory powers under Clause 12 until after their own public consultation, so I see no reason why they should oppose these amendments. They have been drafted with transparency and open justice in mind. If it is the Government’s intention to resist these simple amendments, then I will seek to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I turn first to the issue of private prosecutions, which is the contentious area in this group. I say at the outset that we on these Benches agree with Motion D1, and the Amendments 4B and 4C in lieu, proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen.

I start with a brief general point that we have made before. Private prosecutions are important, particularly against a background that police and other prosecuting authorities often have insufficient resources, or in some cases insufficient will, to investigate and prosecute offences themselves. It is wrong that decisions to invoke the criminal law should be exclusively in the hands of the state and its agencies. Private prosecutions offer a way for commercial organisations and for charities and others to bring prosecutions. That is important in the cases of shop theft in particular, but also in cases of fraud against charities and in other criminal matters. It is essential, however, that those who bring such prosecution successfully should be able to recover their reasonable costs. Otherwise, we risk their being deterred from doing so by having to bear the whole cost themselves without the prospect of objectively reasonable reimbursement.

As it stands, Clause 12 looks like an attempt to give the Government power to bring in regulations to limit the costs to be reimbursed. It may be that there are some private prosecutions where lawyers are overcharging for those prosecutions, and if that is the case, and there is evidence to establish that, then there may be some need for further regulation. But as a general rule it is unwise for Parliament to give Ministers the power to make regulations without their first establishing that such regulations are necessary. In this case, there is no hard evidence that we have seen to establish that regulations limiting the recoverable costs of private prosecutions are necessary. Ministers should not be able to bring such regulations into effect to limit recovery of such costs without their first establishing the necessity for such regulations.

Hence, the amendments proposed by the noble and learned Lord are right, I suggest. They are right to insist that an impact assessment, considering the likely effect of the regulations, and a response by the Government to that impact assessment, are made public before any regulations can be brought into effect. That would mean that Parliament can be properly informed of the need for them. The accompanying amendment, requiring an affirmative resolution, is entirely consistent with that principle, so we will support those amendments in lieu.

I turn next to the unduly lenient sentence scheme. We fully support the Government’s amendments in lieu, and we are very grateful to the Minister for meeting my noble friend Lady Brinton and me to consider our concern about the rights of victims and their families to refer sentences for consideration in circumstances where they have not been informed about the detail of the scheme or have not had reasonable time to consider making such a referral, at a time when circumstances for those victims are traumatic in the extreme.

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Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

At end insert “, and do propose Amendments 4B and 4C in lieu—

4B: Clause 12, page 16, line 28, at end insert—
“(2AB) Before making any regulations giving effect to subsections (2ZA) or (2A), the Secretary of State must—
(a) publish an impact assessment evaluating the likely effects of the regulations, including, but not limited to, their impact on—
(i) the ability of private prosecutors to bring proceedings,
(ii) the charitable and voluntary sector, and
(iii) access to justice, and
(b) publish a response to that impact assessment.”

4C: Clause 12, page 16, line 30, at end insert—
“(4) In section 29 (regulations), in subsection (1B) omit “or 19(4B)” and insert “, 19(4B) or 20(1A)(d) in relation to private prosecutions”.””

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, in the light of what we have heard, I wish to test the opinion of the House on Motion D1.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her helpful meeting between Committee and Report. As a result of her concerns about the practicalities of summing up for victims, I have amended my Amendment 5 following discussion with others outside your Lordships’ House.

From these Benches, I say again that both the previous and present Government undertook the pilot scheme to provide victims with judges’ sentencing remarks. It is encouraging that this pilot scheme will now be rolled out across England and Wales—it is certainly better than nothing at all.

In Committee, I argued that there are a number of reasons why sentencing remarks alone might well not provide the help a victim needs, whether this is information to explain what has happened when they may not have been present or to give them an understanding that it might help lead them to closure after whatever the incident was, or information that might help them to decide whether to challenge the sentence as unduly lenient—the subject of the last group in this Report stage later today.

Yesterday, I submitted a revised amendment which deletes the summings-up and replaces them with the route to verdict. Those I discussed it with said that this has to be done anyway, and it should be cost-free as it will be produced as part of the court process for others and should provide victims with an extra understanding of what has happened and why. That being cost-free is very important, because in Committee we heard of the extraordinary amounts of money that some victims have been asked to pay when they have asked for transcripts of court hearings. In one case, this was quoted at £7,000—that is too much. I am therefore grateful that the Minister says the Ministry of Justice will look at how technology can be harnessed in the future to ensure victims are not charged thousands of pounds if they need to see a full transcript, or even a partial one, and I will hold the Minister to that in the future.

Amendment 5 also says that the victims should be informed about bail conditions. This is important especially if there is a restriction placed on the defendant from approaching the victim. Too often, victims are not told of bail conditions. We know they should be, but they are not, which can cause chaos, especially when changed at short notice and without the knowledge of the victim.

