Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her persuasive introduction to the Bill and hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, is soon dancing around the Chamber again.

I start before the beginning of the Bill. The Long Title tells us that, among other things, it is to make provision

“about procedure and the administration of criminal justice”.

There is a lot going at the moment in relation to the administration of criminal justice, including the first part of Sir Brian Leveson’s review and the Government’s recent response. I have been asked—no doubt other noble Lords have as well—whether the Government might use this Bill to introduce the major reforms they are proposing. I am in no position to give any assurances, although I have said that there would be a hell of a row if this House, with all its expertise and strong views, did not have the opportunity of a Second Reading debate if the Commons, the elected Chamber, was excluded from initial debate and scrutiny. The Minister is already shaking her head—that is now in Hansard. I was going to say that I trust that she will give us an assurance on this. I raised it because if it is around as gossip, it needs answering.

There is much to welcome in the Bill, but our role as a revising Chamber does mean that many of our comments may come over as opposition or criticism. I hope not to sound too much like Scrooge. When I heard that there was to be a victims’ helpline, I was interested in what it might cover and hoped that it would be more than a signposting exercise pointing victims to where they might get help. However, it is not that. The victim contact scheme may suggest more than it is to provide. Many victims need support as witnesses. I am aware of the issue of coaching or the suggestion that a victim witness, however he or she wishes to describe themselves, has been coached. The postponement of support and treatment for some badly affected victims is another argument for dealing with delays in the courts. A victim’s experience—I hate “journey”—does not end with the verdict, so there must be support before and following a trial, often for a long period, as a survivor.

This Bill is part of a Rubik’s cube of criminal justice legislation. This Second Reading comes not just during public debate about juries but partway through the Sentencing Bill, when the issue of resources for non-custodial sentences and for purposeful activity in custody is being discussed. Resources to support victims—survivors—are needed too. The position of so many organisations in the third sector is precarious. Appreciative words are no substitute for services and funding.

As we know, too many victims and alleged offenders have a long wait for the trial. Some of the alleged offenders are not on bail but released under investigation—an alternative to bail but without set timeframes or conditions attached. It has been suggested that for the police this is a cop-out—no pun intended—as it reduces the load on them. The Leveson recommendation was to return to the pre-2017 system of conditional or unconditional bail.

What priority does the Bill have? It was introduced in the Commons in May and there has been a sort of hiatus. In this House, it is to go to Grand Committee, rather than having its Committee stage on the Floor of the House—presumably, though one should not assume anything, in time for it to be through by the end of the Session. I appreciate that timing is not a matter for the Minister, but she may wish to comment. She may not, of course.

I will turn to some specific points. I know we will spend some time on the first two clauses. While the failure of a convicted offender to appear at a sentencing hearing can cause a lot of distress to the victim, who then cannot look the offender in the eye while he or she hears victim statements, I confess to wondering whether it would be better to rely on and perhaps use more the existing powers held by custody officers, prison governors and, of course, judges—although I can see why there is a concern not to use contempt of court powers other than sparingly. There are risks associated with the sanctions and impacts on prison capacity and the Crown Court backlog. It is a difficult balance.

We will also discuss the transcripts of sentencing remarks, an issue which for some time has been pursued by my honourable friend the Member for Richmond Park, and to which my noble friend Lady Brinton has referred. At a meeting in early September of the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, I asked the then Lord Chancellor, just before she became Home Secretary, about progress in this area. She said:

“I do not believe we are far from having a tech solution that meets the test of accuracy … we are testing market solutions for speed and accuracy. Then we will need to take a view on operational viability and how quickly it could be rolled out”.


She also said:

“It is a long process, and it has a cost attached to it”,


and went on to emphasise that

“accuracy … is the problem at the moment”.

If the Minister could update the House, that would be very welcome. I appreciate this is not as straightforward as some of us would like to think, but every day in this job we are aware of how quickly the Hansard writers record and reproduce what we say. Mind you, they do tidy it up as well, which is certainly not what is wanted in the courts.

In addition, can the Minister update the House on when the prohibited steps provisions restricting parental responsibility are likely to come into force? As the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, Section 18 of the Victims and Prisoners Act is still “prospective”. What discussion has the MoJ had with local authorities which will have to take on additional responsibilities, and will they have additional funding?

It is inevitable that I keep coming back to resources. I am sure that the Victims’ Commissioner will need to be better resourced, given her new powers and duties. Baroness Newlove would undoubtedly have taken the opportunity to make the point that she could have used much more than £150,000, whatever the agreement made. We all miss her, and we will welcome Claire Waxman to the position when she takes it up.

The length of Schedule 2, mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier—it is longer than the aggregate of all the Bill’s clauses—is, I suppose, a reflection of the way our statute book develops. I do not want to sound churlish. Clause 7, “Victims’ rights to make representations and receive information etc”— et cetera is doing some heavy lifting—is important out of all proportion to the clause’s two lines, but proportionate to the schedule. How much heavy lifting can be done by

“issues of public policy of relevance to other victims or witnesses”?

We will see.

I am pleased that victims’ rights to make certain disclosures are not to be precluded by NDAs. I hope the relevant regulations will be made with as little delay as possible, so that this comes into effect. This is one of those occasions when seeing the regulations in draft during the course of the Bill would be particularly helpful, given that not all NDAs will be covered.

It is not just what is in the Bill; it is also what is not. I am, as we all are, grateful to the organisations that have briefed us on the introduction of a duty to commission victim support services: 16 major organisations coming together to urge us to urge the Government to drive change in the commissioning of specialist services for victims of exploitation and abuse, and for victims with specific needs, is not to be ignored.

I should declare an interest: many years ago, for quite a number of years, I was a trustee and chair of the domestic violence charity Refuge. Much that is in the Bill, and much else, to quote the Long Title,

“about the experience of victims within the criminal justice system; about the functions of the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses; and about procedure and the administration of criminal justice”,

lends itself—indeed, calls for—consultation with those affected and those working in the sector. But—or “and”—I know that we have a group of Ministers who understand this very well.

I have said that there is much in the Bill to welcome. What I have been saying should not detract from that, but we do want the Bill to be as good as it can be.