Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I share the view that victims deserve a Bill to themselves. Extending the Bill to prisoners reflects how our system treats victims, whom I prefer to think of as survivors: necessary for a trial but, in many ways, peripheral. It is largely due to those working in the sector that I clocked this. I thank all the stakeholders and organisations for their briefings; they are so valuable, and not referring to them in a debate such as this does not mean that they have not been read.

I will spend several of my few minutes on Part 4 of the Bill, but that is not because I am not concerned to make the rest of the Bill as good as it can be. I welcome that the Government have brought forward Part 1, and I hope the Minister can see calls to make the victims’ code enforceable and make the duty to collaborate effective, for instance, as supportive.

I found it shocking to discover that a victim has to pay for a transcript of a trial—something that my honourable friend Sarah Olney has been pursuing—and at such cost. Is that open justice? Surely technology should make transcripts much cheaper to produce. Even if you are relaxed, it is not easy to take in everything when you are listening, and I am often quite surprised when I read Hansard after a debate. Stress makes that harder. I understand that the Government are to undertake a one-year pilot on the production of a transcript, but only for limited categories of offences. Will this be for those offences in all courts? On what criteria will the pilot be evaluated? Will victims be consulted throughout the process?

I will be surprised if I am the first to ask what news there may be on getting offenders to hear—one cannot make people listen—the sentences and sentencing remarks. I accept that this is not a straightforward matter at all.

It is also shocking that victims are deterred from counselling because of defendants’ access to counselling records and how they may be used. Confidentiality is essential for counselling to be effective. If an assault left a victim with a broken leg, you would regard immediate treatment as essential.

Another issue of confidentiality—which has been mentioned several times—is the need for a firewall regarding immigration information. On these Benches we did all we could to remove the immigration exemption from what became the Data Protection Act 2018. The practical implications of the issue can be immense when the police automatically and, it seems to me, quite casually pass information to the immigration authorities. That enables the perpetrator to threaten the victim with disclosure—if that is not misusing the term. We should protect victims by protecting their data. I do not imagine the Minister is in a position to comment on last week’s judgment from the Court of Appeal on the application by the organisation the3million and the Open Rights Group, but I hope he will be able to do so when we get to an amendment—and an amendment there will be—on a firewall.

We have plenty to consider when we come to the provisions about major incidents and the role and powers of advocates—which in some cases read to me as assisting the Secretary of State rather than the victims. I do not pretend to have a full understanding of the requirements of those caught up in an incident—which is such a small word—but dealing with the media, which can play an important part, is not always easy. That is an issue for discussion, along with legal representation at any inquest.

For people trapped in the nightmare of IPPs, we cannot restore what they have lost—as we have been reminded, what they have lost is hope—but let us put things right to the extent that we can.

I find it difficult to read Part 4 as being as much about victims as it is about prisoners, but I am willing to learn. I do not think it is being soft, woke or whatever term is current to say that prisoners have rights. The penalty for their offence is the loss of liberty, not the loss of rights. It must have taken some brass neck on the part of the original signatory of the statement that the Bill is compatible with the convention rights when it actually disapplies some of them in terms. The affable and thoughtful noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, was put in a rather difficult position on this, I suspect.

As somebody has already said, there is more messaging and more nibbling away at human rights to appease those who say they are not British. The numbers of people affected may be low, but that does not mean the rights are not significant. The court is to

“give the greatest possible weight to the importance of reducing the risk to the public from persons who have committed offences”.

That seems to me to pitch incarceration against rehabilitation. I wish I thought that the latter was intended.

There is no right for whole-life prisoners to marry or form civil partnerships. What is the evidence that their having the right undermines public confidence? We are told that there is evidence, and one instance has been cited. Should we go on the basis of one example? What about the partners and children of those prisoners? The numbers may be vanishingly small, in the jargon, but for each individual the issue can be far from the vanishing point.

As for parole, how can I put this? The current Lord Chancellor is clearly treading a line between loyalty to his Government, and therefore his predecessor, and his own instincts—but the Bill still too much follows the design of his predecessor. The figures in the Explanatory Notes give the context of about 26,000 cases reviewed by the Parole Board each year, with fewer than one in four prisoners reviewed judged to meet the statutory test for release, and less than 0.5% of those released convicted of a serious offence within three years. The implication that is being read into the need to have people with a law enforcement background sitting on the Parole Board is that the board is too soft.

On the power of the Secretary of State to remove the chair to maintain public confidence, my own confidence comes from confidence in the chair’s independence and confidence in colleagues—if I can call them that—such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and their views on this subject. When the Justice and Home Affairs Committee met the Lord Chancellor in October, he was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, to confirm that the statutory power to remove the chair is under consideration. He said that it is something that he continues

“to have an interest in”.

I hope I have not stolen a line from her speech. Indeed, he said:

“There are all sorts of aspects of this legislation that are under consideration”.


I look forward to hearing more over the course of the debates on the Bill, and very much look forward to hearing the next speaker.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, although it was not meant to be—there was some confusion between “Sally” and “Sal”—but I am glad that it has remained there. I also commend the noble Baroness for that neat handover of the chair.

The noble Baroness introduced the amendment thoroughly, but, reading the briefing from the Victims’ Commissioner, I remembered one experience of a friend. It was nothing as extreme as a homicide, but her husband died unexpectedly on a business visit to the United States. It was hugely emotionally difficult for her, as well as practically difficult: different language is experienced even in the United States, and certainly there are different procedures and cultures. One needs signposting to the right people, who can deal with the procedures as well as support. I remember her talking about the difficulty in bringing him home.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome this discussion and having a sense of clarification about who a “victim” is in a Bill at least half of which is about victims. I especially support Amendments 2 and 8, but I have some questions for those who tabled the other amendments. Although having too narrow a definition can be a problem, it strikes me that we could cause real problems for victims if we had too broad a definition. I am obviously thinking about resources and overstretching support. So many people can be victims of crime if you start broadening it so much.

As hinted at by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, in her interesting Amendment 3, it is a tragedy for the families of perpetrators too. They can also be victims, and whole ranges of people—friends, acquaintances and other people who have genuinely suffered—could say that they are victims, but are we seriously trying to put them all in scope? I want to know how we can ensure that, even if we are acting in generosity to try to broaden the definition, we do not water down a focus on the actual victims of crime that the Bill is designed to help. In other words: where do we draw the line?

In that context, I am slightly concerned about a broadening of what now constitute victims of crime. In Amendment 4, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, explained, it then becomes anti-social behaviour. He gave a moving account of what it feels like to be a victim of anti-social behaviour, but we could probably all stand up and give moving accounts of being victims of something—bullying and all sorts of other behaviour that makes people suffer. I am slightly concerned that we might end up relativising the experience of victims of crime in an attempt at broadening this too much. Whether we like it or not, culturally, we live in a society in which victimhood is valorised. I do not want the Bill to contribute to that relativising experience, because there is a danger that, if we make it too broad, we could trivialise the real victims of crime. But then you could rightly ask me: who do I mean by “real victims”? I do not want it to go so far so that we lose all sense of its meaning.

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[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

I have worked with the Foreign Office on this as well, and every time I have gone there, its first point of call is “We don’t have many resources; there’s not much money; we make the money from passports; it is only a small number of families that come through”. If we keep putting it to the Foreign Office, it will keep batting it the other way. Not only are we talking about families dealing with countries with different languages which are trying to get financial gain and who also have jobs to hold down but we have a Foreign Office that really does not do much for them and they feel lost. I appreciate what the is Minister saying, but I think it is about resource. I am not asking for lots of resources, but I want them to work collaboratively to help those families resolve the issues.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I of course understand the point that the Minister is making—procedures in other countries and what is available in other countries by way of support are different—but should that stop us requiring part of the Government, the organisation in this country which has immediate, close responsibility, to take on a role of proper signposting, which may be to equivalent services? Partly, it is interpreting, but it is obvious that there is a lacuna here.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

If there has been a homicide abroad and those families are living here, there is a real danger that the message will be that the Government think that that homicide does not matter as much as a homicide that happened here. The Government might say that they do not have the resources. I pointed out that it is about 80 homicides per year—the numbers are not huge—but those people who are so severely traumatised, retraumatised and carry on being further damaged by the experience often become enormous consumers of resources because of mental health services, because they are unable to work and so on, and eventually they may need benefits. There are all kinds of things that they may need. It is a false economy to look at it in terms of resources to the FCDO. I hope that the Minister will meet me and others to discuss ways that the victims’ code could be asterisked where there are things that may not be as appropriate if the homicide occurred here, but it would say that the lives of British citizens are of equal value wherever they are in the world and that whether it was a terrorist attack, a homicide here or a homicide overseas, those lives are of equal value.

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[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I open by reiterating my noble friend’s point about acknowledging the way in which the noble and learned Lord wound up the previous group of amendments and about working consensually across the Committee as we progress through the Bill. My second point is simple, but I think it worth making. As noble Lords will know, I sit as a magistrate in London in family, youth and adult jurisdictions, and I rarely see victims. I see victims only in trials—they sometimes turn up to trials to give evidence—and I hear from victims only when I sentence and the victim’s impact statement is read out. Through all the rest of the processes which I routinely go through sitting in a magistrates’ court, I do not hear from victims, and I do not see them. It is a simple point, but I thought it was worth making.

The Minister also had his four As, which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has just referred to—awareness, accessibility, accountability and affordability. We agree with those as far as they go, of course, but of course many of the elements in Committee will concern whether accountability should be enforceability. That will be the crux of a number of our debates in Committee.

This group deals with child victims. Amendment 5 in my name clarifies that the definition of “victim” should include a child who is a victim of abuse and exploitation that constitutes criminal conduct. I will go through the amendments in the group and then comment more widely. Amendment 6, and Amendment 10 in my name, extend the definition of “victim” to a child who is

“a victim of child criminal exploitation”.

Other noble Lords will speak to that as well. Amendments 7 and 11 seek to ensure that the explicit definition of a victim includes those who are subject to modern slavery—another aspect that we will debate within this group. Amendment 9, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt, is specifically about verbal abuse of children.

While the Bill makes important reference to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and to children as victims of domestic abuse, the same organisations that fought for that Act are now asking for the same ambition to be applied to children who have experienced abuse and exploitation. Last week, I and other noble Lords now present in the Chamber went to a survivors’ presentation organised by a coalition of charities led by the NSPCC, where we heard first-hand about survivors’ experiences and how the support organisations and criminal justice system responded to their trauma.

