Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Welsh legislative consent sought.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, at the heart of this Bill are measures aimed at ensuring that victims are treated with dignity, compassion and respect throughout the justice process. This legislation represents a significant step forward in strengthening the rights of victims and improving the efficiency and fairness of our courts in a fair and proportionate way.

A number of noble Lords have spoken to me about some of the provisions in the Bill, and I am grateful to them for their measured and constructive approach. I had hoped to be able to answer some of their questions in advance of this debate; in the end, time constraints meant that this did not prove possible, but I shall do my best to address some of them during this short speech. That said, as ever with issues about the justice system, I and the Government welcome the opportunity to work with Members of your Lordships’ House, from all parties and none, to ensure that we get these provisions right.

I begin by addressing the issue of defendants who refuse to leave their cell in order to attend their sentencing hearing. This happens too often and causes great distress to victims and their families, many of whom have sat through a difficult trial. The sentencing hearing provides an important opportunity to tell the defendant exactly how the crime has affected them, usually done through a victim personal statement. For many, it is important to be able to look the defendant in the eye as the sentence is passed, so when the defendant chooses not to attend court, that can feel like the final insult. The Government agree with victims and their families that defendants should not have that choice.

Judges have always had the power to order defendants to attend their sentencing hearing but, if the defendant refused, the judge was very restricted as to what she or he was able to do. The Bill will change that by putting the power on a statutory footing. I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to the families of Jan Mustafa, Henriett Szucs, Olivia Pratt-Korbel, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena. Their courage and tireless campaigning have brought about this change, and for that we thank them.

On the specific provisions, first, the Bill makes clear that reasonable force may be used to get the defendant to court, but that has to be balanced against the risk to prison and security staff so there are three issues that the judge will take into account: necessity, reasonableness and proportionality. Secondly, in addition to the use of reasonable force, judges will have the power to impose up to two years’ imprisonment in addition to the sentence for the offence and/or an unlimited fine. Thirdly, concerns were raised that, because many of these defendants will be receiving very long sentences, an additional period of imprisonment might not have much effect. To meet that concern, Crown Court judges will also be given the power to impose meaningful sanctions that will have an impact on how the defendant serves their time in prison. If defendants attend court but are disruptive or disrespectful, and as a result have to be removed from the hearing, the judge will be able to impose the same penalties. This Government are clear: victims’ and their families’ voices matter, and defendants should be sentenced with those voices ringing in their ears. The Bill will help to ensure that happens.

I turn to the automatic restriction of the exercise of parental responsibility. Protecting children is an absolute priority for this Government, and these provisions are part of a wider exercise to ensure that the interests of children remain paramount in all proceedings. Having children is a privilege but also a responsibility, and the justice system must always ensure that these children are right at the centre of what we do. As part of that, the Bill provides that where a parent has been convicted of a serious offence involving child sexual abuse and has been sentenced to four or more years’ imprisonment, there will be an automatic restriction preventing them exercising parental responsibility for their own children. This measure will protect the children of child sex offenders, whose convictions will provide clear evidence that they pose a risk to children, including their own.

The Bill will also restrict the exercise of parental responsibility for children of rapists where their crimes have led to the conception and birth of the child in question. There will be two routes. First, where the Crown Court is satisfied to the criminal standard that the child was conceived as a result of the rape, this mandatory restriction must be imposed at the time the defendant is sentenced.

Secondly, where rape has occurred as part of wider domestic abuse, and the court is satisfied that the child may have been conceived as a result of that rape, but cannot be sure, the court must refer the case to the family court via the local authority. This sends a clear message that we will protect all children conceived and born as a result of rape, no matter the circumstances. The noble Lord, Lord Meston, asked me when we met about the number of offenders this will capture. Our belief is that up to 20 offenders will be affected by this measure each year.

Thirdly, non-disclosure agreements—NDAs—should not be used to silence victims or cover up crimes. The Bill will make sure that they cannot be used in this way. It makes it clear that NDAs will not be legally enforceable to the extent that they seek to prevent victims —or those who reasonably believe they are victims—from disclosing information about relevant criminal behaviour. In addition, we want to make sure that victims can provide the full context and circumstances when speaking about crimes. The Bill will also ensure that such a victim will be able to speak about how the other party reacted both to the criminal conduct itself and the victim speaking out about it.

Of course, we recognise there may be situations where both parties genuinely wish to have the closure offered by an NDA. To accommodate that, the measure includes two powers. The first will allow the Secretary of State to make regulations to set out the criteria for an excepted NDA. Such NDAs would not be voided under the measure. The second power allows the Secretary of State to specify that speaking about the crime to some people, for specific purposes or in certain situations, will always be allowed, even if an excepted NDA exists. For example, a victim who wanted to speak to a victim support service in order to get support may be able to do so, despite being party to an excepted NDA.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, asked me about some of the exceptions set out in the clause. I am sorry that I was not able to answer their questions in advance of Second Reading, but I will do my best to do so now. The measure will not apply to a narrow cohort of specified agreements. This is in the interests of national security. Unlike with excepted NDAs, victims of crime who sign such agreements will not always be able to make the disclosures specified by the Secretary of State in regulations made under the second power because the relevant bodies have their own appropriate arrangements for ensuring that victims and direct witnesses of crime can speak up and seek support.