Amendment 16, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, sets a framework and timescale for the publication online of sentencing remarks. We hope that if this is accepted, the Government would also undertake to ensure the victim is told as soon as they are published online. The amendment also says the victim must be aware they have the right to request anonymity. This is already covered in the rights of victims set out in the victims’ code for the entirety of the process and not just at the end, but it is helpful that it is clearly stated here. I beg to move.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, reflects a commitment to ensuring victims are entitled to free transcripts on the route to verdict and bail decisions and conditions that are relevant to their case. In Committee, we supported the broader amendment, which included sentencing remarks as well. On the amendment now before us, which includes transcripts of the route to verdict, our position has not changed; if anything, we are even more supportive, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing this matter to Report.

Similarly, Amendment 16 in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst is also designed to enhance access to important transcripts without charge, this time focusing on sentencing remarks. I will not rehearse the arguments and evidence for this, as we have all heard the benefits and how it would help the interests of victims and underlines our open justice system.

We have listened carefully and, after further thought, have revised the amendment that we brought forward in Committee. While we have not changed our position on this amendment focusing on sentencing remarks, the amendment now gives the relevant victims the right to anonymity rather than non-publication. In addition, it still requires the court to make victims aware of this right before sentencing remarks are published. With this crucial and pragmatic safeguard in place, we hope that the House finds this to be a well-considered and reasonable amendment that focuses on how this will work in practice and not only on the principle of transparency, on which I believe we are all agreed. In these circumstances, I intend to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 16.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their constructive engagement on the subject of court transcripts over recent weeks.

As the noble and learned Lord said, there is nothing between us on the principle of increased transparency for criminal court proceedings. As your Lordships will know, the Government recently announced that we will provide free transcripts of sentencing remarks for victims whose cases are heard in the Crown Court; it is one of the provisions of the Sentencing Act. Delivering this new entitlement is a significant operational undertaking. It is essential that we get it right, so that victims can receive the information they need in a timely way. However, the new proposals in the amendments in this group, taken either individually or together, would put that commitment under strain.

Through her Amendment 5, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, wants to include an entitlement to transcripts of bail decisions and the route to verdict. There are two difficulties with that. First, providing transcripts of bail decisions would involve extra resource. Transcripts are not free and producing even those for short hearings, if extended across England and Wales, would be expensive. Secondly, it would not provide significant benefits over and above the systems already in place. Transcripts on bail decisions are rarely informative for victims; they usually just set out the decision—where the judge says either that bail is granted and lists the conditions, or that bail is refused, with rarely any kind of reasoned judgment—and, as I said, they would come with cost implications. Under the victims’ code, victims already have the right to be informed of bail outcomes and release conditions.

We recognise that, when information is not provided in a timely or consistent way, this can cause distress and anxiety for victims and add to what is already a difficult experience. The experiences spoken to in Committee by the noble Baroness is clearly not what we expect or wish—nor are they, I am pleased to say, the norm. We are currently exploring how responsibilities under the victims’ code are being met by the relevant service providers and how better to support them in the delivery of the code.

We will also seek victims’ views on access to bail information and whether current processes are working correctly, through the ongoing victims’ code consultation. To strengthen that further, the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 will introduce a compliance framework requiring criminal justice bodies to keep their delivery of the code under review. Therefore, legislation needed to drive improvement in notifying victims of bail conditions is already in place.

Because this amendment arrived only yesterday, I have not had an opportunity to discuss the question of routes to verdict with the noble Baroness, but I think it is possible that she may have been misinformed about what a route to verdict is and what it consists of. It is our view that a route to verdict is unlikely to add significant, or indeed any, value for victims. It is usually a very short document; in most trials, it is typically about 10 lines long. Very rarely would a route to verdict be longer than two pages. It sets out a few questions that the jury should ask themselves in private, when they are applying the law to the facts of the case. However, the jury never gives its answers to those questions because we do not have reasoned judgments in criminal trials. Therefore, the victim will not be any wiser as to what the answers were; they would simply know the questions that were asked. These routes to verdict are almost always—unless the printer is broken—provided to the jury in hard copy, so a transcript is not needed and would add nothing.

The noble Baroness also raised concerns in Committee about victims being asked to leave the courtroom after giving evidence. I agree that this is a real issue and should not happen. I give the noble Baroness my assurance that I will work with the appropriate officials to ensure that victims understand that they are generally entitled to remain in court if they wish to do so and that arrangements—such as the use of screens or remote observation, so that they cannot be seen and do not have to see the person they accuse—can be made in some, if not all, circumstances. This is a practical and immediate step that we hope will make a real difference to victims’ experience without requiring further legislation.

Amendment 16 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, would require the Crown Court to publish transcripts of sentencing remarks within 14 days of a request for such remarks being made. Publishing sentencing remarks online is significantly more resource-intensive than simply providing them to the victim.

Public release demands a higher standard of anonymisation to remove both direct and indirect identifiers of victims and witnesses. Jigsaw identification is where a number of apparently innocuous pieces of information, when put together, particularly by people who have some knowledge of the local area, for example, can in fact lead to the identification of the victim. Even something such as the location of a shop, if there are people around who know it, could tell them who the victim is.