What was particularly telling about those survivor experiences was that, although the abuse itself was, of course, wholly negative, we did hear from one or two survivors who had had a relatively good experience of the criminal justice system—although there were other experiences that were much more negative. That contrast made those testimonies even more powerful. This morning, I, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, visited the Lighthouse project in Camden. This provides a one-stop shop for child victims of sexual abuse. It is a model of how these services should be provided.

It is in that context that this group is being debated. I want to set out the scale of abuse and exploitation of children. Children—that means people under 18—make up about 20% of the population. The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse has found that children are the victims of about 40% of all sexual offences. One in 10 children in England and Wales is sexually abused before the age of 16 and that number means that there are an estimated half a million child victims every year.

Children abused by parents or carers are almost three times more likely to experience other forms of domestic abuse as well, and it was found that 42% of childhood abuse survivors suffered more than one type of abuse. The Bill explicitly recognises children as victims only of domestic abuse and as a result fails to acknowledge the multiple forms of abuse and exploitation that children can experience. They can be subjected to multiple forms of abuse and exploitation during their lifetime. To avoid failing these children, the definition of a victim must cover all forms of abuse and exploitation, in addition to domestic abuse.

The victims’ code of practice recognises that those under 18 are vulnerable and affords them enhanced rights. The children’s coalition, a coalition of charities that are informing what I am saying now—and has no doubt briefed all noble Lords here in Committee as well—has argued that there should be consistency across all legislation, recognising as distinct victims all children, not just those who are affected by domestic abuse. The coalition urges government to ensure that the Bill reflects the code by ensuring that children who experience abuse and exploitation, in addition to those who experience domestic abuse, are in the Bill so that the entirety of the harm they experience is explicit within primary legislation.

If the definition is not amended, the children’s coalition foresees that this will have unintended consequences for the relevant authorities and those in charge of delivering victim support services. Resources will be directed to focus on the needs of children who are victims of domestic abuse above other forms of harm. The coalition is concerned that there is the potential for a hierarchy of abuse that would leave thousands of children affected by other forms of abuse and exploitation without recognition and, ultimately, without support. By not explicitly recognising children as victims in their own right, the Bill could have significant implications for the level and quality of support available.

I am told that evidence already shows that a lack of support for children following abuse and exploitation exists and that ensuring that children and the full scale of the harm they experience are explicitly in scope will act as a cornerstone for responsible agencies commissioning services to make sure that they reflect the needs of children in full. So this is a specific example where legislation will make a difference.

It is impossible to design an effective justice system response to childhood victims without understanding the scale of what we are talking about, which I set out earlier. This cannot be done without recognising all forms of abuse, but this is a specific example where the black letter of the law will have an impact on the services that are delivered to childhood victims of abuse that falls outside the scope of domestic abuse. It is in that spirit that I beg to move Amendment 5.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendments 7 and 11 in this group and I want to be clear that I agree very much with the views that are behind all these amendments.

I hope that my first question—a technical question—will not be regarded as negative. Is a child a person within Clause 1(1)? That will affect amendments and how they are framed. My second question is probably a bit indelicate. It has only occurred to me this evening, while listening to the examples that your Lordships have given. It is a direct question to the Minister. Is the MoJ aware of examples of possible candidates—that is probably not a very happy term—who have been exploited or subjected to criminal or marginally criminal behaviour, which have not made their way to us? It may be possible. I possibly should not put the Minister on the spot now, but maybe we can talk about what the MoJ has considered and discarded. Amendments 7 and 11 have been brought to us by Hestia, which supports victims of modern slavery. It is concerned with ensuring that those who are born to victims of modern slavery are covered.

I know that we have Clause 1(2)(b), which refers to circumstances

“where the person’s birth was the direct result of criminal conduct”,

but it would be very unfortunate if we were to run into the weeds of whether someone is a victim of rape—in other words, what is the relationship between the mother and the offender?—or if there is a doubt as to who is the father because the woman has been subjected to forced prostitution and the object of multiple rapes, because that kind of issue detracts from the support that is needed by the children of victims of modern slavery or human trafficking, whose experience in itself requires support.

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I regret to say that I cannot comment this evening on the question about child spies from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I will revert to her in due course, if I may. I hope that I have set out, at least in outline, the Government’s position.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I did not quite catch what the Minister said when referring to Clause 1(2)(a). Was he saying that a child who is the child of a victim of modern slavery will fall within

“seen, heard, or otherwise directly experienced”?

I am not sure what “directly experienced” extends to. Is his argument that the child of a victim of this particular crime would fall under Clause 1(2)(a)? I am sorry; the Minister talked about it but I did not quite hear.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I think that is the Government’s position. In most cases the child will experience the effect of criminal conduct, that being the effect on the mother. That is a sufficiently direct nexus, as it were, to bring it within the scope of the clause.

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[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I want to say a few words about restorative justice but, before I do, I give my support to the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, on what she has just said. I am happy to help and assist in whatever way I can.

I acknowledge that this does not apply to all victims, but for some victims, restorative justice can be a transformative tool that can empower victims to move forward. Over the years, I have met many victims who have given me their true thoughts on restorative justice. In my last term as Victims’ Commissioner, I published two reports on restorative justice and was satisfied from my findings that the majority of victims that I spoke to who had participated in it had found it to be a positive experience. However, the ONS crime survey for England and Wales in 2019-20 found that just 5.5% of victims were given the opportunity to meet the offender. Between 2010 and 2020, this percentage has not increased above 8.7%, while 26% said that they would have accepted an offer to meet the offender if it had been made.

Funding for RJ is no longer ring-fenced by the MoJ. Police and crime commissioners make the decisions on how much they spend on RJ from their victims budgets. This has led to a wide variation across England and Wales in the provision of services, as we have heard. In 2023, the Why me? charity published a report showing that the lowest reported spending by a PCC on such services was £6,250, while the highest was £397,412. The type of crime where RJ is available varies, as do the conditions of service provision.

Data collection on the provision of RJ is poor, preventing effective monitoring of what is happening on the ground if national criminal justice agencies are unsure as to what they are required to do. For example, the HMPPS guidance issued last year states:

“When a victim … requests information about restorative justice services, the VLO must provide it within ten working days”.


This is not in line with the victims’ code of practice, which includes the right to receive information about RJ and how to access RJ services. It does not depend on whether the victim has requested it. In short, access to restorative justice has become a postcode lottery.

I hope, therefore, that these amendments and the debates that we have heard across the Chamber will prompt the Minister to give this House reassurance that such concerns about the provision of RJ are, and must be, seriously addressed. Lots of money has been spent, and it would be so sad not to carry on when victims would like to have that option.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I also support the importance of providing for restorative justice. I had a look at the current code of practice to see what it has to say. I was a bit surprised that a paragraph referring to RJ, which is obviously deliberately separated from the right to access support services generally, starts:

“If you report a crime to the police, you have the Right to be referred to a service that supports victims, including Restorative Justice services”.


I do not know whether this is a real point or a non-point, since the offender has to be involved by definition and, by definition, the offender would have been reported to the police, but it seems to me to be inconsistent with Clause 1(5) and the whole ethos of the Bill. I was not clear either whether paragraph 4.5 in the code is dependent on being entitled to receive enhanced rights—ER—for victims who are considered vulnerable or intimidated, the victims of most serious crime or persistently targeted.

The debate is, to an extent, that crime has been defined at different levels: it has been for serious crime, but I argue that it is not only the most serious crimes for which RJ is appropriate. I was glad that the noble and right reverend Lord mentioned reducing reoffending because, looking at the whole picture, that is a very serious and important aspect. My name is to his amendment, and the noble Baroness’s amendments appeared without giving me time to do that.

In this group, I have Amendment 17, to provide for a single point of contact—a “victim care hub” was the term used by the London victims’ commissioner, who was particularly keen that we should address this, as you would expect from her own experience.

On the usual issue of timely and effective communication, there are other amendments dealing with another aspect of this, which is that justice agencies are struggling to deliver victim care with awareness and in compliance with the victims’ code, which the London victims’ commissioner said was at seriously low levels.

In the 2019 review into the code, the Victims’ Commissioner for London recommended a victim hub model. We have had reference this evening to the Lighthouse in Camden, and she also refers to the lighthouse model in Avon and Somerset—a single point of contact to help a victim throughout the process. Such a model would secure more effective compliance with the code, which was discussed by many noble Lords at Second Reading.

In June 2022, the office of the Victims’ Commissioner launched a victims’ survey. The noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, is nodding. This dealt with experiences as a victim of crime, ran for eight weeks and gathered 489 responses from self-selecting individuals. All this bears out what we have been referring to: a lot of dissatisfaction, and a lack of confidence in the system. I understand that less than a third of respondents were aware of the victims’ code. In London, a user satisfaction survey for one quarter in 2022-23 showed only 25% of victims being made aware of the code.

What would a hub do? Such a service would provide a single point of contact, key updates on case progression, information and advice; answer questions; refer on to specialist support—signposting by another name, although perhaps referring is more than just signposting—and ensure and monitor that entitlements under the code are being delivered. This would not replace existing support services but would be a navigator; perhaps that is close to signposting. It would also provide information on what to expect and clarity, and simplify the whole thing.

I am conscious of the time, so I will not go through all the case studies in the briefing, other than to make a few quick references. The commissioner refers to good practice in Quebec, where I understand there is a similar model: the support worker—I do not know if that is the right term—is embedded in police stations and courts, which gives them access to computer systems and, hence, to victim records. I found the case studies quite shocking. I should not have, because from what noble Lords have said, we should all be expecting to hear shocking stories, but that is why we have the Bill. To me, to have a victim care hub seems blindingly obvious.

Debate on Amendment 13 adjourned.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the chance to participate—I thought I was going to be cut off at the knees at the end of the last session when the Committee was adjourned promptly. I also apologise to the Committee because I did not participate in the Second Reading debate. I intervene this afternoon to support Amendment 14 tabled by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and supported by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the other amendments concerned with restorative justice or RJ.

I have quite a personal reason for this because when I came into your Lordships’ House some years ago, my best friend rang me to say that his best friend from school had just been made a chief constable and was very interested in this thing called restorative justice, and would I be prepared to go and meet him? I said I would, of course. I knew virtually nothing about RJ at that time. I went to meet the chief constable and he explained to me how he thought we were missing a trick in not using RJ more widely to deal with what he described as our lamentable record in reoffending.