During the development of the clause, extensive engagement was undertaken with relevant government departments about which bodies an exemption should apply to. An exemption for agreements entered into by the National Crime Agency in the interests of national security was not considered necessary. Legislation that binds the Crown does not ordinarily apply to the sovereign unless there is a specific policy justification for it to do so. For the purposes of this measure, the Government do not consider that there is a specific policy justification for the measure to apply to agreements entered into by the sovereign personally.

Fourthly, we will be strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner. I start by paying tribute to the late Baroness Newlove, who will be greatly missed in your Lordships’ House. All of us have a great deal for which to thank her. The Bill will enable the Victims’ Commissioner to hold the system to account more effectively, which we hope and expect will boost the confidence of victims. The Victims’ Commissioner will have a number of new tools, which we intend should be used to achieve systemic change.

First, for the first time, the commissioner will be able to exercise their functions in relation to individual cases where such a case raises public policy issues that go beyond that particular case and are likely to be of relevance to other victims and witnesses.

Secondly, local authorities and social housing providers will have a duty to co-operate with the Victims’ Commissioner in relation to anti-social behaviour. As a result, the commissioner will be able to get the information they need to identify systemic issues, make informed recommendations and examine how the system responds to anti-social behaviour.

Thirdly, the Bill will place a new duty on the Victims’ Commissioner to produce an independent assessment as to how public agencies are meeting their duties under the victims’ code. The report will be provided to Ministers, who will then be required to consider it as part of preparing their own report on code compliance under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024.

Some of your Lordships have raised with me at meetings whether the commissioner will have sufficient resources to take on this additional work. We have worked closely with the Victims’ Commissioner’s office to understand the impact of the measures, and we have identified a small additional resource requirement amounting to £150,000 a year. That is outlined in our impact assessment. This will be accounted for as the measure is commenced and implemented.

The victim contact scheme plays a critical role in communicating information about the release of offenders to be given to those who need it most, but the legislation governing it is more than 20 years old. This Bill will simplify and update the current system. It will bring victims currently served by different operational schemes into the single victim contact scheme. As we implement this measure, we will make sure that the updated scheme works for the victims it is designed to serve. The Bill will also provide all victims with one clear route to request information about an offender.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, asked about interactions with clinicians’ obligations. The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, raised issues about when an offender is detained under the Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2013. We will consider how best to support victim liaison officers and hospital managers to provide this information to victims where it is appropriate to do so. This requirement reflects current practice, where the release of information must comply with data protection legislation and the convention rights. We also would not provide information that would put either the offender or the victim at risk for any reason. Where information is not disclosed, victims can seek a review through existing independent HMPPS complaints processes or make a complaint to the relevant NHS service provider. If they are unhappy with the outcome, victims can escalate their complaint directly to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

For mentally disordered offenders, this includes information about discharge, leave and any other information as appropriate. Furthermore, the Bill will allow victims to request information about an offender, which will be delivered via a new dedicated helpline. This means that eligible victims of mentally disordered offenders will receive information on request. Our intention is to ensure that those who are eligible receive the right information about offenders at the right time. In addition, but outwith this Bill, we will consult on a new victims’ code in due course.

I turn to prosecutors. I declare not so much an interest as experience in this area, as I worked for the Crown Prosecution Service for five years. I am sure that all will agree it is essential that we ensure that the CPS can recruit and retain sufficient qualified Crown prosecutors. Having inadequate numbers means that important decisions about, for example, who to charge with offences, choice of charge and evidence requests to be made from the police cannot take place in a timely way.

In England and Wales, there are the members of the two well-known branches of the legal profession, namely solicitors and barristers. What is less widely known is that there are other routes by which a person may qualify as a lawyer. The biggest of these is CILEX, the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives. At present, as the law currently stands, it is difficult for the CPS to appoint lawyers other than solicitors or barristers to work as Crown prosecutors. This Bill will remove those barriers, by enabling further suitably qualified and experienced legal professionals to be appointed to these important roles.

A number of noble Lords have raised with me whether this will involve lowering standards, and I am happy to reassure your Lordships that it will not. At present, the law requires Crown prosecutors to have what is known as the general qualification. The general qualification requires the lawyer in question to have very wide rights of audience, namely in all proceedings in the senior courts, in the county courts or magistrates’ courts. In practice, not all these rights are necessary for their role as a Crown prosecutor, so the Bill will remove that requirement. What will remain is that Crown prosecutors from whichever professional background must have the necessary rights of audience and authorisation under the Legal Services Act 2007 to appear in the courts relevant to their role, and they will have to meet the necessary CPS competency standards to conduct prosecutions at the appropriate level. The CPS will retain full discretion over whom to appoint.

This will widen the pool of eligible prosecutors, and support greater flexibility in staffing. The hope is that, in the longer term, this will shorten waiting times for prosecutorial decisions to be made. The measure supports, in a proportionate way, the intention underlying the manifesto commitment. Rather than giving more powers to associate prosecutors, these measures will increase the pool of prospective Crown prosecutors.

On private prosecutions, once again I declare that I have experience in this area, having been a partner in a firm of solicitors and head of a department that brought a number of private prosecutions. I was also one of the founding members of the Private Prosecutors’ Association and was heavily involved in the drafting of the code of practice and conduct for private prosecutors. The Government are committed to reforming the private prosecution system, so that it is fairer and has the necessary safeguards in place. While that will require more extensive and long-term change, the Bill is taking the first step as part of that plan for reform.