That kind of anonymisation is detailed and skilled work. Current AI-based tools cannot reliably carry out anonymisation for the complex and sensitive material heard in the criminal courts. The cost of getting it wrong is profound. It requires trained staff manually to review each transcript, and research suggests that it takes around 45 minutes of staff time to review every hour of a transcript before publication is possible. That means that even a modest increase in publication volumes would create disproportionate pressures in operational capacity in the Crown Courts, which cannot take any further pressure.

Furthermore, requiring the court to make the victim aware of their right to request anonymity, to make the appropriate redactions and to publish the transcript online within 14 days of any request is just not viable. Our priority must be delivering the sentencing remarks for victims, as set out in the Sentencing Act, properly and at pace, before taking on any further changes that could undermine or delay that work.

Finally, I would like to reassure your Lordships that we have listened to what was said in Committee, and work is already under way to improve the transcripts application process to make the system more accessible for all users. I thank your Lordships for raising these important issues. We all agree about the principle of transparency; the only issue between us is the best way to deliver it. We believe these issues can be and are being addressed through non-legislative means, and I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, if content, to withdraw her amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

9: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—
“Extension of Victim Contact Scheme(1) The Secretary of State must ensure that the Victim Contact Scheme is made available to—(a) victims of offenders sentenced to less than 12 months for violent and sexual offences,(b) victims in cases involving coercive or controlling behaviour, stalking, or harassment, and(c) bereaved families in manslaughter or death by dangerous driving cases.(2) The Secretary of State must ensure that information under the Victim Contact Scheme is communicated in a timely and trauma-informed manner.(3) The Secretary of State must publish data each year on uptake and accessibility of the Victim Contact Scheme.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to extend the Victim Contact Scheme to certain categories of victim. It would also ensure information is provided in a timely, trauma-informed way and require annual reporting on the Scheme’s uptake and accessibility.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, within this group are amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, regarding the victims’ code, and from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, with regard to incidental matters thereto.

Perhaps I may begin with the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell. These address the important question of how hospital managers exercise their discretion when responding to requests for information about offenders detained under the mental health legislation. Amendment 17 seeks to ensure that when hospital managers consider whether it is appropriate to disclose information, they explicitly take into account the risk of further physical or psychological harm to victims if that information is withheld. The purpose of providing information to victims is in large part to enable them to feel safer and to plan appropriately for an offender’s discharge. We support the principle underlying this amendment.

Amendment 18 would require hospital managers to provide written reasons when information is not disclosed. Greater transparency in decision-making can help build confidence in the system and ensure that victims and probation services understand how such determinations have been reached.

Amendment 19 would create a clearer route of appeal where information requests are refused. This amendment raises the question of whether a more structured and independent route of appeal might provide additional clarity and reassurance to victims.

Amendment 10 would require the Secretary of State to create an appendix to the victims’ code outlining how the code applies to victims whose close relative was the victim of murder, manslaughter or infanticide outside the United Kingdom. This is a proposal with which we are at least sympathetic.

Amendment 15 in my name would extend the victim contact scheme to include victims whose offenders are sentenced to less than 12 months for violent and sexual offences—as well as bereaved families in manslaughter or death by dangerous driving cases where the offender is sentenced to less than 12 months. Much has been said about the Sentencing Act in this Chamber. In light of that legislation, it is undeniable that many victims captured by those provisions will have to face the reality of their offenders living in their communities. It is therefore only appropriate that victims of violent and sexual offences should be eligible for the scheme. For stalking, the Government are happy to extend the victim contact scheme with no limitation on sentence length. There should similarly be no such limits for the narrowly drawn list of serious offences in this amendment. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 10 in this group, on bereaved victims of murder abroad. I have also signed the three amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, on victims of mentally disordered offenders.

To speak briefly to those amendments, which we are happy to support from these Benches, it is very important that hospital managers and senior clinicians take a balanced approach regarding victims of offenders who are detained under the Mental Health Act. Unfortunately, hospital managers and clinicians often withhold data that could be released which would assist victims—and worse, not even tell them that they are withholding it. The amendments set out a balanced approach for hospitals and would require written reasons to be given to the victim for any decision to withhold some or all of the information requested. The third amendment would create an independent route for victims to appeal where a hospital manager has decided not to share information.

I turn to my Amendment 10, which seeks a pathway for bereaved victims of murder abroad. We had an extensive debate on this in Committee, and I am grateful to the Minister for the very helpful and informative meeting with Home Office and FCDO staff who specialise in this area, including those who liaise with the coroners service and support victims whose family members have been murdered abroad.

With around 80 British nationals being murdered abroad each year, the numbers may appear low, but families are not just navigating the horror of a murder, which is bad enough at home in the UK, but doing so in a country where legal systems will differ. There are also likely to be language barriers. Even worse is managing the complex logistical issues of repatriation of the body—which, speaking from personal family experience, is hard even with a natural death—as well as coping with limited police updates from afar.

The problem is that these people are not recognised as formal victims of crime because the murder occurred outside the United Kingdom, nor do they receive any of the relevant protections and entitlements given to their UK equivalents. These Benches thank the Government for their recently updated family information guide on murder and manslaughter abroad, and on how the differing parts of the Government will work. We believe this is a good start and we understand that these new arrangements will take time to bed in.