He arranged for me to go and get involved in some cases, hear the facts and even, with the permission of the participants, sit in as a facilitator on one or two cases. I got a great deal of first-hand experience of how RJ might or might not work. All he said when I finished was, “Will you just repay me by raising RJ and speaking about it in the House of Lords in the future?”. So here I am this afternoon, keeping faith with my friend, the chief constable. From my great experience, then, the key issue—this important point was made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries—was that it works only if each participant, on the two sides of the argument or the case, is prepared to get inside the head of the other. That was an important part of what I learned while I was there.

I will not talk at length about what I learned specifically, but it is worth briefly recounting one case. A confirmed drug user with a charge-sheet as long as your arm saw an empty house and thought he would break in, find a piece of electrical equipment, take it, flog it and use the proceeds to feed his habit. Unfortunately for him, the house was not empty. The owner of the house, a designer, had a small studio upstairs on the second floor. He came downstairs to find this man in the hall and asked, “What are you doing?”. The man said, “I’ve come to read the gas meter”. The owner said, “Bad idea, because there’s no gas in this house. We don’t have gas”. A struggle ensued, during which the owner of the house hit the man over the head with a flowerpot. There are pictures of the person with blood streaming down his face when the police arrived and arrested him.

From this unprepossessing, unlikely beginning, a case of RJ was introduced. The men met a few times then, as was inevitably right, the burglar got a custodial sentence. The men corresponded while he was in prison and a degree of agreement and understanding—the ability of both sides to put the past behind them and do better in future, from the point of view of the perpetrator —was arrived at. When I talked to the perpetrator, I asked, “What was it?”. He said, “You can see my charge-sheet. All I saw on it were names but, this time, when I met the owner of the house, he said, ‘Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve terrified my family. My two teenage daughters will no longer sleep in separate bedrooms upstairs; they share a room next door to me and my wife. My wife has every single door and window locked—everything locked. You have completely wrecked our security as a family. What do you think about that?’”. Although he did not put it this way, it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for him.

On the other side, when I talked to the owner of the house, he said, “When we began to talk to the chap, he had had a hopeless start. He had a single mum—not much of a single mum, really—and was in and out of care, with little to no educational achievement. Inevitably, his life was largely devoted to crime”. From these two understandings came an ability to work together; it put them, in particular the perpetrator, to an important and life-affirming task to live better and have a worthwhile lifetime.

That is a great, moving story but I said to the chief constable, “There must be a but”. He said, “Of course there’s a but”. He was anxious then, as I think I would be anxious today, not to put too much weight on restorative justice. He said, “There are two things you can do to make sure that RJ does better”. The first is that you need—these are the words from the briefing, not the chief constable—“voluntary and honest participation” by both sides. That is straightforward.

Not in the briefing is the second point that he made: you need expert, trained facilitators. Being expert and trained means, first, that you move the conversation forward but not so that you avoid tackling the awful, painful issues that lie at the heart of the problem; and, secondly, that you are tough enough to blow the whistle when you believe that somebody is not trying. This is not always easy to do because, sometimes, a bit of effort has been invested and people are reluctant to let the case go, but someone has to realise that there are cases in which people will, in the famous phrase, swing the lead in the hope of a reduced sentence. The facilitator needs to be well trained. As the chief constable would say, “A facilitator cannot take on too many cases because they’re quite emotionally exhausting if you get really stuck into these people’s lives”.

The chief constable, if he were standing here, would say, “I certainly would not want RJ to be presented as a silver bullet”—the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier. “Above all,” he would say, “I don’t want it to be presented as a cheap silver bullet because it isn’t—at least, not in the short run. However, if you can turn a number of cases round, the long-term savings and benefits to society are incalculable.

Our re-offending rates remain too high—the same situation as when I met the chief constable. We surely have an opportunity now to be imaginative in our thinking about how to reduce offending rates. We need new tools in our toolbox, and restorative justice would be an important one. I hope my noble and learned friend the Minister will react sympathetically to Amendment 14. That would give me great pleasure, because it would mean that I have kept faith with my friend the chief constable.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that his faith will be even better kept if he keeps on advocating RJ? Does he also agree that it has its limitations, one of which is that there is a need, in the case he has described, for drug addiction treatment to go alongside it in some way? One must look at the underlying causes, as he has well indicated.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

I could not disagree with that. I suspect that there are a whole host of issues behind habitual offending which we need to think about, of which drug addiction is one. People involved in this policy area are clearly more experienced than I am.

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Given the remarks I have made in reply to the amendments, your Lordships may think it is a strength of the structure of the Bill that is has built into it inherent flexibility and opportunity for criminal justice bodies, wherever they are in the country, to learn from each other and adapt to their own particular circumstances.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I am quite a localist normally, but is this not the very point? A single point of contact that is not prescribing what is available locally but is “signposting”—to use the right reverend Prelate’s word—should be provided, so that any victim, anywhere, will know where to go. They might not necessarily take the step of taking advantage of it, but it seems to me pretty central to the way services are made known that something such as this should go into the Bill.

I should also say that my noble friend Lady Brinton was trying to email me something, but it has not come through, so she may have another point.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I shall not be attempting to answer the email that has not yet come through until it does, but my general answer to the noble Baroness is that the whole thrust of the Bill is that each criminal justice body must take reasonable steps to promote awareness of the victims’ code among users of those services and other members of the public, et cetera. I cannot conceive how you could discharge that duty of raising awareness without informing people how to access or go to whatever services they need, so it is implicit in the operation that that sort of information will have to be provided. The way in which it is provided and the detail of it is not for the Bill but for the code and the guidance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I too speak in favour of this amendment on court transcripts. I too pay tribute to Sarah Olney, the Victims’ Commissioner, brave survivors, and others who have been campaigning on this issue.

I once gave evidence, a long time ago. It was extremely difficult and a challenging experience. To be honest, I struggled afterwards to remember a single word that I had said. Courts are not normal places. The language, formality and methods of cross-examination are completely different from anything we experience in everyday life. Some might even argue that giving evidence in court is more intimidating than giving a speech in your Lordships’ House—except that when I speak here, unlike in court, every word is recorded and available online, free of charge.

In a court, you would naturally expect to be able to tell your story, to be listened to and then to be asked some questions. Instead, you are led towards blunt choices and decisive statements. You are often challenged on your credibility, truthfulness and ability to remember, let alone your morality and intimate details of your personal life. Doing this when you have been a victim of a violent or sexual crime must be horrific and re-traumatising. Often, victims are not present in court. They may be scared of facing attackers, wrongly advised or just unable to face it all again.

When the outcomes of legal proceedings are not what was wanted or expected, victims really want to know why. For justice to be done, it must be seen to be done. If there is no transcript, how do victims begin to comprehend what has happened in court, why it happened and how they might set about responding to the results? No money means no record: the victim is victimised again, this time by the justice system itself. The right of a victim to a transcript—a record of a legal case—seems like a fundamental part of our justice system. How did we get to a common place where the most basic of things is so inaccessible to and unattainable by so many people?

We live in a technological world. My laptop can easily be dictated to. AI tools, as other noble Lords have mentioned, are readily available. My phone can make an audio recording. Yet the evidence and testimony of victims, the evidence of their attackers and the summing-up of the judge are all unattainable. They are secret preserves of the legal system alone. What good does this do and how can it be? It cannot be beyond the wit of man and government to provide this information at either no cost or a reasonable cost.

No doubt there are practical problems that need addressing. I am certain that the Government have entered into some poor contracts for court transcripts. Technology has moved on, faster than expected, and now the exorbitant costs and contractual obligations perhaps leave the Government between a rock and a hard place. However, the idea that transcripts of legal cases are being charged at anywhere between £7,000 and £20,000 is just not acceptable. The Bill must set down a marker that the failure of this part of our legal system must end.

I acknowledge that the Government have argued that there are cost implications and have made some concessions. These are welcome, particularly the open justice consultation, and we recognise that a one-year pilot has been announced to enable victims of rape and other serious sexual offences to request Crown Court sentencing remarks, free of charge. This is welcome, but what happens after the pilot? Who assesses it and is there a commitment beyond that? It is too little and does not go far enough.

This service should be available to victims of all crimes, not just one group. We do not want to see a victims’ hierarchy established. As a minimum, all victims must have access to sentencing remarks. Ideally, full court transcripts should be made available when asked for. In the interim, the Government must do more to cover the excessive cost, especially for bereaved victims. I question whether the current contracts for transcript services provide anyone with any value for money. The Government should look to bring them to an end and, instead, work to find better and more cost-effective ways in which this can be done. I hope the Government are aware of the strength of feeling on all sides of the Committee on this issue and are of an open mind, willing to find better and faster solutions then they have up until now.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, it will be abundantly clear what our view is from these Benches, but I am speaking formally from them to support this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, referred to Sarah Olney as being meticulous—she always is.

The recent public discussion about dissatisfaction with sentences has made me think about this issue. Without wanting in any way to disparage, and I do not, the comments of relatives and the victims of crimes themselves who make public statements on the steps of the court, one wonders how much they have been able to take in. That is no criticism of them, but they are responding to a very emotional experience and will have been emotional while hearing, or possibly not very thoroughly hearing, what has been said. I had a very minor example of that experience myself last week. I went to a medical appointment and a friend came with me. When we discussed afterwards in the car what the consultant had said, our recollections were completely different.

I want to ask the Minister some questions about the pilot which has been announced. I wonder whether he can give some details. Is it in all courts for the category of crimes that has been announced? What monitoring will there be of how the pilot is going and how will it be evaluated? Like other speakers, though, I would like to go straight to a new procedure.

I am not sure whether the technology actually comes within the category of artificial intelligence; it may be a much earlier generation than that. There are other noble Lords in the Chamber who probably could have answered this question, had I thought to ask them before we started the debate, but are the judge’s remarks not normally written down before the judge makes them? That might differ among members of the judiciary —I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Meston.

[Lord Meston (CB)]

Only sometimes.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I suppose it is like our written notes: sometimes we have them, sometimes we do not and sometimes we do not follow them.

We have heard that Minister Freer is looking at how audio recordings can be used. I wonder whether there is any more news on this than has been in the semi-public domain so far. The suggestion of listening to a recording or reading a transcript while supervised reminds me of the arrangements made for a very few senior politicians to read the assessments of the Chilcot inquiry. To me, like to others, that is not a sensible arrangement.