A number of your Lordships raised the question of whether this reform would have a chilling effect on private prosecutions. That is not the intention underlying these measures; the Government agree that private prosecutions play an important role in our justice system.

When a private prosecutor applies to the court for their costs to be paid by the public purse, there are no fixed rates. This is not satisfactory for two reasons: first, costs determinations can be protracted, taking up valuable court time; and, secondly, there is a lack of certainty for those who would like to consider bringing a private prosecution as to the amount that they may be able to recover. That is why the Bill will give the Lord Chancellor the power to make regulations which set the rates at which private prosecutors can recover their costs from central funds. This will save court time when it is required to determine cost orders, reduce the number of appeals and give private prosecutors a better degree of certainty. We believe that it will ensure the best use of public funds.

This measure is purely an enabling power. I am aware that reservations have been expressed about the effect of setting the rates too low. I have been assured that there will be extensive engagement with stakeholders, and a full consultation will be held before any regulations are introduced. The defendant’s costs order will not be the starting point, and I will be monitoring closely the progress of the consultation. This engagement will help us determine the most appropriate rates, including whether higher rates should be preserved for some more complex private prosecutions. In doing so, we will retain the central aim of this measure, which is to safeguard the right of an individual to bring private prosecutions, while making the best use of public funds.

I now turn to the measures on the unduly lenient sentence scheme. As many will know, when the Attorney General believes that the original sentence does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offence, the scheme provides a power for the case to be referred to the Court of Appeal. There is a strict 28-day statutory time limit, which mirrors the time limit defendants have in which to appeal their sentence. In a not insubstantial number of cases, they are not brought to the attention of the Attorney-General until the end of the period, sometimes on the 28th day. This has proved problematic for the Attorney-General, because it makes it difficult to be able to give the case proper consideration in the time remaining. The 28-day period will remain unaltered, but the Bill will give the Attorney-General 14 days to consider any request that has been made within the second half of the window. We believe that this is a proportionate response, respecting the need for fairness to all victims and balancing that with the need for certainty and sentencing.

The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, asked me about the unduly lenient sentence scheme and engagement and the shorter window for victims. Many noble Lords may be aware of the commitment made in the other place by my honourable friend the Victims Minister. She has committed to looking at the length of the time limit as this Bill progresses, and I, too, am happy to make that commitment in your Lordships’ House—namely, to listen to and consider any thoughts that noble Lords may have as to the length of the time limit for the ULS scheme. In doing so, I remind your Lordships that the unduly lenient sentence scheme is not a mechanism to provide an appeal for victims or members of the public; rather, it is a legal safeguard that exists to correct sentences that fall outside the reasonable parameters for the sentence in question.

Finally, the Bill introduces a modest but important amendment to magistrates’ court sentencing powers in respect of six specific offences. As your Lordships will know, this Government have increased magistrates’ sentencing powers from six to 12 months’ imprisonment for all offences that are triable either way, other than these six. For technical reasons, all these six require primary legislation to make the magistrates’ court sentencing powers consistent with those of all other either-way offences; doing this will reduce the risk of confusion or error in sentencing.

This Bill is about ensuring trust and confidence in our justice system—one that is fair, efficient and takes the needs of victims into account—and it reflects our commitment to ensuring that courts meet the demands both of today and of tomorrow.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the helpful and constructive approach taken to the Bill—and I really mean it when I say that. Many of those who have spoken this evening have enormous expertise in this area and the contributions are very welcome. Many of the points made have given us food for thought and we will reflect on them. I hope to answer most of the matters raised but, if I do not, I will write to the noble Lord in question.

I hope that I shall be forgiven if I single out one of your Lordships for the matters he raised—the noble Lord, Lord Bailey. He spoke very movingly in reminding us about the disproportionate effect of criminal offences on poorer communities. It is good to be reminded of that, and also of how important it is that there is clarity for citizens. I am often acutely aware that sometimes when I am trying to explain one of the provisions in a piece of legislation, even to those in this House with the enormous expertise they have, I do not explain it very well. It was a very well-made point and one that I shall take away.

I will deal first with non-attendance at sentencing hearings, which was spoken to by many of your Lordships, including the noble Lords, Lord Sandhurst and Lord Meston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. My noble friend Lady Griffin of Princethorpe, who I thank for her kind words, asked whether the power to add additional custodial sentences would have an impact on the issue of prison capacity. We envisage that any impact would not be immediate, because any additional time in custody would be served at the end of the offender’s existing sentence. We estimate that the measure would result in five additional prison places, at a steady state around 12 years after implementation.

Also, my noble friend Lord Ponsonby spoke about balance and proportionality in requiring defendants to attend their sentencing hearing. We agree with that because, although we are doing our best to compel defendants to attend, if they do attend, we cannot compel them either to behave properly or, indeed, to experience or express contrition for what they have done. For some victims, a defendant who turns up and laughs or is disrespectful or shouts discourteous things can add to a victim’s problems. So, we need to make sure that we strike the balance between forcing them to attend and ensuring that there is no bad behaviour that will simply make things worse for victims.

The noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, among others, raised the question of risk to those who are dealing with the question of reasonable force. Let me make it clear that it is not police officers. It will be prison staff and PECS —Prison Escort and Custody Services—staff. They already have training and experience in dealing with the question of reasonable force when it comes to getting offenders to court. It will be their assessment that counts. It will not be the judge who decides what kind of force will be used, or whether it will be used: it will be down to the assessment of the staff as to what the risk is. We have made it absolutely clear that we do not expect any additional risk to staff. That is not the purpose of the exercise. This is why it has to be proportionate. We are certainly not binding and gagging defendants to bring them to court. That would not be appropriate and we are not turning this into some kind of sideshow, which was the expression that somebody used.

Turning to the automatic restriction of the exercise of parental responsibility mentioned by numerous noble Lords, I make the point in response to my noble friend Lord Hacking that parental responsibility is not the same as parental involvement. The removal of parental responsibility does not mean that those parents will never see those children again. That would be a matter for the family courts to decide. What it does mean is that, for example, a defendant who is serving a very long sentence of imprisonment cannot simply interfere with questions such as which school the child will go to, and so on and so forth.

I thank noble Lords for the broad welcome given to these provisions. A number of points were made, including by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, about the Explanatory Notes. I am sorry about that. We will check that we have got them right by Report.

On the question of four years, a number of noble Lords made the observation about a line having to be drawn somewhere. These are new and radical provisions, and we want to balance the seriousness of an automatic restriction with the seriousness of the crime and the impact it will have on the child. We made the assessment that, as this was not a decision to be taken lightly, it should be done only in tightly restricted circumstances, and four years seems to us to strike the correct balance regarding the seriousness of the offence. The other issue is that we want to make sure that the system is not overwhelmed by the number of cases. However, these are certainly matters upon which we can reflect.

A number of noble Lords raised interim orders. My immediate response is that they would pose difficulties for the Crown Court. First, what is the evidence upon which it would act? Secondly, they would drag the Crown Court into decisions that are properly those of the family court. However, we can certainly reflect on this matter, and we will be happy to discuss it with as many noble Lords as wish to do so.

I am grateful to those who broadly welcomed the non-disclosure agreements. I was asked where these differ from those brought in under Section 17 of the Victims and Prisoners Act, which came into force on 1 October. The new measures go further. Basically, they mean that those subject to a non-disclosure agreement can speak to anyone, not simply to categories of individuals. The most important thing is that this aligns with and complements the legislation in the Employment Rights Bill. That is the purpose of it.

On strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti asked whether the commissioner would be able to intervene in individual cases. That is not anticipated at present because really that is the function of the Crown Prosecution Service; if there are points of law to be made on behalf of victims, that is part of the function of the CPS. Again, though, we can reflect on this question, and if she would like to meet me to discuss this, she would be welcome to do so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, spoke about never expecting to be a victim. As the noble Baroness was saying that, I reflected that of course that was the experience of the late Baroness Newlove; she never expected to be a victim but the events of one evening meant that she was propelled into a situation that she had never envisaged at all. However, when it comes to the idea that victims do not get a lot of attention, there are a number of Bills going through both Houses of Parliament that deal with law and order, so I suggest that this Government are giving a lot of attention to the question of victims.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that victims used to be seen simply as a special category of witness. In fact, he and I are both probably old enough to remember a time when prosecuting advocates were not even allowed to go and introduce themselves to the victim of a crime, far less explain anything about what was going on. I am happy to say that that is not the situation any longer. Successive Governments, and I pay tribute to all those involved, have sought to put this right, and I pay tribute to the party opposite for the part it has played in ensuring that victims have been brought more centrally into the system.

As far as Operation Soteria is concerned, which the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean, mentioned, many of its provisions are being taken further. We announced recently that we are going to firm up the rules of evidence about what victims can be asked regarding their previous sexual experience and so forth.

I turn to the victim contact scheme in Schedule 2. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, complained how long Schedule 2 was. I was going to say that the reason is that it tidies up a load of other provisions but then the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, made that point for me.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised support for victims, and that was echoed by a number of noble Lords, including, in her customary passionate fashion, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. We will reflect on this point. I issue an invitation to any Members of your Lordships’ House who would like to discuss any proposed amendments with me. I will be happy to do so and see where we can work together to ensure that there is appropriate provision to be made for victims.

On Crown prosecutors, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Ponsonby for raising the point that CILEX members tend to be more diverse than barristers and solicitors. I deliberately did not make that point because that is not the primary objective; it is a happy side effect. I make it absolutely clear that this will not reduce standards. I invite noble Lords to reflect on their comments that suggest that CILEX lawyers are somehow less good than barristers or solicitors. They simply qualify via a different route. I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, shaking his head and remind him that people used to say that solicitors were inferior to barristers; I do not think anybody is going to say that any more.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

I did not.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Gove, did not say it now, but in the past that used to be said. We have moved on.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

There is absolutely no doubt, when it comes to the exercise of the prosecutorial or the defence function in court, that someone who has served at the criminal Bar will provide a higher level of service in the most sensitive and most important cases. A misplaced respect for the role that solicitor advocates can play and have played should not take away from the fact that the criminal Bar is under siege. It is losing members. It needs support and it is vital that we recognise that, without a healthy criminal Bar, not just prosecution and defence but the future of the judiciary are threatened.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I have tried very hard to keep this non-partisan, but I have to say very gently to the noble Lord that it is a bit rich to hear from a member of the party opposite about what has happened to the criminal Bar, when pretty much everybody who was working there at the time—that includes me—knows it was the considerable cuts made to legal aid under the previous Administration that put the criminal Bar into the parlous state it is now in. But I say no more about that contentious subject, because this is not an opportunity for us to fall out. The noble Lord and I can debate the respective merits of barristers, solicitors and CILEX lawyers in due course.

