Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 (Consequential Modification) Order 2020

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as I know people who have used the services of St Andrews in Harrogate and my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond is president of that institution. It provides specialist physical and mental health support to police officers. It is uniquely valuable because the treatment may be the same as treatment obtained elsewhere, but the therapists understand the conditions under which police officers sustained their injuries, which is very important.

A lot of speakers have talked about the perils that police officers face at the moment because the Covid legislation has been badly communicated by the Government and ignored by the Prime Minister’s adviser, which has led to tensions for understandable reasons. Police officers never know when they go on duty whether a person or situation might suddenly blow up and get out of hand. It is therefore important that we see this order as something that applies generally throughout policing. I am glad that we are discussing it today because ongoing scrutiny of government is important, even on matters such as this where there is a fair degree of agreement.

This order is made as a consequence of the Victims and Witnesses Act (Scotland) 2014 and was requested by the Scottish Government. The Act was passed seven years ago. Why has it taken so long? What was the hold up and who was responsible? I ask because my Scottish Liberal Democrat colleagues Alison McInnes and Liam McArthur at Holyrood have been asking this question consistently since the Act was passed. Each time they were assured that preparatory work was ongoing, yet this legislation has yet to go before the Scottish Parliament. The Minister said in his introduction that the statutory instrument would be debated by the Scottish Parliament after the Summer Recess. Can he tell us when we can reasonably expect the first restitution orders under this legislation to come about?

How many incidents involving the abuse of police officers and civilian staff, who may, for example, be working in custody suites—this applies to them, too—would have been subject to this order had it been in force at any point over the past seven years? The orders might go some way to acting as a deterrent, but we need to know how many officers would have benefited from additional support had it been imposed. Where exactly will the money raised by the order go? Do we know how much restitution orders are estimated to raise every year? Can we potentially establish how much money police support services have missed out on and how much they can expect to obtain in coming years?

Noble Lords have made the point that it is up to the court and the DWP to exercise judgment in these matters and that they may decide not to levy a fine or to impose a restitution order if to do so would be injurious to the circumstances of the person or their family. Offenders can appeal against the imposition of a restitution order or the amount imposed, or to the DWP if they feel they cannot make the payment. How would they do that? Are they able to do so without having to seek further public funds to exercise that right?

My noble friend Lady Northover said that an impact assessment has not been provided for this instrument, and indeed it has not, so it is therefore difficult to gauge the administrative cost of implementing this order. On what basis—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

May I remind the noble Baroness of the speaking time limit?

[Baroness Barker]

Sorry. I shall draw my remarks to a close.