In any event, as I understand it, in magistrates’ courts recordings are not made. For a victim to have to sit in court and listen it is very likely that she or he will be close to the family and friends of the defendant. As my noble friend Lady Brinton said, it is a matter of open justice. This debate confirms that the adversarial system treats the victim as little more than a witness.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I appreciate that this places the Minister in a somewhat interesting situation; yet again, he finds that the Committee is united on this issue, as I think we are.

As when I last spoke a few minutes ago, when I first read this amendment, I thought, “Oh, for goodness’ sake”. What is the problem with people having access to the transcripts of the case that affects them as victims? As this debate has proceeded, and I have learned more about the barriers and what happens to people—supervised listening and people discouraged from going into court to listen to proceedings—I feel even more that this is an important matter which would enormously strengthen our victims’ code and the way victims are treated.

Let us think about how every single word that is said in public in this place is available to watch, and re-watch if you really want to, and to read—the committee transcripts may take a little while to be published, but they are there—and how important that is for our proceedings and for us to be able to do our job so much better. It is not a difficult thing to do given technology today; it is not difficult for those things to happen in this place. Think how much more important that would be for somebody who was the victim of crime.

In many ways, access to information about the proceedings that affect them is symbolic of victims’ rights. I accept that child victims would need to be considered because, apart from anything else, we would not want a child to be able to be identified through transcripts of their proceedings, but it is not beyond our wit to sort that out. A pilot is good, but there is a matter of principle here that the Government will need to address.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, who talked about their personal experiences, which was extremely valuable. I will not rehearse what has been said and repeated by others. I think the Minister needs to understand that the opinion of those who have contributed is somewhat different; certainly, the issue is worth discussing. I hope he will be prepared to have a meeting with those of us who are here. For example, we have just had a debate about the importance of being able to find rooms, but many speakers said that it was still too early for a traumatised victim to be able to take in the proceedings.

To give noble Lords my own experience, when I went into the court to hear my stalker being sentence, I was not just near his family; I was next to him—that far away. The result was that I did not hear a word of the sentencing, so thank goodness journalists covered it. I missed the absolute key bit, because all I was thinking about was how close he was to me. Extra rooms would be enormously helpful, and I believe the court system needs to find a way to make sure juries understand that victims should not be penalised if they wish to listen. I do not have an answer to that but, if the Minister agrees to a meeting, perhaps we will have that as one of the topics for discussion.

My final brief point is that in your Lordships’ House we already use Zoom and Teams. I chair a disability committee for the Local Government Association— I am a vice-president of the LGA—and we have deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the group. I use close captioning for every single one of those meetings, and it can be saved. This is not a future technology; it is available. If the Government and the court system do not recognise where these are, we will lose the benefit of what is happening now by not harnessing the technology available to help victims who really need it. I hope the Minister will agree to a meeting.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, before my noble friend withdraws the amendment, as I suspect she is about to, I ask the Minister whether the Government could make some representations to the Sentencing Council, if that is the appropriate way to do it, after hearing what noble Lords have said about their experiences. This is a matter for sentences as well.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, very briefly, I can only entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. If something like this does not happen, what we are all asking ourselves is: will anything really change? The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, contrasted the last part of the Bill, which has more substantive legislative power that will go on to its face, with the part of the Bill we are talking about at the moment, which is largely advisory and selective. It tells people what they should do. However, it does not tell people what they must do.

Most importantly, it does not even give the Victims’ Commissioner, himself or herself, the authority to insist. Unfortunately, the noble Baroness’s predecessor did not have her tenure extended because, I gather, she was felt by certain members of the current Government to be somewhat unhelpful in her attitude and demeanour; thus her tenure was not renewed. Until the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, was put in on an interim basis, the role of Victims’ Commissioner was vacant for a significant period. That is not good or acceptable. It speaks volumes to some people about the level of real intent of His Majesty’s Government to put their legislative money where their mouth is.

I do not think I need to say any more than that. The onus is on the Government to demonstrate that this law will have real teeth and that the code, wherever it is, needs to be complied with and understood. The track record of the past few years has resulted in these amendments being put forward. There is a loss of faith in His Majesty’s Government’s true intent to put muscle and weight behind the provisions in the code, so the onus is on them to explain, on Report if the House so chooses, why we should not insist on amendments such as these.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, to answer the noble Lord’s rhetorical question, or perhaps pre-empting it, the Justice Committee in the House of Commons said that this was

“not … strong enough to drive the necessary cultural change”.

At the heart of the Second Reading debate was the importance of compliance with the code. If the code is not statutory, compliance is that much harder to achieve. We heard from the Minister at Second Reading, and in his letter following it—for which I was grateful—about guidance proposed by the Government for where non-compliance is severe and persistent, and how the ministerial taskforce may issue a public non-compliance notification. That is much too convoluted. One can see that it would take very serious non-compliance—something very dramatic—for such a non-compliance notification to be issued. I am sure it would be regarded as a very extreme step. We should not have to get to that point. It should be the norm and understood by the affected stakeholders—I hate that word—that they must comply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

If I may say so, sometimes one is in the middle of the flow of one’s argument and people jump up and down when one has not quite finished explaining the overall framework. The essential problem here is not the code itself, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, kindly said—it is not a bad document, I venture to suggest—but a lack of awareness, police not doing their job and nobody knowing quite what should be done if that were to happen. The idea behind the basic framework of this legislation is to force the relevant bodies to take steps to comply with the code. That is why Clause 6 says:

“Each criminal justice body which provides services … must … take … steps”


and “must … keep under review”. Clause 7 provides that they must provide various activities, et cetera, and must collect information, that a local policing body must do this, that and the other and that the various constabularies referred to later must do these things. The idea is that we have a code and a framework, and we must make sure that the bodies responsible for enabling victims’ rights do so.

In the Government’s view, you do not materially increase the likelihood of them doing so by putting the code into a schedule, any more than you increase that likelihood—to deal with another point—by converting a “should” into a “must”. That is another bit of fine tuning. The principles of the code are set out in Clause 2; for example, that you “should provide information”. You could say that you “must provide information”, but that does not really change the enforceability unless you have a whole statutory framework for what the information should be, who should provide it and how it is to be done. That is all in the code at the moment, where it should be.

I do not want to refer again to angels dancing on pins, but I think we are slightly at cross-purposes as to what we mean by things “in law”, “legal enforceability”, or “statutory codes”. That is the Government’s basic position on this.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I do not want to stop the Minister when he is in full flow. I understand how difficult it must be when people leap up because he has a comma in the middle of a sentence.

It seems to me the Minister has already conceded the next group of amendments, which are about compliance and data monitoring. Can he remind us why in Clause 2 it is “should”, not “must”, since he has just cited and relied on other clauses which use “must”? I do not know whether I have elevated myself to the status of an angel with that.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I think the short answer is that the purposes of those later clauses is to impose a statutory duty on the relevant bodies. The purpose of Clause 2(3) is to set out the principles. In terms of these, the Government’s view is that “should” is a more appropriate word than “must”, because the principles are very broadly expressed. Noble Lords might argue that “should” and “must” are almost interchangeable. I think we are again drawing really fine distinctions.

Perhaps I could just deal with two or three other points that arise on this part of the Bill. One is the question of the affirmative procedure as against the negative procedure. If I may say so, at the moment the code is subject to the negative procedure. Noble Lords can pray a resolution against it—of course there is going to be a debate in Parliament. I would respectfully suggest that it is more flexible than our somewhat—on some occasions at least—torrid debates in the Moses Room on affirmative resolutions. Noble Lords cannot change anything, it is very formalistic, and I respectfully suggest that making it an affirmative resolution is not a material improvement.

To keep the whole structure flexible and adaptable—I have used various words beginning with “a”, and I think I could add “adaptable” to this cohort—the Government suggest that it is not a useful move to put the code without the accompanying description in the statute itself; that in itself has no material effect on the Government’s view.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will amplify what the noble Baroness just said by actually quoting from the Government’s own description of the Bill and what is in it. A paragraph headed

“What happens if victims do not receive their entitlements?”


says:

“We think that all the measures set out will strengthen the service victims receive. As the Code is a statutory code of practice, all relevant bodies should already comply with it”.


We know they are not, so the status quo we are starting from is, to a very large degree, that the bodies which are meant to be complying with the statutory code of practice are not doing so. The paragraph continues:

“However, if things go wrong, victims can make a complaint”.


It is up to victims themselves, who may or may not be aware of what their rights are under the statutory code, to identify that they are not receiving their rights, and then it is up to them to make a complaint. What is the Victims’ Commissioner for if not to act as the obvious channel and filter for all such complaints so they can go directly through her or him to His Majesty’s Government?

What the Government have described here is a complete, accurate illustration of the problem we have. It is not working at the moment. What the Government have said will improve it, on the basis of the evidence we have, but, frankly, the arguments we have heard so far do not really give us any room for optimism, so I suspect I speak for everybody in the Committee when I say that, rather like my school reports, I think the Government “should do better”.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I have my name to Amendment 49 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, on the duty to co-operate—which seems to me not something that should have to be said, but clearly does. It is another aspect of compliance. As ever, it is important to have the data on which to make recommendations and directions, give advice, or whatever. That is what Amendment 49 is about. It is about providing the tools for the independent Victims’ Commissioner to be effective. The amendment is based on the importance of monitoring compliance with the code, and one would think that the commissioner will be expected to be on top of the data. That needs co-operation. I think that is probably enough said. I am very much on the same page and the same paragraph as other speakers.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

From these Benches, I will be extremely brief, because I agree with everything that has been said. I signed Amendments 27 and 29 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and I absolutely support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which my noble friend Lady Hamwee has also signed. We cannot have commissioners who are commissioners in name only. They need clear roles, responsibilities and powers, and clear limits to those powers. The problem at the moment is that they do not, so we support the amendments.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 5th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will make two extremely brief points. First, I will address Amendments 80 and 107, affecting individuals facing domestic abuse who have an immigration status of “no recourse to public funds”. I strongly express the Green Party’s support for these amendments. We are essentially forming again a collation—across the Committee in total, and with full political breadth—as was put together during the Domestic Abuse Act. The Government need to get the message that this coalition is not going away and will keep hammering away on this point.

Secondly, on Amendment 75, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I am aware that it refers to the education of the CPS. I think we have to look at the very recent context. In a discussion on violence against women and girls with the Culcheth & Glazebury Parish Council, the Cheshire police and crime commissioner, John Dwyer, was quoted as saying:

“I notice school girls in my area are all wearing very short skirts and this did not happen in the 1960s”.