The Minister mentioned in Committee that the homicide service, which is currently run by Victim Support, is being retendered at the moment. Is there any news yet as to whether the budget for that service is being absolutely sustained? I realise that times are hard, but we cannot have a service that cannot function and support these families because it does not have the resources that it needs. It is clear from the guide that the homicide service is the key that keeps on top of all the different moving parts and keeps the victims informed.

However, it is early days, and I know from talking to Murdered Abroad that there are still real concerns about how this will work effectively. Too often, despite the best intentions of the very willing staff across the board, families still struggle for information, support or translation services. That is why we have retabled our amendment, which sets out the application of the victims’ code in respect to victims of murder, manslaughter or infanticide abroad. We do not seek for these families to be treated exactly the same as UK victims. Rather, the amendment seeks an appendix to the victims’ code that sets out which services they can access, and only those.

I hope that the Minister feels that this is a supportive mechanism which would give core strength to the excellent but invisible work of those in the Home Office, the FCDO and our embassies, and the coroners service, as well as of Murdered Abroad. Above all, it would support the bereaved families at the worst time of their lives. At present, I am minded to test the opinion of the House, but I really hope for a more positive response from the Minister on the recognition of the status of these victims.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments clearly touch on important issues about victim safety, transparency and access to information. Amendment 10 raises an interesting question about how the victims’ code applies where a close relative has been killed abroad. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on that proposal.

With regard to Amendment 15 in my name, the victim contact scheme needs to be extended here, given that some offenders convicted of violent and sexual offences may now receive sentences much lower than before. It is important to consider whether victims in those circumstances will be adequately supported and informed. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on that amendment as well.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin with Amendments 9 and 15 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, which seek to extend the eligibility for the victim contact scheme. As far as Amendment 9 is concerned, as I said in Committee, victims of coercive or controlling behaviour, stalking and harassment are already eligible for the updated scheme regardless of sentence length. Victims of violent and sexual offences, and of dangerous driving, where the offender receives a sentence of less than 12 months’ imprisonment will be able to request information through the new dedicated helpline.

The Bill already includes a mechanism for providing information about an offender to victims of any offence, irrespective of sentence length, where probation considers them to be at risk of physical or psychological harm if they are not given such information. However, the Government have a duty to safeguard taxpayers’ money and to ensure that it is used in the most effective and proportionate way. Our approach targets finite public funding on those most in need of the proactive contact through the victim contact scheme, while still providing the helpline for all victims to request information. Any expansion of the scheme would require diverting public funds from other essential parts of the criminal justice system.

That said, we will keep the eligibility under review. The Bill includes regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State to amend the list of offences and the specified lengths of sentence of such offences, which determine eligibility for either scheme. The Government believe that secondary legislation is the much more effective way of being able to tweak the scheme should it prove to be needed, rather than requiring primary legislation, which, of course, is much more difficult to deal with if it has an unintended consequence. Each of these amendments contains a requirement that information should be communicated in a timely and sensitive way. Of course this matters, but we believe that this is best achieved through guidance and training, not primary legislation.

Finally on the subject of these two amendments, I reassure your Lordships that we will be monitoring the scheme through the victims’ code compliance framework under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which will include an annual report. With this in mind, I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I turn next to Amendment 10 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I thank them both for their tireless work for victims and for continuing to raise this important matter. We have had a number of helpful and constructive meetings about this, and it is common ground between us that, when the unimaginable happens and a relative is a victim of homicide abroad, the help available to their families and loved ones can be patchy. We know that, and we all agree that it is not good enough.

As is so often the case with the noble Baroness’s and the noble Lord’s amendments, we agree entirely on the objective, but there is perhaps less consensus about the right way forward, because we think we can do this a better way. In addition—as the noble Baroness knows because I have discussed this with her—we are worried about unrealistically raising the expectations of victims’ families at an enormously sensitive and difficult time for them. The difficulty with this amendment, attractive though it may seem, is that many of the provisions of the victims’ code cannot and do not apply to most homicides abroad, because they cannot be prosecuted in the UK. In cases where the offence can be prosecuted in the UK, the code already applies.

Many aspects of support in these cases depend upon overseas judicial systems, which fall outside the scope of the victims’ code. Including them in an appendix risks creating unrealistic expectations. At a very stressful and dangerous time, we do not want families, who have had a quick look at the code and were not able to take in all the detail, to have the impression that they are guaranteed support and then to feel let down because decisions are made by foreign authorities over which the UK has no control.

Police in England and Wales can become involved only if they are formally invited by the relevant overseas authority. For example, under right 6 of the current victims’ code, victims have the right to be told by the police when key decisions on the investigation are made. However, in cases overseas, updates and access to information are determined by the processes and timelines of the foreign jurisdiction. This means that fixed reporting requirements, such as those in the victims’ code, cannot be guaranteed.

That said, we are all in agreement that these families can experience particular challenges navigating overseas criminal justice processes. For that reason, the Government published the victim-facing guidance in January 2026, and I am pleased to hear from the noble Baroness that she regards this as a good start. It brings together clear and accessible information for families in these difficult situations, setting out the services that can support them and directing them to the help that they need. As the new victims’ code is developed, we will review what further signposting information can be included to support all families bereaved by homicide abroad. Our feeling is that it should be a bespoke thing, rather than being tacked on to a victims’ code, most of which will not apply. The code consultation went live on 5 February; we are interested in encouraging everybody to contribute to it.

In addition, the newly updated organisational roles and responsibilities document, published in February 2026, sets out how the FCDO, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the Ministry of Justice, the Chief Coroner and the coroners service will work together when a British national is the victim of murder or manslaughter abroad. While every case is considered individually, this document seeks to ensure a consistent level of service for bereaved families.

Within this, the Homicide Service can and does support families bereaved by a homicide abroad, including emotional and practical support, such as by covering the cost of translated documents. I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will not be surprised to hear that I cannot confirm anything today about the long-term future and budget of the Homicide Service. I am sorry that I cannot do that here and now, but I am sure she understands.

When the Bill was in Committee in this place, I heard concerns that families accessing Homicide Service support for translated documents are not always having a consistent experience. In the delivery of the next multi-year Homicide Service contract from April 2027, the Ministry of Justice will work with the provider to look again at how translation services are provided for this group of victims. We want to ensure that their needs are properly met when documents require translation and that this is reflected in the contract.

In addition to addressing concerns from Members of your Lordships’ House, the FCDO will review and refresh the training provided to consular staff on supporting families bereaved by homicide abroad.

Finally, I am grateful to the office of the Victims’ Commissioner for engaging with the FCDO and other agencies through the murder and manslaughter working group, which brings together stakeholders from across government, policing and the third sector to share expertise, align efforts and drive meaningful improvement. Where appropriate, the FCDO’s senior officer for global consular services will offer to meet the Victims’ Commissioner herself, or her representative, when particular issues arise that merit further discussion. I have already put the Victims’ Commissioner in touch with those representatives whom the noble Lord and the noble Baroness met at our meeting.

I turn finally to Amendments 17, 18 and 19 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. Before I move on to the operational issues that concern the Government, there is a drafting issue, so I first must raise a technical point. These amendments apply only to new Sections 44F and 44K in Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Bill. Those sections apply where a restriction order or restriction direction is not made. In Committee, noble Lords indicated that their concern is with cases of homicide—entirely understandably—but, in such cases, the offender will almost certainly be a restricted patient. Those victims would therefore be eligible for the victim contact scheme and would not need to request information through the helpline. The provisions updating the victim contact scheme are in Part 1 of Schedule 2, so the amendments as drafted cannot achieve their aim. I believe that noble Lords are more concerned about homicide cases, which would not be covered.

However, I turn to the wider points of principle. I listened carefully to the contributions made in your Lordships’ House and to the powerful arguments made to me by Emma Webber and Julian Hendy of Hundred Families, whom I was privileged to meet. I entirely accept that these three amendments are motivated by a desire to improve the provision of information to victims of mentally disordered offenders, but the challenge we face is not a legislative gap. The most effective way to secure better outcomes for victims is to ensure that clinicians have the understanding, confidence and tools to get it right first time. That is not achieved through more primary legislation, nor through complex, costly bureaucracy; it is achieved through improving decision-making in the first place, increasing awareness and embedding a clearer understanding of responsibilities—ensuring that there is not a knee-jerk defensiveness about supplying information.

That is why I am pleased to announce that we will be bringing forward a comprehensive capability-building programme with three core strands. First, we will make sure that clinicians understand their duties. To do that, we will work together with the Department of Health and Social Care to update the statutory Mental Health Act code of practice. We are going to add victim liaison requirements to the NHS secure service specifications, introduce a detailed joint protocol for clinicians and HMPPS staff and work with the Caldicott Guardian Council to support guardians’ role as expert information advisers to clinicians. Secondly, we will improve victim liaison officers’ understanding of this complex area and provide training to bolster the role of specialist mentally disordered offender victim liaison officers. Thirdly, we will produce victim-facing materials to explain clearly what information is and is not usually provided to victims of mentally disordered offenders. These will also explain the routes by which they can make a complaint, including if they did not receive the information they expected.

I consider that these measures will significantly improve the consistency of information provided to victims, and I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Russell, not to press his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I am sorry, my Lords; I had not actually spoken to Amendment 9, as may have been noted, so it rather passed me by that it was for me to respond.

Having heard from the Minister, it is certainly my intention to support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which she will be moving.

Amendment 9 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

16: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—
“Publication of court transcripts of sentencing remarks(1) Where a request is made for the sentencing remarks delivered in the Crown Court, the court must, subject to subsection (2), make those remarks publicly available online within 14 days of the request being received.(2) The court must, before publication, make the relevant victim(s) aware that they have a right to request anonymity, and if such a request is made, take the necessary steps to prevent the risk of identification of the victim, including through jigsaw identification.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that sentencing remarks released by the Crown Court are freely published online, whilst also requiring the Court to inform applicants of their right to request anonymity in such remarks.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to test the opinion of the House with regard to Amendment 16, which was addressed during our submissions on the second group of amendments.