I agree with my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti about the importance of private prosecutions and entirely understand her concerns. I hope she is aware that the Government intend to look at some of the issues, for example, that surround disclosure in private prosecutions. We all know the cases to which I refer. She said she has reservations about corporate private prosecutions. I was about to say something, then the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, rather made the point for me that some very important commercial organisations have brought private prosecutions in relation to quite big frauds—sometimes very big frauds indeed. Economic crime is one of the scourges of our society. The investigation and prosecution of those crimes consumes a huge amount of public resource. The Government are certainly of the view that there is a place for private prosecution to help to ensure that economic crime is prosecuted successfully.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, drew my attention to the Explanatory Notes—again—as did the noble Lord, Lord Meston. If we have got them wrong, we will correct them by Report.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I was not suggesting for a moment that the Explanatory Notes are wrong; they just happen to contradict the Minister.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I would, of course, always say that I am right, would I not? In that sense, they are wrong.

The noble and learned Lord made the point about needing to invest in people. I will give another gentle reminder about who was in power for the past 14 years.

Turning to the question of the unduly lenient scheme, I entirely agree with noble Lords that there is no point in having a right that nobody knows they have, and we plainly are not getting this right in terms of information. It needs to be more broadly known about. The question of whether 28 days is the appropriate period is one to which the Government are giving urgent consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, said that it should be made the same as for defendants. It is: they have 28 days. That is where the period came from: there is parity between the two. But that does not necessarily mean it must remain.

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

As the noble Baroness knows, the period for appeal is extendable in certain circumstances. That is quite an important provision.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

That is very rare. If you appeal out of time, you have pretty much had it. You need to have a really good reason to do so. I now turn to—

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

It would be my pleasure to hear from both my noble friend and the noble and learned Lord.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My noble friend is very gracious, but I fear there is a new trend which is not the practice of your Lordships’ House: to have an extended back and forth at Second Reading. I know this may be the practice of another place not far from here but, with all due respect to noble Lords and to my noble friend with her good humour and fortitude, I am not sure that that is something that we should innovate this evening.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I was only going to support the Minister. One of the differences between an appeal by a defendant in a criminal matter and the unduly lenient sentencing system is that anybody can write to the law officers to complain that a sentence is unduly lenient. Many of the people that the Minister and I may have dealt with in the past wrote in having read an article in a newspaper saying that a particular defendant had been given what they thought was a lenient sentence. Nobody does that to appeal a criminal sentence as a defendant.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord.

Turning to what is not in the Bill, I of course recall that the Crime and Policing Bill—the Ministry of Justice has some of the clauses in relation to that—has been extensively criticised for being too long. This Bill is now being criticised for being too short—so there is a slight sense of being criticised whichever way we do it.

I will deal with some of the matters that were raised in relation to this. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked whether we intend to bring in the sections in the Victims and Prisoners Act dealing with definitions. I hope that I may write to her in relation to that, because some parts have been implemented and some others are planned to be implemented. I do not want to give her an answer that might turn out not to be entirely accurate.

On the question of homicide abroad, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we are conscious of this being an issue. As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, we are working on a code to give assistance to families abroad. The question of whether the victims’ code is going to apply is difficult, because many of the provisions in the victims’ code deal only with cases that can be prosecuted in this country and therefore would not apply. Again, it is a matter that we are considering and reflecting on and we will be very happy to engage with her and other noble Lords in relation to that.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, raised the question of compensation for economic crimes abroad, such as corruption. I entirely agree with him about the importance of not forgetting about the effect of these cases on other countries. In the circumstances, it might be best for me to suggest that we meet to discuss it, because it is an important matter to which I would like to give some serious thought.

Transcripts were raised by many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. Transparency is really important to the Government. That is one of the reasons we are now going to make the magistrates’ court a court of record: there will be recordings of all proceedings in order to shine a light on what is happening. If you are recording something, obviously your intention is that at some point it may need to be turned into a transcript. I am old enough to remember the days of the shorthand writer in court. The transcript used to be phenomenally expensive, because you had somebody sitting there typing it out and then it had to be ordered and checked. We are hopeful that artificial intelligence is going to help by bringing down the cost of transcripts: we are all familiar with dictating to our computers these days, so the costs may be in checking rather than actually transcribing.

In the meantime, as far as the victims of rape and serious sexual offences are concerned, the transcripts of those sentencing remarks are free to victims in those cases. We conducted a pilot and, following that, those transcripts will be available free of charge to victims.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, raised the question of victim personal statements, and said that there are anxieties about censorship. This is a tricky one, because as the noble Lord will know, sometimes victims misunderstand the purpose of a victim personal statement and do not quite understand why they cannot include a number of things in it. Again, this is important to us. No victim should feel that their words have been censored. They should be able to say what they want to say—we are going to think about that one.

