Victims and Courts Bill

Debate between Andrew George and Lauren Edwards

Report stage
Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lauren Edwards (Rochester and Strood) (Lab)]

I really welcome this Bill, which delivers long-overdue reforms to protect victims and goes a long way to rebuilding confidence in our judicial system. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) and for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) for their powerful contributions to the debate.

I also thank the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) for tabling new clause 12, relating to UK citizens who are murdered abroad. The previous Conservative Government failed to address this issue in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, so I thank him for raising this important issue once again. As he has explained, the lack of any statutory support for the families of British nationals murdered abroad is a glaring gap in our legal system. Families who find themselves in this deeply distressing circumstance must deal not only with their immense grief but with difficult practical issues, such as navigating a foreign legal system—often with language barriers—and unfamiliar police forces and judiciaries.

New clause 12 would address that anomaly by creating an appendix to the victims code that sets out how it applies to close relatives of British nationals resident in England and Wales who are the victims of murder, manslaughter or infanticide committed abroad. The hon. Member for Maidenhead is right that families in those awful circumstances need more support and are being failed by the current system. At the very minimum, they deserve the same recognition and support under the law as those whose tragedies occur within the UK. Currently they are only able to access discretionary support that may be given by local chief constables, Government Departments and national services, such as the National Homicide Service and the victim contact scheme.

That is not good enough. We need statutory rights for families in these circumstances to be treated and supported as victims themselves. Rather than just an appendix to the victims code, we need a framework that is more bespoke, offering tailored help to families who need to navigate a particularly difficult set of circumstances. That could include help with the repatriation of their loved one or keeping them informed about the police investigation or court process that may be happening on the other side of the world, often in a different language.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with the principle behind new clause 12, I cannot support it. I think we need to go further, with both Justice Ministers and Foreign Office Ministers working together on a specific framework to support UK families who have lost loved ones while abroad. I am afraid I also cannot support the new clause because, by my reading, subsection (1) to proposed new section 2A is too narrowly drawn. I am currently supporting the family of a constituent from Strood who has died in suspicious circumstances abroad in India. They have struggled to get the right support from the Foreign Office and came to me in desperation as they did not know where else to go for help. Kent police has been helping them through its missing persons unit, as distressingly the first they knew of anything having happened to their father was when they were sent a video of his cremation, received at 3 am UK time. However, there are obvious limits to what Kent police can do in this situation.

As there is currently not even a murder or manslaughter investigation, since it is unclear what happened, the family would not be covered under subsection (1) to proposed new section 2A, despite needing the same support as families in those situations who the hon. Member for Maidenhead is nobly trying to help. Rather than pushing new clause 12 to a vote, I urge the hon. Member to join me in welcoming the Minister’s opening comments about action in this space and calling for her to commit to working with her Foreign Office equivalent to design a specific framework that will give statutory rights not only to the families of UK residents who are the victim of murder, manslaughter or infanticide but to the families of those who have died in suspicious circumstances. That way, everyone who is facing this difficult set of circumstances can get the support that they need.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I congratulate the Minister on bringing forward this raft of very important changes. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards). I would ask my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) to address the points raised—I am not qualified—but I imagine that the purpose of new clause 12 is to make technical changes so that the measures are even more effective, which, clearly, we would all support. In any case, my understanding is that it would require the Secretary of State to bring forward such changes rather than stipulating what those changes are in detail.

Like others, I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) on a very impressive and powerful speech. I know that the Minister congratulated her in advance on the campaign she has run. Equally, the hon. Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) made a very powerful speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead made strong cases as well.

I repeat the reminder of my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) that the primary purpose—this is certainly what I have always said—of custodial sentences must be public protection. It is on that issue that I wish to concentrate. My remarks are entirely informed by a case I have been pursuing on behalf of my constituent Tina Nash. The Minister is aware of this, because I have corresponded with her on the subject. Tina was horrifically attacked by her former partner in 2012 for a 12-hour period until she managed to escape. In that time she was battered and had her eyes gouged out and her jaw and nose broken. It was an appalling beating that she was lucky to survive—and a survivor she is.

The following year her former partner was jailed for life with a minimum term of six years. However, earlier this year he was moved to a category D prison, with open conditions. My constituent was not consulted about this and was only informed about it after the decision had been taken. Bearing in mind that she is blind, it is understandable that she fears that, if she went out shopping, he could be in her company without her knowledge. She is incredibly scared as a result of the decision. She had no say in it, and nor was she consulted.

I tabled new clause 17 to urge the Government to accept that victims have a right to a veto in reasonable circumstances for their own protection—not in all circumstances and not in every condition, but we should certainly ensure that they are properly consulted. As a result of this experience, I think there are a number of other failings in the system that require the Government to ensure belt-and-braces support for victims throughout the process.

Tina wanted to pursue this matter with the Parole Board, but it did not respond to her until my intervention, and then there was an offer of a meeting. That is not good enough. It should not be down to a Member of Parliament to force a response. She was given the support of the victim contact scheme, which I will come to in a moment.

My constituent was given the opportunity to complain—the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman provided her with a complaint form—but months after she had completed the complaint, she was informed that the ombudsman had assumed she was the prisoner, not the victim. Can that level of incompetence or her treatment throughout the process be believed? She was treated appallingly, while the process wasted her time and stressed her out. Her complaint was rejected as outside the PPO’s remit—that fact was not initially communicated to her—which caused her enormous distress and confusion. Despite circumstances in which she was blinded by her perpetrator, she still somehow has to navigate and overcome all these processes and problems. Of course, the PPO apologised for its error, but with a lack of empathy for my constituent in an officious response that directed her to the Victims’ Commissioner.