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Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

20: Leave out Clause 12

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, in this group there are Amendment 20, in which I move that Clause 12 should not stand part of the Bill, Amendment 23 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to extend the period in which a case can be discontinued in the Crown Court to bring it into line with the magistrates’ court, and Amendment 29 in my name, which deals with exemptions to early release for sex offenders.

On Amendment 20, Clause 12 would represent a major departure from the long-established practice of private prosecution, with damaging consequences for access to justice in England and Wales. Where the state fails or indeed is unable to act, private prosecutions provide an alternative route for victims, be they individuals, corporations or, in many instances, charitable organisations. That is plainly in the public interest, and private prosecutors should therefore receive a reasonably sufficient compensation for the costs incurred, and indeed the victims should not have to meet the costs of having to vindicate their rights in the absence of a public prosecution. As I observed earlier, in Committee, the total reimbursement of private prosecution costs, which comes from the Legal Aid Fund, amounts to 0.18% of that fund. It would hardly pass muster in the stationery department. It is a tiny proportion of overall costs.

Clause 12 would give the Government the power to impose a cap on those costs. The saving would obviously be minimal but the result would be to make many private prosecutions quite untenable. Take the example of charities. They have to take action on a regular basis to protect their reputation in circumstances where they have been the victims of fraud—often very minor fraud, but which nevertheless can be highly damaging to their reputation and their ability to raise funds. In the present circumstances, the solicitors they engage to carry on those private prosecutions recover a reasonable amount of costs. The court can award costs, although it is not bound to, and thereafter they can be determined by the senior costs judge. They are not going to take up alternative judicial time.

I shall touch upon the Explanatory Notes that were issued by the Ministry of Justice. They acknowledge that the costs are generally those given in the Senior Courts Cost Office Guide. As the notes say:

“These are intended to reflect civil market rates of pay”.


Yes, they are, and these are the very lawyers who step forward to carry out these private prosecutions.

The relevant guidelines or rates are set by the Master of the Rolls. They did not move for 11 years but now they are subject to annual review, and rightly so. They are assessed in line with the services producer price index, which is entirely appropriate. The problem for the Ministry of Justice is the disparity between that reasonable rate of pay for those who carry out the private prosecution and what is paid to the defence under the legal aid scheme, which is, frankly, outrageously low and has not changed to any material extent during the last almost two years of this Government. The result is a vast disparity between one party’s costs and another’s. The Explanatory Notes go on to tell us that this is going to be an enabling power:

“This measure seeks to address this inequality to reduce the disparity between the amounts which may be paid to private prosecutors and legally aided defence lawyers”.

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Through the implementation of the Sentencing Act, this Government are putting the prison population on a sustainable footing, ending the cycle of repeated crises presided over by the party opposite when it was in government. Any amendments to this legislation risk this pathway to stability. I hope it will reassure noble Lords that, once released, offenders will be subject to a period of intense supervision, with a presumption that they will be electronically tagged; the highest-risk offenders will continue to be actively supervised until the end of their sentence; and all offenders will remain on licence, with the possibility of recall to custody if they breach the terms of it. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for outlining his conversation with my noble friend Lord Timpson about this. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I begin with Amendment 20, which deals with Clause 12. First, I am relying on the Explanatory Notes from the Minister’s own department. Where there is a private prosecution and then an award of costs, the costs are assessed by the criminal cases unit in the Ministry of Justice. If there is a dispute—and there should not be, because there are established guidelines, the Senior Courts Costs Office guidelines—it can go to the senior costs judge, who is experienced in addressing these matters. So that is not a problem at all, and there is no real difficulty there.

However, the Minister suggested that there was “some evidence at the margins” that people might be overcharging. Well, if you think that there is some evidence at the margins, go away and consult—and if you discover that there is evidence at the margins, come back and we can legislate. But you do not legislate and then go looking for some evidence at the margins: that is simply back to front.

I make one further point. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, mentioned that this was money leaving the MoJ. Let us put this into context: 0.18% of the legal aid budget is £3.6 million, and it is not leaving: it is actually a very wise investment by the Ministry of Justice. Investing that very modest sum relieves the Crown Prosecution Service of a vast number of relatively minor prosecutions that would cost a great deal to pursue. So I do not accept that this is somehow “lost money”: it is actually an extremely good investment on the part of the MoJ and it shows results.

I appreciate that the issues around Amendment 29 were touched on in the Sentencing Act, but there is no prohibition, subject to the clerks, on us revisiting it if we did not get it right the first time. We now have an ideal opportunity to get it right, and there is no reason why, with sexual and domestic abuse offences, we should not be able to reconcile our sentencing provisions with other serious crimes. So I shall seek to test the opinion of the House on both Amendment 20 and Amendment 29.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and I were members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of this House, which was formed only in 2020. Our first inquiry and report were on the advent of new technologies in the justice system. During that work, I often asked myself—sometimes aloud—how you would feel if you were arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned on the basis of evidence that not only did you not understand but could not be explained. We now know how people felt and feel.