There is an evident need across the criminal justice system for a great deal of education. It is possible we might think some people are beyond education, but we need it to be happening anyway. We need it to deliver confidence to the victims of crime, so that they feel they can come forward and be treated properly.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I was there in the 1960s but that is not quite the object of this debate.

I was struck during the previous group of amendments, and it has continued in this one, by the question of training. What everyone involved in these issues needs is professional curiosity and an ability not to compartmentalise people’s reactions. Older people’s vulnerabilities—I have come across Hourglass, and I admire it—can also be found in younger people, so training needs to be thorough, with no cliff edges in how it is delivered. We are all different people and we all exhibit a variety of traits, which at different ages and in different circumstances may rise higher up the list than at other times. I was glad to hear my noble friend say that she could see a single wide amendment coming, because I think it is needed.

The Istanbul convention has been debated in this House before, as has the reputational damage of the country in this context. However, I put it in again today.

There is an important debate to be had on data collection and the argument about consistency. However, it is a very wide debate and not something that can sensibly be addressed in a Bill which is about a discrete area of work.

My name is to Amendment 107, which may not give it a very good prognosis, since I opposed paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the then Data Protection Bill all the way through its passage through the House and led a vote against it. The paragraph says—this is not verbatim—that the exemption for personal data does not apply, fit to prejudice, to immigration enforcement. I never succeeded in my opposition, but I hope that might change.

On the detail of the amendment, there is one thing I need to say in making the case for it. It is not only a matter of information about someone’s immigration status being given where, in the views of all speakers, it should not go, and immigration officers turning up on the doorstep; it is the deterrent effect of an abuser telling a victim, “You’re not entitled to be here. I’ve got your papers, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you complain, you’ll be thrown out”. Abusers have been known to lie and, from what one hears from the organisations working in the sector, that happens a great deal in this situation.

I suppose that “domestic abuse” is the correct term, but this situation does not apply only to people who are in a personal relationship; domestic workers are very vulnerable to this abuse. The deterrent effect on them complaining about the appalling treatment that some of them suffer is very notable. On behalf of these Benches, I hope we manage to make some progress on this issue during the course of the Bill.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate; it has been interesting, if slightly wider than we expected. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for introducing it. I put my name to Amendment 75. This is the first time that we have talked about women and girls at all; the noble Baroness was right to initiate that. I also tabled Amendment 80, which we on these Benches feel strongly needs to be addressed in the course of the Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to Amendment 107, which the Government will also have to address, because it is clearly about a very serious issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is completely right about the importance of the UK’s reservation on Article 59 of the Istanbul convention, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is right about the reputational damage it does to our country. I hope the Minister will be able to respond to that.

I thank Southall Black Sisters for the excellent brief it produced about seeking to ensure that victims of domestic abuse who do not have the recourse to public funds are still entitled to be provided with services in accordance with the victims’ code. It was thorough and I hope that a Minister will respond, even if it is not this Minister. It is very nice to be opposite the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for the first time in quite some years; we faced each other for about seven or eight years on health matters. Of course, we have two Fredericks on our Front Benches, which is probably worth noting.

Southall Black Sisters has done extensive research on the effect of having no recourse to public funds. It has made a very serious record of the hardship and cruelty that this can lead to. I very much hope that the Minister will look at that evidence and that we will be able to take this forward. I will not say anything further, because we have had a very thorough discussion about the amendments.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Could Ministers give serious consideration to updating the law in this regard? This Government have a strong track record on taking action against harassment, stalking and other harms against women and girls. I would like to understand why the Government do not see the need to update the law to take account of this very real situation. The retention of data in such circumstances is illiberal, oppressive and contrary to the mores of a democratic society. Therefore, I would like my noble friend the Minister not just to respond but to acknowledge that this is a serious issue that needs redress. I very much hope that, after this stage of the Bill, my noble friend the Minister will meet me, my noble friend Lady Morgan and Stella Creasy to discuss it further.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 115 and would certainly have put my name to it had there been any space. I was shocked when I discovered this initially, and remain shocked, that victims are advised to postpone counselling and therapy, which goes against everything that I understand about the importance of counselling and therapy. It is another instance of victims being regarded as a sort of unwarranted hindrance to a prosecution. They are bystanders —somehow they are being too awkward, almost by their existence.

I very much support the amendment. However, I wonder whether the arguments do not extend to some extreme offences other than sexual offences—violence, modern slavery and so on. Since we will not be voting at this stage and, on an amendment like this it would be unusual for the Minister to say, “I agree”, and then sit down, if this amendment comes back at a later stage, perhaps thought could be given to extending it. It could be about not just victims of offences—I am not making the distinction between sexual and other offences—but about victims of acts which, if proved, would be offences. That may be a bit technical at this point.

I also support Amendment 106. There is something very perverse about the data subject being so hampered in the deletion of her or his own data, as if our personality and humanity were somehow lesser than our data presence.

My name is to the first two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, which are about independent legal advocates and legal advice. We had a long debate on Monday about the skills that are needed by advocates, and Amendment 78 seems to bring those skills together. An advocate needs a range of skills, which should include legal qualification. I do not know whether it needs to be that of a solicitor— I am a solicitor; a legal executive with experience in this could do it equally well—but it is about the combination of the legal skills and other skills that are needed to work in support of victims. I do not suggest that solicitors would not have those.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendments 103 and 103A, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has already talked about. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and Lord Russell of Liverpool.

These amendments would simply add the Children’s Commissioner as a statutory consultee for the codes of practice alongside the Information Commissioner, the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses and the domestic abuse commissioner. The Minister might well say that this is covered by the phrase

“such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Bellamy, pointed out proudly earlier in our debates that children are mentioned in the Bill three times; this is an opportunity to add them two more times, making five in all. By simply adding the Children’s Commissioner to the list of names in the Bill, the Government can, with no effort or watering down, show the importance of children as victims. I look forward to the Minister’s answer.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I cannot quite see the wording that the noble Baroness refers to, but I am not sure I think it a good idea for a judge, having promulgated a sentence, then to say, “If anyone doesn’t think I’ve given them enough, perhaps you’d like to complain”. The judge must make his or her own mind up, based on the information in front of them, and do justice in that particular case. If the prosecutor, a witness, the victim or a member of the public wishes to say that that is unduly lenient, they can write to the law officers and see what their consideration of the matter is.

I agree with publicity and with educating everybody about what the system is about. However, I do not agree with encouraging everybody to run to their Member of Parliament, the newspapers or the law officers because they wish the sentence had been different. That way leads to disappointment, quite apart from a bureaucratic mess in the law officers’ department—which is a very small department.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I raise an issue with regard to the time limit. It is not from the wording of the amendment, which I support, but the wording in the victims’ code. At the moment it says that, first:

“The Attorney General must consider the matter as soon as possible”.


What does that mean? Secondly, it says that they must do so

“no later than the 28th calendar day after the sentence was imposed … in business hours and”—

I emphasise this—

“with sufficient time for consideration”.

How can the victim know how long the Attorney-General needs before the 28 days runs out? It is a hard cut-off, but with something rather woolly leading up to it. The victims’ code could do with a little revision to make it quite clear, in addition to the points that my noble friend has made and the very tough example that she gave, just how this would operate. I would not know, to meet that condition, how long before the end of the 28 days I should get a note through the Attorney-General’s door.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principle put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, that there should be proper information provided to victims. This should be proper in the widest sense, so that they fully understand; we do not want disappointment and secondary victimisation. The whole question of time limits and extending them is not a suitable matter for debate at this hour of the night. What is important is the principle.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

However, victims and families of the Hillsborough tragedy, the Grenfell Tower fire and the Shoreham air disaster, for example, would not come under the enhanced service and would find it distressingly difficult to navigate in the days, months and years after the incident. Will the Minister say why the decision was taken to exclude those victims of major incidents that were not very serious criminal incidents, not obviously criminal incidents or definitely not criminal incidents under the rights of the victims’ code? I support both amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, there is obvious scope for confusion on the part of—I try not to use the word “victim”, because I do not want to cause confusion—people who are caught up in incidents which may or may not be criminal. We could be in danger of causing resentment among people who are caught up in non-criminal incidents because what is available to them is insufficient. That is thrown into clarity when looked at against the victims’ code. The legislation needs something like the amendment and clarity on the part of everyone who is operating as to what applies. Points were made throughout many of the previous debate about the need for signposting, and I see that very much in the context which the noble Baronesses have referred to.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I support both amendments. I shall refer to a different group; the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned several incidents that would cause the amendments to kick in. However, there is another category, and that is victims of state wrongdoing. For example, the “spy cops” scandal shows what goes wrong when a police unit goes rogue and the state compounds the abuse of power by doing all it can to minimise and cover up. Those cover-ups leave victims powerless and alone and are the reason we need this victims’ code to apply to them as well.

There are famous cases such as Hillsborough and the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. There is also a long history of Met police officers—those of us who were on the London Assembly or the London police authorities saw this many times—being accused of crimes and allowed quietly to retire early.

There is the emerging scandal of sexual and domestic abuse being systematically ignored within the police service when the accusations are directed at police officers by women who are their partners or even fellow officers. We heard this week of examples in Devon, with officers accused but still promoted to units specialising in domestic violence. These are not one-offs or rotten apples; this is a systemic failure to protect women and ensure that they get justice. The victims’ code would help to redress that.

Many such victims have to crowdfund if they are to have any hope of engaging with the legal process to find justice. I have worked with many victims seeking justice through inquests and public inquiries, and it is a very disorienting process for them. I very much hope that these two amendments will encompass that group: those who are victims of state wrongdoing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

I am of course happy to commit to meeting to discuss this matter, but we are not leaving the victims defenceless in this situation: they will have an independent public advocate, who will help to guide them through all these processes. But I completely agree that we should meet and consult further on this matter.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, during the debate on the victims’ code, we discussed the problem that victims are often advised not to undergo any counselling or therapy because that might damage how their evidence is characterised by the defendant’s counsel. I have no idea whether this issue has arisen in connection with major, possibly non-criminal incidents, but I can see that this could become something that makes its way into people’s thinking: “Don’t go for therapy because you might have to give evidence to a public inquiry, and how would that be perceived?” I just throw that in as another consideration. There may be similar points, not about what victims should do but about things they should not.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for throwing that in. The Minister will know that this is a discursive process and this is a probing amendment. Although we will press him on all the different things, I am grateful for the commitment to talk and to continue the dialogue about how we deal with this particular group in the code. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments that call for proper support for this new role. It should not need to be spelled out that the IPA will need a budget. I happen to think that he or she should have a budget and discretion as to how best to spend it. I am a little alarmed by Clause 31, which provides that the Secretary of State “may pay” reasonable costs and, quite separately, “may make provision” for secretarial or other support. Should the latter be distinguished from reasonable costs incurred in connection with the exercise of their functions? I think not.