I turn finally to the issue of backlog and delay. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti raised the question of a rumour about what is to happen to the proposals in the review conducted by Sir Brian Leveson. I think that it could be seen from the expression on my face that it was the first time I had heard of that rumour. Our intention is that proper consideration be given to the important matter of how we deal with the backlog and delay. Speaking for myself, I want to persuade people and take them with us where we can do so. These matters are to be discussed, and I hope that people will listen to each other. Nobody thinks that the status quo is acceptable; the question is how we deal with it. The Government are proposing a package of measures, one aspect of which, as noble Lords know, is the suggestion of slightly moving the line, as other Governments have in the past. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I do not engage in this and debate it today. I am absolutely confident that there will be other opportunities to do so.

This Bill will help strengthen our justice system. It used to be, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, that victims were treated as mere witnesses and had very little by way of rights. That is no longer the case. This Bill continues the journey of putting them where they should be, at the heart of the justice system. I beg to move.

Bill read a second time.

Moved by

[Baroness Levitt]

That the bill be committed to a Grand Committee, and that it be an instruction to the Grand Committee that they consider the bill in the following order:

Clauses 1 to 3, Schedule 1, Clauses 4 to 7, Schedule 2, Clauses 8 to 18, Title.

Motion agreed.

Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for the way in which he has explained these amendments. I am also extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for injecting a note of caution and to my noble friend Lady Hamwee for injecting a note of questioning about the proposed amendments.

In their explanatory statement, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, state that the amendments in this group probe

“the rationale behind restricting the power to order offenders to attend a sentencing hearing to only the Crown Courts”.

The noble and learned Lord explained why he suggests that there is no difference, for the purpose of this power, between the Crown Courts and the magistrates’ courts.

I should make it clear that we on these Benches start from the position that defendants should be obliged to attend court for their sentencing hearings. But the fact that they are obliged to attend court does not lead to the conclusion that the courts ought to have the power to get them to court however much they wish to resist.

It is, of course, important from the victims’ point of view—this is a point that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, made—that the defendants who have committed offences against them are in court for the occasion when they are brought to justice. It is appropriate, therefore, that in the right cases, the court should have the power to order them to do so.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, pointed out what a serious power this is. It is particularly a serious power, as I will come to say, because the use of force is sanctioned to get defendants to court. We have heard tell, in the press and in the House of Commons, from some of the wilder speeches—if I may put it that way—of, in effect, the court having the power to order that offenders be brought to court by considerable force and in chains. I am quite clear that that is not the way the Bill puts it; it puts it in terms of the use of force being reasonable, proportionate and appropriate. Nevertheless, it is a very serious power.

It is also important from the offenders’ point of view that they should come to court, first, to hear what the court says about their offences as well as what their counsel and the prosecution say about their offences. It is also important because their attending court and listening, hopefully with some care, to what goes on at their sentencing hearing may be taken as a sign of their understanding of the import of the hearing. If an order is made, the breach of such an order to attend court for a sentencing hearing is a sign of a lack of remorse on the part of the defendant. A lack of remorse will usually involve a court treating a defendant more severely than it might treat a defendant who does show remorse for the offences that they have committed and an understanding of the impact of those offences on the victims.

The scheme of this Bill is to bring in a very strong regime of compulsion with a specific incorporation of provisions about contempt of court and significantly, as I adumbrated, about the right to use force to bring defendants to court who are unwilling and refuse to attend their sentencing hearings. The conditions for the new regime, as set out in the Bill, are that the defendant has been convicted and is in custody awaiting sentencing by the Crown Court. That brings into play the kind of reservation that the noble and learned Lord spoke about. This new regime is designed to deal with serious offences. A third condition is that the offender has refused or is likely to refuse to attend the sentencing hearing.

It follows that the code for punishment for contempt should be confined to adult offenders. The amendments seek to make this procedure and all its features applicable to a wider group of offenders, and to magistrates’ courts as well as Crown Courts. I ask the Minister and the noble and learned Lord when they close how far a change to include magistrates’ courts will help victims. One can see how it is justified and might help victims in serious cases, but I question how far the use of force will ever be in the public interest. One must question the purpose of the use of force. It could be twofold. It could be to force offenders to face up to their offences and help them to avoid reoffending. It could be to help the victims by letting them see that those who have committed offences against them are being brought to justice. There may be force in that.

However, there is also a risk, which may be important, of forced attendance becoming a means for defendants to get publicity for themselves, their offences and their resistance to justice: to portray themselves as public martyrs and, in some cases, to make political gestures that could be thoroughly undesirable. If these orders became the norm, those dangers would be real. If it is to have a positive effect, this power is likely to be much more effective for serious cases in the Crown Court than it is for cases in the magistrates’ court. Of course we take the point that the scope of hearings in magistrates’ courts has been increased over what it was before the distinction was changed. Nevertheless, I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s response on the distinction. Our position at the moment is that the distinction is plainly justified.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, this group of amendments in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, explores the reasons for limiting this power to the Crown Court.

Before I begin, I am sure that the whole Committee will wish to join me in paying tribute to the families of Jan Mustafa, Henriett Szucs, Sabina Nessa, Zara Aleena, and Olivia Pratt-Korbel—whose mother and aunt sit below the Bar today. Their tireless campaigning has brought about this change. They have persuaded the Government that when a cowardly offender refuses to attend court, it causes anger and upset, which can feel like a final insult to victims and their families, who have sat through the trial waiting for the moment when they can tell the world—and, importantly, the offender—about the impact their crimes have had. Many of them want the opportunity to look the offender in the eye as he or she hears about the effects of what they have done.