That was in 2022, which was centuries ago in technical terms. I realise that the lexicon has expanded here and I hear terms that I have never heard before, but the basic issues remain. Our concerns then were about transparency and regulation, among other things, and that anyone could be affected. We were talking not just about insider trading and corporate fraud, as one witness powerfully put it, but

“high-volume data that is mostly about poor people”.

We found a lot of enthusiasm for the technology, but not a corresponding commitment to a thorough evaluation of it. These Benches support Amendment 21, which seems to have been a very constructive contribution to taking these issues forward.

At the last stage, I supported Amendment 22. I do so no less now. Sometimes we show that we are not as open as we should be to the way that society moves on or to the life experiences of people younger than almost all of us and how they wish to express them. I do not really feel qualified to say more than that.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a thoughtful debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and her supporters for their work on these issues.

On Amendment 21, I reiterate the sentiments expressed in Committee and by many noble Lords across the House from all parties. In light of the appalling Post Office scandal, keeping in mind the increasing use of artificial intelligence, the need to remove the presumption of reliability for computer evidence is now clear. The noble Baroness has responded to some of the concerns expressed in Committee in bringing forward this redrafted amendment. I commend her attention to this issue.

My concern is that the Government have had long enough to look at this. Their call for evidence closed on 15 April 2025, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister where we are now, given that the call for evidence is a year old. I am sure she will be anxious to update us on that.

I understand the basis for Amendment 22, but I have some reservations about its detail. There is an issue about the objectivity of the conditions listed in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause. I would certainly be interested to hear more about how the court should consider who is suitably qualified to give evidence about

“linguistic and artistic conventions and the social and cultural context of the creative or artistic expression”.

It is an important area, but it is also a difficult one that will repay further consideration.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 21 in the names of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and a formidable trio of other Members of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who is not in his place, is extremely important. I really mean it when I say I want to thank my noble friend, both for tabling it and for the work she has done to refine it since Committee. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lord Beamish, all of whom have given up their time to meet me during the last two weeks to discuss this amendment to try to get it right. I know the entire House wants to thank the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and my noble friend Lord Beamish for their ceaseless championing of the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal. It is thanks to them that we are here taking the steps we are today.

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Moved by

[Lord Keen of Elie]

24: Clause 13, page 16, line 37, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
“(b) in that sub-paragraph, for the words from “within” to the end substitute “—(a) in relation to England and Wales, within 56 days from the day on which the sentence, or the last of the sentences, in the case was passed, subject to sub-paragraph (2);(b) in relation to Northern Ireland, within 28 days from the day on which the sentence, or the last of the sentences, in the case was passed.”;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would extend the time limit for the Attorney General to apply for leave to refer an unduly lenient sentence in England or Wales to the Court of Appeal.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, this group contains my amendment seeking to increase the unduly lenient sentence deadline to 56 days, and amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeking to allow that timeframe to be extended in exceptional circumstances. The whole group concerns both how the unduly lenient sentence scheme operates in practice and how long the timeframe should be for an application. Amendments 24 and 25 in my name would increase the window for applications to 56 days.

These were in fact amendments that the Government had pledged to table. However, they decided to withdraw them just two days later. They explained that an increased timeframe for the scheme would be of little use if victims were unaware of its existence. I entirely agree with that in principle, but I wonder why we cannot have both an increase in the timeframe and a suitable means of intimation.

Amendments 26 and 27 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, would also act to strengthen victims’ rights in this respect, and we support them. Amendment 27 would place a duty on a nominated government department to inform victims and their families. While the Minister will no doubt say that this is the responsibility of the witness care unit and should therefore not be in legislation, we are inclined to disagree. Too many cases exist of victims losing the right to an unduly lenient sentence application because they were either not notified or notified too late, and therefore statutory provision may be appropriate.

I do not intend to press these amendments to a Division, but I hope that the Minister will address the reasons why the Government decided to withdraw their own amendment and explain the reasoning behind that. I believe that that would be welcomed across the House.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my thanks to Claire Waxman, the Victims’ Commissioner, and to Tracey Hanson and Katie Brett, who have campaigned with great commitment on behalf of victims.

In Committee, much was said on all sides about the importance of the unduly lenient sentence scheme in ensuring consistency. As all who participated know, it is not an appeal for victims who are dissatisfied by the length or type of sentence: rather, it is a legal safeguard, exercisable by the Attorney-General, to correct sentences that fall outside the appropriate range. As such, it is a constitutional safeguard vested in the Attorney-General as guardian of the public interest, not a mechanism for anyone to relitigate sentencing. That said, victims will often play a vital role in drawing cases to the Attorney-General’s attention for consideration: we recognise and indeed encourage that.

As is generally known, the time limit is a strict one: 28 days with no exceptions. The Government are aware of and have listened to the comments of the victims and those supporting them, who have long complained that the system just is not working for them; in particular, that they are often not told about the ULS scheme; and, in any event, 28 days is not long enough.

Against that background, I turn to the amendments concerning the time limits, in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Sandhurst. Your Lordships will be aware that the Government had been considering tabling their own amendment to increase the time limit. As I said in Committee, we hoped to bring something forward on Report. Today, I take up the invitation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, to set out why we have not done so.