I am particularly prompted to mention this because I learned the other day that the newly appointed—after a period of 22 months—independent anti-slavery commissioner is having her budget reduced on a yearly basis throughout the term of her appointment, by 5% a year over the three years. I know that the two jobs are different positions, but that indicates strongly—and it is very much accepted by people in the sector, including the new commissioner—that the Government are downgrading that role. Do the Government agree on the importance of creating champions, if I may call them that, just to give them a collective noun? They have to make the job possible.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, has explained, of the amendments in this group, Amendments 123A to 123D, 124B, 126A and 126B would perform a number of functions. They would inject urgency into the appointment of the standing advocate; they would give a Select Committee of the House of Commons a prominent role in the selection and appointment of the standing advocate; they would clarify the standing advocate’s role if other advocates were appointed as well; and they would provide that the appointment of additional advocates was to cover for unavailability or to provide additional assistance to the standing advocate. All those amendments would strengthen the statutory requirements and give the standing advocate role more significance and the standing advocate more personal responsibility for the performance of that role.

On Amendment 124A, I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, on the need for urgency in establishing inquiries, and agree with all the observations he—and, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson—made about the delays inherent in the present system. The difficulty I see with the amendment as drafted—I would appreciate some clarity on this from the Minister—is the following:

“The standing advocate may request from the Secretary of State all the relevant powers to establish a fact-finding inquiry, including those to see and report on all relevant documentation.”


That would give the standing advocate the power to establish a fact-finding inquiry. My concern is that I am not convinced that establishing a fact-finding inquiry is the role of the standing advocate as envisaged by the Bill. I invite the Minister to explain how he sees the role of the advocate in inquiries and to consider, certainly between now and Report, how the role of arbiter or inquiry establisher is compatible with the role of representing and supporting victims. Is there another route—the noble Lord, Lord Wills, might also be keen to be involved in this discussion—to establishing an independent, quicker, more effective way of producing inquiries that does not involve the standing advocate, but that also does not involve the length and delay of a full-blown public inquiry in every case?

I also invite clarity from the Minister on how he sees the standing advocate’s role of providing support at inquiries. That is plainly envisaged by Clause 33, but Clause 33(5) permits advocates to support victims’ representatives; it does not deal with acting as victims’ representatives. Clause 33(7) would prevent a person representing victims if the person concerned was under 18—that is perhaps uncontroversial—or if, in so doing, they would be carrying out a legal activity. A legal activity is as defined in Section 12(3) of the Legal Services Act 2007.

It is unclear that representing a victim at an inquiry is a legal activity. Paraphrasing, or at least truncating, the meaning of Section 12(3) of the Legal Services Act 2007, a legal activity is exercising the right of audience, which is not a phrase normally used in representation at an inquiry; the conduct of litigation, which plainly an inquiry is not; offering advice, assistance or representation in connection with the application of the law; or legal dispute resolution. I do not regard any of those activities as equivalent to representing a victim or more than one victim at a public inquiry. I would be interested to know, therefore, how the Government see that role.

I turn now to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, about the right to see all relevant documents. It seems to me that, whatever the role of the standing advocate, the right to see all relevant documents is central, as is the right to insist on calling for particular witnesses to be cross-examined.

It follows that, with the amendments as phrased, there is a right to make a request to the Secretary of State and the right to a reasoned and timely response to that request, when it concerns seeing documents and calling witnesses. This is a modest, probably overmodest, approach. It seems to me that the standing advocate ought to have an absolutely clear right to call witnesses or to have them called by the inquiry if it is independent, as I suggest it probably should be, so that they can be cross-examined by or on behalf of all parties.

Amendment 133ZA would require a review of the operation of the standing advocate scheme and the appointment of additional advocates six months after passing the Act. I quite agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, that such a review is important because this is a complex and new mechanism. I suggest that six months after passing the Act may be too soon, because it is unclear how many major incidents would be declared in the first six months, and it is certainly unclear how long it would take to see how the system was working in practice. I think we would be looking at a period of at least two years or thereabouts before we have an effective review. However, I agree that a review of what is, in essence, a new system should be incorporated into the statutory scheme.

Finally, Amendment 128A, to which I have added my name, is the amendment on which my noble friend Lady Hamwee spoke. It seeks proper secretarial support and other resourcing for the standing advocate. The first point is that appropriate support is essential to enable the advocate’s role to be performed effectively. An advocate without a proper budget quite simply cannot do the job, but there is a further, very important point about independence. It is crucial that this advocate scheme acts independently. Without statutorily guaranteed resourcing, an appointed advocate would be dependent on the Secretary of State for the resources needed to carry out the job which they are charged to perform. That is entirely unsuitable.

There are amendments about the termination of advocates’ appointments, and the spirit of independence being threatened by the present drafting of the Bill, which we will come to in a later group, whereby the Secretary of State can remove an advocate for reasons that seem appropriate to him or her. We are all for the independence of advocates, but their role needs clarification and a review would be helpful.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 26th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the amendments moved and spoken to in this group by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. I spoke on this matter at Second Reading and agreed with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said in his speech then.

The Committee may know that, along with others, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, I have put my name to later amendments that question the changes proposed by the Government to the Parole Board. In my view, those changes attack pretty fundamentally the independence of that board and allow the Secretary of State to interfere in these matters to an extent that affects the separation of powers. As a rule, I argue that it is never a good idea, however tempting for Governments, for the Executive to interfere with matters that should be the role of the judiciary. Taken as a whole, these changes are unnecessary and overcomplex, and will prove to be extremely costly.

Today, we are discussing the amendments so well put by the noble and learned Lord, who speaks with such huge authority; I am pleased to support them. They argue that the Upper Tribunal is entirely the wrong body to hear these cases. The Government would be well advised, with respect, to listen to him, and to remind themselves of the powerful speech made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, at Second Reading. It is not often that this House is privileged to have the support of the last two Lord Chief Justices on a matter that they are profoundly expert in. I ask the Minister, who is always very reasonable, to think very carefully about how powerful the case that has been made this afternoon is.

Of course, I strongly agree with the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, on the necessity of a report from the Secretary of State on the implementation of these proposals, which I consider to be pretty disturbing on the whole. I ask the Minister, when he replies, to consider carefully where these amendments are coming from.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak with the leave of the Committee and with many apologies; I was delayed in a committee. Amendment 143A is a probing amendment to seek to understand whether the Secretary of State will issue guidance on these matters, and if so, what that guidance will include. The Prison Reform Trust is particularly concerned about this, being aware that an overturned release decision would be likely to undermine public confidence in the parole system and so on. I am sure that the Minister will want all the actors in the sector to understand how these arrangements are intended to work and how they can be scrutinised.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we also support this group of amendments. I want to reiterate the points made by my noble friend Lord Bach. You could not have had two more eminent Members of this Committee to table these amendments. The noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Thomas, are familiar with these types of decisions. I do not think I can add to the weight of the arguments put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett.

The only point I will make is about process. If the Minister says that he wants to think about this—I do not know what he is going to say—then it would be very helpful to know his thoughts before Report. From what I have heard of the argument, it seems that the Government have an uphill battle trying to defend the current position. If the Government are minded to think about this again, we really need to know what that is before Report.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, the amendments proposed by the noble and learned Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, would mean that parole referrals under the new power in the Bill would be sent to the Divisional Court of the King’s Bench Division, which is part of the High Court, instead of the Upper Tribunal, which is currently used for most cases—although not for national security cases.

Noble Lords know that the Bill introduces a new power to allow the Secretary of State to refer a top-tier case—that is a case where the index offence was murder, rape, causing or allowing the death of a child, or serious terrorism—for a second check by an independent court if the Parole Board has directed release. The question is which court that should be. Noble Lords may recall that at one stage it was suggested—I think by a Select Committee—that it should be the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. The Government consulted the Judicial Office in June 2023. The result of that consultation was that a preference was expressed for the Upper Tribunal to hear those cases. The Upper Tribunal has wide-ranging powers under Section 25 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, facilitated by the Upper Tribunal rules, which essentially gives it the same powers as the High Court. It has experience of hearing oral evidence. The Government’s view, in the light of the consultation with the Judicial Office, was that the Upper Tribunal was the appropriate court.

None the less, the Government feel that it is obviously desirable to sort this issue out in a sensible way and I am very happy to consider it further. I am even happier to say that the Government’s reflections will be shared before Report, so that everybody can consider their position. There should not be any particular controversy on this kind of point; it is a rather specialised point, if I may put it like that.

I turn to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and spoken to on her behalf by noble Lord, Lord Marks. The Government entirely agree with her that the processes ahead of us and how we are going to manage it should be very fully understood by all actors. I will briefly explain how the Government see things at the moment. First, the procedural elements of the new process may require amendments to the Parole Board rules and the tribunal rules—or the rules of whatever court we determine. That must be scrutinised by Parliament and go through a period of consultation. There will have to be a period of training of judges. We know that the referral process will need to be transparent and speedy. Work is currently in train as to how far this will be operationalised from the point of view, first, of maintaining public confidence and, secondly, on what basis the Secretary of State refers things to the relevant court—to use a neutral phrase for the time being.

Currently, the Government are working through exactly how the relevant tests would be applied. The Government propose to publish their policy on how the legislation will be applied, outlining how cases will be selected for referral and ensuring that prisoners, and importantly victims, are fully informed of who will be in scope. I envisage a transparent and open process by which the details of the new regime are sorted out.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

Could I follow that up before the Minister goes on to the next point? Does he anticipate that there will be consultation with the sector—it is a very big sector of course—on the various points that he has quite rightly referred to? That would go down rather better and be much more useful than producing a policy in its final form and saying, “Here we are”. A draft policy or ideas for consultation would be welcomed.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I hear what the noble Baroness says, and it sounds entirely reasonable. I cannot, at the Dispatch Box, go any further than I have already gone, but the point is well made.

