Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking on the Motion that the Bill do now pass, I readily start with praise and thanks for my noble friend the Minister for her entire conduct on the Bill throughout its passage in the House. I particularly thank my noble friend for her willingness to hold meetings with us on a number of occasions, despite her very heavy and busy diary.

The Bill does well in strengthening the position of victims in our judicial processes and in strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner. However, there is unfinished business relating to the victims of trafficking of women and girls, particularly related to the provision of sexual services. As I told your Lordships in Committee, the numbers are large. They are not in the hundreds but in the thousands.

As this is Third Reading, I do not seek to repeat arguments made in Committee or on Report. It suffices to say that these women and girls, who are often illegally brought into this country, are in a fraught and difficult position. For example, they are terrified, when they are drawn to the attention of the authorities, that they will be deported. They need our help. Help, I have to say, is not being provided to them either in this Bill or in the Crime and Policing Bill.

The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner produced an excellent report, which I strongly commend to your Lordships. I strongly urge those responsible in the Home Office to read it as obligatory reading. As she rightly says in her foreword:

“Tackling modern slavery is everyone’s business”.


Indeed it is. I recognise, when speaking to your Lordships and to my noble friend the Minister, that modern slavery is in the remit of the Home Office and not the Ministry of Justice, but I ask my noble friend to speak strongly in government of the need to give the victims of modern slavery the support that they are not currently receiving and which they need.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly—conscious of my noble friend to my left—to pay tribute to the Minister for how she has handled her first Bill through your Lordships’ House with good humour and considerable judicial skill. It is always slightly challenging to put an amendment or an argument to a Minister when it is quite clear that she has understood exactly what you are trying to say and all the flaws in your argument before you have got past the first paragraph.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for our working together so effectively. I also congratulate the Minister on the extraordinary achievement in having, on occasion, got the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to be on speaking terms, let alone voting terms.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords.