Delivering Justice for Victims

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I am fond of my right hon. and learned Friend, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. He made a significant contribution during his time as Lord Chancellor, and it undoubtedly shifted the dial considerably on many areas of policy in relation to the criminal justice system. He was consistently passionate about victims and wanting to see genuine improvement for them. It is fair to say that his hand is most definitely on this work, and I would never want to disregard the very good work that has been done previously. I am grateful to him for everything he has done in this regard, and I look forward to his participation in the consultation. I share in his remarks about Emily Hunt, and it is our intention to have prelegislative scrutiny to allow Members on both sides of the House to scrutinise and help shape the plans.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As the Minister knows, the Home Affairs Committee has also taken a great deal of interest in these matters. I welcome his statement on the intention of Ministers to make these changes to the criminal justice system to benefit victims. I am especially pleased that he mentioned the scorecards that will help spread best practice to areas that are not doing as well as they could and are basically letting down victims. Why does there not seem to be a specific strategy to tackle gender-based violence? That does not seem to be in this package as clearly or as up front as it should be. When will we get something on that?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the constructive tone of his question. The tackling violence against women and girls strategy, which was published in July, is fundamental to the work in this area. Separate from this session, I am sure Ministers would be happy to talk to him so that he can further understand our work in this inevitably important area.