On that basis, I hope the Committee will be satisfied that the Government intend to be fully transparent and work co-operatively with the development of this new process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not having contributed to debates on the Bill as it has gone through its various stages. I spoke to my Front-Bench colleagues and the others who have added their names to this amendment, and I want to bring my experience as the independent chair of the Nottingham Community Safety Partnership, as laid out in the register of members’ interests, by speaking briefly to this amendment.

I welcome the Government’s intention to move from MAPPA to MAPPS and all the various comments I have read that have been made throughout the passage of the Bill about the importance of change. However, the reality is that, whether it is called MAPPA, MAPPS or something else, without the sort of change that my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and others have mentioned, nothing will change.

I am sick of having domestic homicide reviews. They say exactly the same thing, time after time. It is not a lack of desire or care on the part of the people involved; the system simply does not work. We have a situation where people do not share data because they do not think that they are allowed to—even though everyone says, “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Of course they’re allowed to”. The Minister of the Crown has to get hold of this; he needs to tell people to share the data in order to save lives—because they do not do so.

I am sorry to keep going on about this, but I am sick of reading about the same problem occurring, time after time: information is not being shared and people say that they did not know about this or that it was supposed to have happened. Again, it is not the dedication of the people that is in question—they all care and want to do good—but we need to know what is happening that does not allow it to take place.

The Minister has to get a grip of this. It does not matter whether it is called MAPPS or something else; without a change, nothing will improve. I know that that is the intention of the Government—of course their intention is not to make it worse—but what are we going to do about it?

I will tell the Committee about another problem. At times, the meetings are packed—absolutely rammed—with people representing, for hours, different parts of the system. What I say is that everybody is responsible but nobody is responsible. I repeat that: everybody is responsible because everybody cares, but nobody is responsible. The question is: who holds the ring? Who is the person accountable for ensuring that something is done and delivered, whether it is a review of a domestic homicide or prisoners coming out and being subject to the MARAC or MAPPS, as it will be called?

My final point is that the delivery of this from an office—I do not mean that disrespectfully—to a house or street is absolutely crucial, and yet nobody has done anything. I will give the Committee an instance. The Government have recruited new police officers—I am not making a political point—and so we have new front-line police officers, who are often very young and very willing, with the desire to do well. When they go to a prisoner out on licence or to a domestic incident, many of them go in blind, because they are young and inexperienced and have no idea what to do. They try to assess whether there is a threat to life, but, as we know, often with domestic homicides there is no immediate, obvious threat to life. That is the nature of domestic violence and, unfortunately, sometimes of domestic homicides; the offenders do not wear a sign saying, “I am going to kill someone”. The police officer goes there, as a 999 response officer, and deals with the immediate emergency as he or she sees it. Realising that there is no immediate threat to life, as far as they are aware, the police officer leaves.

Sometimes, the information that that has happened is not passed on. Sometimes, the police officer is rung again—“Come back, there is a problem”—and they go back but there is nothing going on. It is not as though somebody is running around with a gun, ready to shoot. If that does not change, it will not make a shred of difference whether you call it “MAPPS”, “super-MAPPS”, “extra-MAPPS”, or “brilliant-MAPPS”.

The Government want to make a difference, so they have to do something about the mechanism by which everybody is responsible but nobody is responsible, about what happens with the front-line delivery, and about the sharing of data and information. That is patchwork at best. My noble friend Lord Ponsonby, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, say that the report has to address those problems. But the Minister does not need a report in 12 months; he could get on the phone or get a meeting now and ask why it is that the law allows you to share data but you are not.

My question to the Minister is this. When people say that they cannot share data in MARACs, or whatever else, are they right? Are they in a situation where they can do that? I think that they are wrong; I think that they can share that information. As a start to what the noble Lord, Lord Russell, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby asked, why does the Minister not write to every single MARAC in the country and say, “Notwithstanding the Victims and Prisoners Bill that is going through Parliament, the existing law allows you to share information. Don’t worry, you will not be prosecuted or get in trouble for doing that”. They do not believe that—we may all say that that is ridiculous but that is the reality. What I want is for the Government to address on the ground the reality of what is happening. The Minister needs to get involved and do that. The Government want it to improve, as of course we all do, but that change is needed for an improvement to happen.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, might like to know that, in evidence that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee took recently on community sentences, we came across various NGOs that were stuck because they were frightened of sharing information. It held up the system; it completely stopped things working as they should and could have.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it was a real privilege to witness that exchange and I think we are getting to the heart of why we are all here and are so passionate about this. I have a couple of short clarifications, because at this point by the time I get to my amendment on re-sentencing there really will be nothing else to say; I am rewriting my speech rapidly every time everyone speaks.

When I first heard about the indefinite sentences that were associated with IPPs—when they first came out in that arms race to prove how tough we could be on law on order—I was horrified. I was delighted when the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, abolished them; I thought that was it, because I was not in Parliament and not following. I went into prisons as part of work I was doing with an educational project called Debating Matters Beyond Bars which encouraged prisoners to debate and could not believe it when I discovered that, despite the sentences being abolished, there were still IPP prisoners.

In fact, I told the prisoners in my own characteristic way that they were wrong and that IPPs had been abolished and could not still exist. So I was determined once I got in here to at least discover what on earth had gone wrong. I cannot bear it, now we are tackling the issue, that, even though the sentences have been abolished, they will still exist when we have finished dealing with this Bill. It seems abhorrent.

I wanted particularly to back up the mentoring proposals from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower. If you talk to any families of IPP prisoners, or IPP prisoners themselves, they know that they have been destroyed and damaged by this sentencing regime. They are not gung-ho about it. They do not just say, “Release us, we’ll be fine”. What they would really gain from is mentoring. It is the kind of creative solution that would help us support the re-sentencing amendments. This is the kind of support that people will need.

It was hard not to shed a tear at the very moving speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, who said that many of the people whose mental health was suffering had been destroyed by IPPs. But we should also note that it could well be that their mental health is not permanently damaged by the ongoing psychological uncertainty, anxiety, torture and so on. We need a combination of the mentoring scheme and a recognition of the fact that the sentencing is, to be crude, literally driving people mad—and the sanest person would go mad. You do not necessarily need medication; you need compassionate, grown-up intervention and support. In that sense, I support all the amendments in this group and all the others, but I really think that, for want of a better phrase, we have to be the grown-ups in the room now and try and sort this out.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I particularly support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, although I support all of them. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, for remembering Lord Lloyd of Berwick in this debate. I recall him very well, indefatigably picking up this baton.

Many of us were alarmed when prisoners were added to victims in this Bill, but this amendment is absolutely with the grain of the first part of the Bill. We talked about ISVAs, IDVAs, child trafficking and guardians, and I recently heard about victim navigators who work as supporters and mentors to victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. We are all accepting the notion that, in slightly different ways, the criminal justice system does not do well by its victims—as has been said, IPP prisoners are victims—and that this needs addressing with a range of support measures. It is very much the direction of travel and I hope that this notion can be pursued.

[The Lord Bishop of Leicester]

My Lords, I support this group of amendments and it is a pleasure to follow noble Lords and benefit from their considerable wisdom—I am in awe of the learning and wisdom on display this evening. I do not want to repeat a lot of what has been said, so I will keep my speech very short.

I have one or two reflections on Amendments 165 and 166, to which my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester has added her name. She is a regular visitor to prisons across the country and supports the network of chaplains in our prisons who have direct evidence in relation to the mental health of prisoners.

As others have said, we know that many IPP prisoners are stuck in the system and that appropriate psychiatric care in the community is not in place to manage their high-support needs. IPP prisoners suffer greater mental distress and disorders than the wider prison population and, in many cases, it can be said that the sentence itself is the cause of the distress. It disrupts relationships and inspires hopelessness, anxiety, despair and alienation.

I welcome the changes proposed through this Bill, but, for the sake of the prisoners in question and the wider community, we need to ensure that they are getting the appropriate aftercare that they are entitled to and that it is extended in the way proposed in Amendment 166.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

I am quite happy to accept the noble Lord’s invitation to have a conversation with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner to explore her experience and see whether it is transferable to what we are discussing here.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I hesitated to intervene in this debate, but with the leave of the House I will add a thought for the Minister. Keeping training up to date is important because the understanding of the issues is developing quite dramatically. Nobody would have identified the acronym VAWG not that long ago and our understanding of what comprises violence against women and girls, for instance, is developing very fast.

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, as always, made a very pertinent point: we must have up-to-date training. Both learning and knowledge in this area are developing very quickly. That is quite a challenge for the authorities, but we should meet it— I fully accept that. Of course, under the compliance framework, there are powers to issue non-compliance notices and to understand why agencies are falling down. Almost certainly, a lack of training will be an explanatory factor in underperformance, so that will be overseen by Ministers, the criminal justice agencies and the Victims’ Commissioner.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, this is quite a large group and I will speak briefly on the amendments I have my name to or on which I have something to say.

The first amendment in the group, from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is on free transcripts. What I would ask the Government—I think the answer will be yes—is whether they agree in principle that this is and should be a right of victims: a proportionate right, without exorbitant costs and without needing pages and pages of transcripts. Do they agree that it is a fundamental right for victims to have the essence of what is said in a trial that involves them or their perpetrator, to understand the deliberations and the verdict that the judge and jury have come to, in a form and manner that is helpful to them and that they can use? In the same way that prisoners or perpetrators who have been found guilty go to appeal, the right that they have to access transcripts—quite rightly—is completely disproportionate when compared with the current right of victims to get almost any proceedings from the trials that concern them.

I think we are looking and hoping for an acceptance by the Government that the principle is right, understandable and correct; we are trying to find a practical way of achieving a form for that right to be exercised in a proportionate way for victims. While the RASSO model is a good start, it is clearly quite limited in extent. I will listen very carefully to what the Minister says in reply, and, of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will come to her own conclusions about what she decides to do.

Amendment 57, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is about the duty to collaborate. The Minister may recall that, last week, we spoke about the fact that, if there is not a duty to collaborate, certain agencies will take it upon themselves to interpret statutory guidance in a way that is convenient to them, rather than in a way that is aligned to the requirements of the relevant commissioner.

In particular, I mention the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs. I was able to catch up with Nicole yesterday afternoon—I suspect it was not very long after she ran into the Minister—and we had a discussion. The content of the discussion was that, even if you have statutory guidance that says one should be collaborating, the fact is that some agencies will take that on board in the spirit it is intended and will collaborate, while others will say that they understand in theory that it is very important and should be done but will decide that they have other things that are more important, or that they do not have the time, money or resources to respond. That makes the role of a commissioner extraordinarily difficult.

Data is king. Knowing what is going on is fundamental to interpreting what is and is not working. If you do not have systematic, reliable data from every part of the country, it is very difficult to do one’s job and give sensible advice to the Government. It is hard, frankly, to look victims in the face and say, “We are doing everything we can for you”. Despite the fact that statutory guidance is written down, some agencies are deciding for themselves whether or not to comply. This is clearly unsatisfactory.

I asked the Domestic Abuse Commissioner what she would change, with the benefit of hindsight, about the way in which this was encapsulated in the Domestic Abuse Act and the guidance. She said that it is ultimately about accountability in so many areas; it is about who is ultimately responsible and who will be held to account if something which should be happening is not. At the moment, that is quite unclear. Having 43 different police forces, with police and crime commissioners on top, makes it rather difficult. The commissioner’s instinct was that perhaps one should hold police and crime commissioners’ feet to the fire and make them primarily responsible for ensuring that all the agencies in their jurisdiction take the statutory guidance seriously and comply. If they did not comply, some very awkward questions should then be asked of the police and crime commissioner to find out why.

Another thing that would be helpful is something that we have started to do in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. We have a table which lists each department and ranks them by the egregiousness and inadequacies of their Explanatory Memoranda and the idiocy of their impact assessments. We are hoping that this will concentrate minds because, once again, data is king. It is extraordinarily important that one is able to measure what is going on.

I will listen carefully to what the Minister says on this and to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. From the well-intended evidence about what we hoped and thought was going to happen in the Domestic Abuse Act, we have a chance to learn from what we thought was going to work well and which is not working so well and to try to do it better this time.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I will say a couple of words on—

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

I do not think the noble Lord has finished.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I am so sorry; I thought that the noble Lord had finished.

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[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this group but, having heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, I want to add my 100% support for what she has just said. As a family judge for something like 35 years, I tried cases of sexual abuse against children. I also happened to do a report on the diocese of Chichester, and I met adult members of that group who had suffered serious sexual abuse. It lasts a lifetime, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said. I particularly realised it when I met these young men who had suffered abuse from clergy, I am sad to say—one of whom went to prison and one of whom died before. It lasted years and years. Everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, is entirely right, and I support it tremendously.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I was surprised when there seemed to be a hiatus—I had not allowed for his need to draw a breath. He mentioned his conversation this morning with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. I am not surprised to hear what she said. I recall that, before the Bill even arrived in this House, she was making her views about a duty to collaborate very clear and well known.

I simply wanted to support my noble friend in her amendment on transcripts. I have to say that sitting through most of the Committee and Second Reading of this Bill has really made me reflect on how victims can be treated as almost peripheral to a trial, because inevitably there is a focus on the defendant. It is inevitable because the court is determining guilt or—I was going to say innocence—not guilt. It would never have occurred to me that the availability of a transcript might depend on whether it has to be available to the defendant.

As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, this is quite a narrow amendment. The Minister was very clear about the constraints and difficulties. As well as being narrow, this amendment would reduce costs, which we were talking about at the previous stage. It is important that we pursue this.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 61, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and Amendments 62 and 71, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Polak and Lord Russell of Liverpool, and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. In this, as ever, I must declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher.

The great thing about following the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is that it is like somebody doing your homework for you. All the way through this stage of the Bill, we have talked about children as being separate victims, and we got the “Uncle Tom Cobley and all” reason back—in that, if you have to mention one, you have to mention all in this. I think we have to be specific. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and I went to the Lighthouse child house and saw its model. We saw how, when victims are treated specifically, we can get higher levels of prosecution, better health for them in future and save money in the outcome. Why would you not do that?

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[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I offer some brief words in support of Amendment 96. Like the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, I was very disappointed with the response in Committee, which simply rehashed old arguments that I had already challenged. I have two practical questions. First, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, promised the long-awaited code of practice for parliamentary scrutiny by the spring. It may not feel very spring-like, but spring is passing and there is still no sight of it. Surely it should have been made available in time to inform our debate today. The Minister said it would hopefully be this spring, but he did not sound very sure. Can he give us a firm assurance that it will be made available this spring?

Secondly, whereas I had been told in a Written Answer that the also long-awaited protocol would be published in early 2024, all that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, could say in Committee was that it would be launched “later this year”. How much later? Why the delay?

Finally, I never received an answer to my much more fundamental question: how do the Government square their intransigent position on the firewall supported by the DAC, various parliamentary committees and all organisations on the ground with repeated ministerial assurances that domestic abuse victims/survivors must be treated as victims first and foremost, regardless of immigration status? As it stands, it is a case not of safety before status, as called for by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, but of status before safety.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments to which the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, has spoken. This was an issue that I came across only when preparing for Second Reading. I do not want to repeat her arguments, and I could not make them as well or as thoroughly as she has, but I was shocked to discover the problems that have arisen in connection with counselling and advice. I also support the firewall amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. We have been here before many times, have we not?

Last week the previous Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, speaking to the committee reviewing the Modern Slavery Act, raised the interesting position of one law enforcement sector withholding information from, or not sharing information with, another law enforcement sector. She came to her conclusion, but I did not read her as having reached it entirely easily. I reached the conclusion that there should be a firewall for the reason put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher: imbalance of power—that is what it is about—between a victim and somebody to whom material is made available for abuse. These are very vulnerable victims. I have circled words such as “later this year” and so on, which the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, mentioned. I will not repeat them, but it would be good to make some progress on this issue.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my honourable friend Layla Moran laid an amendment about the ending of non-disclosure agreements that prevent victims disclosing information to the police or other services, including confidential support services, ensuring that they cannot be legally enforced. She has campaigned on this issue for some considerable time. She and I both thank the Minister for the progress in Amendment 76, which is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. It certainly will help some victims access the support they need, but we on these Benches regret that this is not enough to fully give victims their voice back. We still need a complete ban on the use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying to ensure that no victim is ever silenced. We will campaign on this in future but appreciate the step forward that has been made in this Bill.

I have signed Amendments 87, 88, 89 and 94 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I also thank the Minister for the meetings, his Amendment 76 and what he said in introduction—I agree with the response by the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, talked about third-party data requests, and again it was a privilege to be involved in those meetings. I thank her for her comments and her remaining concerns. She is absolutely right that it does not take us further forward enough.

Finally, I signed Amendment 96 from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on the immigration firewall. My noble friend Lady Hamwee was absolutely right: we have been here before. I was just thinking about amendments during the passage of the Illegal Migration Bill, the safety of Rwanda Bill and, I suspect, the Nationality and Borders Bill before that—yet we are not making progress. It is very unfortunate that the Government have gone backwards since the Modern Slavery Act in the protection of these particular victims. I know that across the House we will continue to push for ensuring that the loophole is closed.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My noble friend Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames wanted to speak to these two amendments but is unable to be here today, for which he apologises.

In Committee, the Government’s position, which was entirely sympathetic in principle—the noble Earl is rarely unsympathetic—was that the Law Commission is going to consider this in any event, so we should wait for it to do so before pressing the matter further. However, my noble friend says that that is not good enough. There is no reason for a further report before proceeding with the provision of free legal representation and advice for rape victims. If we wait for the Law Commission then there will have to be a further consultation, but that is not necessary—Liberal Democrats do not say that consultations are not necessary lightly—and then there has to be the process of producing a report and then, finally, a Bill. All in all, that is a long delay on an issue on which the principle is uncomplicated and, in any event, conceded. We support these two amendments.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and, in her absence, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for Amendments 77 and 78, which, as we have heard, seek to require the development of proposals for schemes to give victims of rape access to free independent legal advice and representation.

I agree that it is extremely important that victims are aware of their rights and confident in those rights, particularly when preparing for trial and when requests for their personal information are made. While it would be novel to provide access to free legal advice and representation for just one type of crime, we recognise that, if there is one category of people who are especially vulnerable, it is victims of rape and sexual offences. We also recognise that victims of these crimes are more likely to receive requests for sensitive personal information as part of an investigation, and that there are calls for independent legal advice to help victims with that situation as well.

That is why the Bill tackles the problem in a different way, by introducing measures designed to minimise requests for information, as my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy explained in the previous group of amendments. Through the Bill we are placing a new statutory duty on the police to request third-party material relating to victims only when necessary, proportionate and relevant to a reasonable line of inquiry. Following the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Bertin, which the Government have accepted, there will also be a requirement that the Requests for Victim Information code of practice must state that the police and other law enforcement agencies should start an investigation with the presumption that requests for counselling notes are not necessary or proportionate.

My noble friend’s amendments also mandate that counselling notes can be requested by police only if they are likely to have “substantial probative value” to a reasonable line of inquiry. This higher threshold will ensure that police are not routinely requesting counselling notes and that the privacy of these victims is respected.

As I have said, we do not want to create a hierarchy of support by granting government-funded legal advice to victims of just one type of crime. Alongside that, there are some complex and sensitive considerations regarding the introduction of independent legal advice for such victims. In particular, we have to be mindful of the role of the victim as a witness in proceedings and avoid anything that might have an unintended impact on the defendant’s right to a fair trial. This concern emerged very explicitly from the pilot scheme run in the north of England. I direct that point particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and, in his absence, the noble Lord, Lord Marks; we need to take account of the findings from that pilot, which expressed those concerns. A subsidiary but still important point is to consider the potential impact on timeliness as a result of another process being inserted into the system. That was another concern that arose in the pilot.

These are all far-reaching considerations which, I suggest, require expert input before any statutory measures are considered. The Law Commission’s review will consider all these factors, including—the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, may like to note—the impact of existing schemes in other jurisdictions. When it publishes its report later this year, its findings and recommendations on independent legal advice will provide us with the robust evidence base that we will need should we wish to go forward and develop the sort of policy proposals that the amendment points us towards. Therefore, it is right for us to wait for those findings.

There is a further point of principle which I ought to flag: it really is not appropriate to place a duty on the Secretary of State in primary legislation to develop policy, especially without any specification of what such proposals should entail and who is responsible for implementing them once they have been developed. Once again, it is much better that we await the Law Commission’s recommendations.

I know how important this issue is to noble Lords opposite, but I hope that I have given the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, sufficient pause as regards his original intention to divide the House. There are some good reasons why the amendments should not be pressed, which I hope I have been able persuade him of. I therefore very much hope that he will withdraw Amendment 77 and not move Amendment 78.