Offenders are expected to attend court for sentence, and the overwhelming majority do so. Because magistrates’ courts hear less serious cases, offenders are more likely to be on bail, and where an offender is on bail, the courts have powers to compel attendance by issuing a warrant. When a warrant is issued, the defendant is brought before the court in custody for the warrant to be executed, and the judge can add an additional sentence for the offence of failing to surrender to bail, which will appear on their record in future.

However, in the Crown Court, which deals only with the top level of serious crime, offenders are much more often remanded in custody, and so court powers to get them physically into court are more restricted. That is why the Government have acted by bringing forward this legislation which gives three powers that can be used in relation to recalcitrant—that is the right word, as used by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—offenders: first, authorising the use of reasonable force, except in the case of children, because we are a civilised country, and this Government do not believe in using force on children; secondly, for offenders who still refuse to attend, or for those who are disruptive once they are there, the power to add an additional sentence; and, thirdly, the power to impose the same kinds of prison sanctions as a prison governor can impose.

However, getting an unwilling and often disruptive offender to court is by no means straightforward, and it inevitably causes a delay to the sentencing hearing for the following reasons. At the outset, the judge will have to hear submissions from prosecution and defence counsel, as well as possibly from the prison and escort staff, as to whether the offender has a reasonable excuse for non-attendance and, if not, whether to exercise these new statutory powers. Then the judge will need to give a ruling, giving reasons as to why, in the circumstances of that particular case, it would be necessary, reasonable and proportionate to use reasonable force to get the offender to court.

Then the prison and transport staff will have to go and get the prisoner from the place, whether it is a prison or a court cell, which they are refusing to leave. The prison and transport staff will then have to use their judgment as to how best to execute the judge’s ruling, including what degree of force to use. Finally, if the offender is forced into court and is then disruptive, this is likely to cause more delay while the judge decides what to do next.

There is probably one thing we can all agree on: the criminal courts do not need any additional delays. Judges will need to weigh up carefully whether and when to use their new powers. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, raised the question of the inherent powers that courts already have. Both the Crown Court and magistrates’ courts have inherent powers to deal with a non-attendance as a contempt of court, but these are used sparingly because, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, pointed out very powerfully, it is far from straightforward.

For these reasons, the Government’s view is that this new legislation is appropriately restricted to Crown Court sentencing. It represents a reasonable and proportionate response to the problem, because it is the Crown Court where these powers are needed. Operational arrangements are already in place for producing the most serious and violent offenders at the Crown Court, managing the risks that that involves and, where necessary, using proportionate force. So, for these reasons, we consider that expanding the power to magistrates’ courts might create legal and operational uncertainty and unnecessary delay to court proceedings. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions to the debate, and indeed the observations with regard to the timing of any extension of these powers.

I would observe, with respect to the submissions made by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that if these provisions help victims in the Crown Court, it is not clear why they would not help victims in magistrates’ courts.

The Minister talked at length of the difficulty of implementation with regard to these provisions, but that would apply equally in the Crown Court and the magistrates’ courts. Indeed, the appearance of serious offenders in the magistrates’ courts will of course be an immediate development with the changes under the Sentencing Act, which extend the sentencing powers of magistrates to three years.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 3, 4, 8 and 9, once again in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seek to give a victim or a bereaved family a defined role in the process of ordering someone to attend their sentencing hearing.

Victims have been at the forefront of this measure. It is precisely because an offender’s refusal to attend sentencing can compound the trauma for victims that we are giving judges an express power to order attendance, building on the judge’s existing common-law powers. Whether to order attendance must remain a judicial assessment of what is in the interests of justice. It will be made case by case, with the judge retaining the ultimate discretion having considered all the circumstances.

As I said when responding to the previous group, we anticipate that judges who are considering making an attendance order will hear submissions from both prosecution and defence. Prosecuting counsel will inevitably be expected to advance the views of the victim and the family, having sought them beforehand and having asked them; I can tell the Committee from my own experience that if they have not spoken to the victim or the victim’s family, the judge is likely to tell them to go away and do so—so it happens now. If there is no victim personal statement, the judge will, in my experience, inevitably say, “Why isn’t there one? Does the victim want to make one?” I can tell the Committee, again from my own experience, that the views of victims and their families are given great weight by the judge.

That said, we are anxious not to create unrealistic expectations in the minds of victims or their families that they would have the right to require the offender’s attendance at court. That could lead to some difficult experiences for victims and their families. What if, for example, the judge were to find that the offender had a reasonable excuse for non-attendance but the family of the victim disagreed? Plainly, the judge’s decision would have to prevail, but at what cost to the family if they had believed that they had the right to require attendance? We do not want to make sentencing hearings any more stressful or distressing for victims than they already are.

Judges must have the discretion to do what is right based on the facts in front of them and the submissions that they hear. There will be cases where it is not in the best interests of victims or families for the offender to be in court, including the occasions—thankfully rare—when the offender is likely to be disruptive or disrespectful and cause further distress.

To place a statutory duty on the court to consult a victim whenever an order is not made risks creating additional delay at the point of sentence. What, for example, if the victim’s family have chosen not to attend court, yet there is a mandatory statutory duty upon the judge to find out and consult them? As I have already said, the one thing that the Crown Courts do not need is any additional delay. In addition, such a statutory requirement risks placing an additional unnecessary emotional burden on victims and families.