This is fundamentally a Bill for victims. Unsurprisingly, victims have told us that they want to be listened to by the Government. Both victims and the Victims’ Commissioner have told us clearly that increasing the time limit to 56 days would not address the problem they face. They have told us that any time limit, whether it is 28 days, 56 days or 365 days, is meaningless if they are not informed about the ULS scheme in the first place.

Plainly, all victims should be told. There are mechanisms in place for doing so, but we have heard enough from victims to make it clear to us that there are occasions on which this is not happening. To paraphrase what I said today in an earlier group, a right is not much of a right if you do not know about it.

To the victims, I say: we have heard you and we will continue to listen. The victims asked us not to bring forward our amendment extending the time limit to 56 days, and so we have not done so. This explains why we cannot accept Amendments 24 and 25.

I turn to Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I thank her for not only raising the issue but for the positive and constructive talks we have had. As some of your Lordships may have gathered, the noble Baroness and I have been spending rather a lot of time together over the last few weeks. I have enjoyed every moment, of course. I can understand why it is felt that an exception from the strict time limit would be a good thing, but there are a number of issues with it, and I will try to deal with these briefly.

First, it seeks to treat a symptom of the problem rather than tackling the cause. The underlying problem is that some victims are apparently not being told about the ULS scheme. The noble Baroness’s amendment seeks to address that by creating a mechanism to bypass the time limit if that happens. But this Government are not here to patch up the symptoms; the Government’s view is that we must address the root cause—victims are telling us that they are not being informed—rather than create a mechanism that responds only after the problem has occurred.

The second issue is the question of what exceptional circumstances would mean in practice. The Government’s concern is that the amendment will be self-defeating, because “exceptional” has its ordinary meaning—something unusual, not typical—and cannot be exhaustively defined in legislation, but something that is not genuinely unusual cannot be described as exceptional. Given that the noble Baroness’s reason for tabling the amendment is, regrettably, that victims do not get told about it, if they are not told, it cannot be exceptional. This is very likely to apply to the very cases that would not be able to take advantage of the law. I hope the noble Baroness will understand why the Government cannot accept the amendment and that she will work with me and my officials as we look to address the real issue: ensuring that victims are notified of the scheme in the first place.

Amendment 30 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, would require a public consultation. The Law Commission did exactly this. The Law Commission has held a public consultation on the ULS scheme, including specific questions about the 28-day time limit. Holding another one would be a waste of taxpayers’ money. I hope your Lordships will join me in looking forward to the commission’s final report when it is published later this year. The Government will, of course, consider its findings carefully.

I turn briefly to the remaining amendments, which seek to place a statutory duty on a designated government department or the Crown Prosecution Service to notify the victims. Again, there is no issue between us about the fact that the Government need to ensure that every victim is told. I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve, but I want to persuade her that there is a better way of doing it.

The amendments seek to create a duty which already exists. Police in witness care units are already responsible for informing victims about the unduly lenient sentence scheme. Using primary legislation to try to make people do what they are already required to do is not the best way of going about things. These amendments impose a duplicative statutory duty, potentially with different timeframes or differing lines of accountability. It must be self-evident that this risks confusion rather than clarity, particularly where concurrent statutory duties could blur operational responsibilities. The fear is that the victims might actually, as a result, end up worse off.

I therefore ask your Lordships to work with us, the Victims’ Commissioner and the victims themselves to get to the heart of the issue and develop practical, workable improvements to notification and awareness. We want every victim to be properly informed, in good time, so that they can exercise their rights with confidence. Our focus is on fixing the long-standing problems with notification rather than changing the time limits themselves.

We already have the commitment of the Attorney-General’s Office, the CPS, the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to work closely with us to improve awareness of the scheme. They have all urgently assessed what actions can be taken in their respective areas. There is a quite a detailed plan.

Given the time, I will undertake to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, rather than read out the next four pages of my speech, for which I do not think anybody would thank me. For these reasons, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation and understand that she is giving further consideration to this issue. In these circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 24 withdrawn.

Assisted Dying Legislation: Isle of Man and Jersey

Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

At the risk of repeating myself, the Government do not look at the merits of the legislation that they receive in relation to the Crown dependencies: these are stand-alone pieces of legislation that do not affect the position the Government take in relation to the Private Member’s Bill before this House.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, in addition to the assisted dying legislation in the Crown dependencies of Jersey and the Isle of Man, there is, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, observed, also legislation coming forward in Scotland and, quite distinctly and separately, in England and Wales. If assisted dying becomes lawful in one jurisdiction of the United Kingdom but not another, can the Minister explain what UK-wide framework has been developed to manage the legal, ethical and medical consequences of that divergence, or are we in danger of creating for the United Kingdom a fragmented regime in this most ethically sensitive issue, without any agreed cross-border protocol?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand why the noble and learned Lord asks that question, but it would be entirely premature of the Government to work out what the situation is going to be, since we do not know whether or if that Private Member’s Bill will pass through your Lordships’ House.