Victims and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Baroness Brinton

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Victims and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Keen of Elie and Baroness Brinton

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches, the Liberal Democrats have been concerned for a long time about the victim’s right to access court transcripts. We have tabled amendments to a number of Bills, including, most recently, the now Victim and Prisoners Act 2024, and I have Amendment 41 to this Bill. I thank open justice campaigners for the contact that we have had with them during the Victims and Prisoners Act and since then.

During the Victims and Prisoners Bill, the then Minister finally agreed to a trial in certain locations that would ensure that victims could have access to sentencing remarks but to nothing else. Ministers of both this and the last Government have said that it would just cost too much to extend the scheme but, as we have said, the process that is used is extraordinarily expensive, and technology should be our friend these days. To give the Committee a feel of some of the figures that we have been made aware of, we have seen people quoted £30 for a copy of sentencing remarks to over £300 for an original transcript, and where victims requested a transcript of the entire court case we have seen figures of £7,500 and even £22,000.

Victims and their families are in principle able to access remarks at no cost. I am not just talking about since the pilot; I am talking about some of the other things, and I will come on to the detail later on. They can sometimes get access at no cost, but the problem is that the paperwork that some courts have required families to fill out is burdensome and intrusive, requiring families to declare salaries, debts, bank balances and more. That really should not be the case when they are getting to the end of a trial, with all the burdens that that has brought them.

Amendment 41 would go beyond sentencing remarks but not as far as our amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill. It would include transcripts of judicial summings-up, bail decisions and conditions that are relevant to their case. It would also set a time limit for the Secretary of State to ensure that the transcripts were provided within 14 days.

We thank the Government for confirming that access to the judge’s sentencing remarks is being rolled out across the country, but we remain concerned that some victims need access to more. This is because for far too long, as we discussed in an earlier group, victims have been advised by the police and prosecutors either not to attend a trial or to frame their own remarks carefully.

I have three brief quotes on that. The first is:

“I wanted to go and watch the trial after I had given my evidence but was told by the prosecution barrister that it would not look good with the jury. The police said the same. I didn’t really question it. I was so scared to do anything that *might* have a detrimental effect on the outcome”.


Another victim said:

“We were advised not to attend because it may make us look bitter”.


And another said:

“I was told I couldn’t watch the court case after giving evidence as I’d look like I wasn’t scared of the perpetrator and it could harm the jury’s decision”.


Open justice campaigners say:

“This advice from professionals is in direct contrast to Judges we meet, who very much want the victims to attend hearings”.


So there is a gap there.

The reason why we propose including judicial summings-up and bail decisions is that there is often more detail in things like bail decisions and conditions that affect the victim directly. I have recently been involved in advising a family where there was a bail condition that required the alleged perpetrator not to go within two miles of the victim. That was changed without the victim’s knowledge, and suddenly she found the perpetrator nearby and could not understand why. A victim in that sort of instance should be able to ask for the details of those. It was clear that she was completely unaware that the bail conditions had been changed after the perpetrator’s solicitor had asked for a hearing. For judicial summing up, there is often more detail in there that can help the victim to come to terms with the entire process. That is one reason why we are pushing for that.

We would still like occasionally for some victims in really traumatic cases, particularly where a therapist advises this—this is not in the amendment, and there is a reason for that—to be able to access the entire court transcript, but we recognise that that is unlikely until technology can provide it at virtually no cost to the court. I think we are nearly there, but at the moment the structure of the way in which people can apply for help and the way that transcripts are made is overly expensive, given the world that we are living in in 2026. I beg to move.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 41, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and Amendment 73 in my name. Both these amendments are designed to strengthen victims’ engagement with the justice system by enhancing access to, and the availability of, transcripts of important court decisions.

We give full and unequivocal support to Amendment 41. This is a broader right than the one we were able to secure during the passage of the Sentencing Bill, where our amendments sought to ensure victims’ access to transcripts of sentencing remarks. Initially, that amendment was opposed by the Government, who argued that embedding a statutory duty for universal access and universal publication would create significant operational and resource pressures and risk increasing judicial workload.

The importance of these amendments has been further underscored by the report—released, I believe, today—that the Ministry of Justice has instructed the deletion of a substantial archive of court records held by Courtsdesk: data analysis that supports journalists and civil society in scrutinising the justice system. That archive has long been relied on to track sentencing outcomes and judicial decisions. Its removal has understandably raised concerns about the future accessibility of court information and the practical operation of open justice.

In that context, the case for clear, structured and victim-centred access to sentencing information becomes even more compelling. If independent archives and informal routes to transparency are diminishing, it is all the more important that Parliament ensures that formal mechanisms exist to guarantee access to core judicial material, particularly for victims whose lives are directly affected by these decisions.

In previous debates, Ministers made it clear that they supported the principle of transparency and of victim access to sentencing remarks. Sentencing remarks can already be published in high-profile cases but the Government maintained that expanding those limited provisions into a broad statutory requirement, as initially tabled, was not necessary to achieve the objective of openness and could impose burdens that the current system was not equipped to bear. We therefore tabled a more diluted version of our amendment to extend free provision of Crown Court sentencing transcripts to victims who request them.

The importance of this measure cannot, in my view, be overstated. Sentencing remarks explain the judge’s reasoning as well as the factors taken into account when outlining legal judgment behind a sentence. For victims and their families, this explanation is essential to understanding why justice has been administered in the way it has and becomes particularly important in the context of, for example, unduly lenient sentence appeals.

Amendment 73 complements the amendment passed in the Sentencing Bill, now the Sentencing Act, by addressing the publication of sentencing remarks online. It would require that, when a request is made for sentencing remarks delivered in the Crown Court, those remarks are made available publicly online within 14 days, subject to an important safeguard. The court must first inform the applicant of their right to request that the remarks not be published and, if such a request is made, the remarks must not be published.

This opt-out mechanism is a proportionate and indeed pragmatic response to government concerns that prevented broad publication being adopted previously. Ministers explained that, while they supported the principle of transparency, they could not accept a universal statutory obligation to publish all sentencing remarks, citing the risk of significant workload increases and resource pressures on an already stretched judiciary and courts system. By allowing individuals to choose not to have their own remarks published, this amendment preserves transparency for the public while safeguarding privacy and individual choice and reducing operational risk.

We stand in favour of open justice: the principle that justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. When victims and the wider public can access the reasoning behind sentencing decisions, confidence in the rule of law and in the integrity of judicial decision-making is strengthened. A criminal justice system that is opaque risks undermining the very legitimacy that it seeks to uphold. If victims cannot see the reasoning behind the rulings that affect their lives, they and the public will struggle to have confidence that justice has actually been done. When sentences are handed down with discretion and complexity, the need for transparency is greater, not less. For these reasons, we support Amendment 41 and look forward to the Minister’s response to Amendment 73.