The Bill preserves judicial discretion. We expect judges to take account of all relevant circumstances, including victims’ interests, and we are confident that they will do so because that is what they already do. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who contributed to this short but thoughtful debate, particularly the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. This debate has underlined how crucial these provisions are to the overall purpose of the Bill, why they warrant close attention and the balance that may have to be struck. We must, of course, get this right.

The Bill was brought forward with the express purpose of strengthening victims’ rights and improving their experience of the criminal justice system. But, as drafted, if we are not careful, victims will remain on the sidelines of a key decision-making process: whether an order should be made to compel an offender to attend their sentencing hearing. If the Bill does not allow victims to make explicit requests for compelled attendance then it will fall short of its own purpose and logic.

Notwithstanding the Minister’s assurance as to what happens in practice so far as the CPS is concerned—or happened when she was sitting in the Crown Court—surely it should be made obligatory for the CPS to ask the victim whether they wish the defendant to be compelled to attend and, if in receipt of a positive answer, to pass that view to the court. It will then be for the judge.

The current position is that judges have discretion to use their powers to compel attendance, even without a request from the prosecution, but we suggest that it is not clear when judges would exercise that power. We look to Ministers to confirm that—whether from them or, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has pressed for, from the judiciary—there should be guidance as to the exercise of the powers. We would also be grateful if the Minister would outline the reasoning behind why these orders are not automatic in the event of non-attendance and when reasonable force can be safely administered.

Our amendments offer a simple and straightforward improvement. They would have ensured that victims could make such requests and are consulted where the court is minded not to make a compulsory order, regardless of whether they had made the request. Sentencing hearings are often the final opportunity for victims to be heard and to feel that they are heard, so why would we deprive them of a say in decisions that directly shape that experience? Victims’ voices must be embedded in the process; they should not be treated as merely passive observers.

We have also observed that where a victim has died or is incapacitated, the system must not simply move on without them. Family members or appropriate representatives should be consulted in their place. We hope the Minister will carefully reflect on the points raised today to help fulfil the Bill’s stated purpose and fill what I am sure are unintentional gaps in its drafting. We look forward to hearing how the Government intend to move forward in due course but, for the moment, we will not press these amendments.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by reassuring your Lordships’ House that an attendance order can be made in respect of all offenders, including children. Most children are not tried in the Crown Court; they are tried in the youth court, even for serious offences. It is very rare for children of this age to appear in the Crown Court. If they do, an attendance order for their sentencing hearing can be made. The only difference is that force will not be used to get those children to court. The reason is that current operational policy, informed by the Taylor review of 2020, restricts the use of force on children. Domestic policy is also informed by the UK Government’s signatory status to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We have committed to complying with its duties under the convention. During the debate a week ago in your Lordships’ House on the age of criminal responsibility, I said that this Government recognise that children in the youth justice system can be some of our most vulnerable citizens. Many of them are themselves victims of neglect and abuse, at the very least, and there is a disproportionate occurrence of special educational needs and neurodivergence in this cohort.

While we acknowledge that some children have committed very serious crimes for which they must be punished, this Government do not treat them merely as small adults. We have devised a separate but related regime for them. Where a child fails to attend court, or is disruptive once there, that may be treated as a contempt of court, but the maximum penalty is a fine, with the court taking into account limited means and making relevant arrangements for younger children. Lowering the threshold from 18 to 16 would cut across that safeguarding architecture. The Government’s view is that the strongest coercive path should be reserved for adults, where the legal, operational and ethical framework properly supports their use. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendments.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their measured observations on these proposed amendments. There is broad agreement across the House that attendance at sentencing is about accountability, about dignity for victims and about respect for the court. Refusal to attend sentencing has rightly been described by Ministers as a final insult to victims and families. The question before the House, then, is not whether the principle is right but to whom it should be applied.

These provisions are about ensuring that offenders confront the consequences of their actions, allowing victims to see justice done and hear sentencing remarks. They also uphold the authority and integrity of the court.

We are dealing with a situation in which 16 and 17 year-olds find themselves prosecuted in the Crown Court for serious offences, including murder, in respect of which they receive long custodial sentences. A 16 year-old can be convicted of murder or serious violence; that same 16 year-old would face no statutory obligation to attend their own sentencing hearing. Accountability cannot logically begin at conviction, however, and then disappear at sentencing. From a victim’s perspective, the same harm emerges regardless of whether an offender is 16, 17 or 18 years of age. The distress caused when an offender refuses to attend sentencing does not diminish by virtue of their age.

There is also the wider policy context that I mentioned before, which is that we now treat 16 year-olds, in essence, as adults in respect both of the proposal that they should be able to vote and of the fact that they can marry and can join the Armed Forces, and in respect of their wider social and political autonomy.

These amendments do not impact on the youth justice system. They do not remove judicial discretion. The courts will always retain discretion and take account of the welfare, capacity and safeguarding of 16 year-olds. In these circumstances, it respectfully appears to us that this proposal does not undermine Clauses 1 and 2, but rather seeks to strengthen them for the benefit of victims: someone whose conduct is serious enough to warrant Crown Court sentencing should not be shielded from accountability at the point of sentencing. But, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government understand that the aim of this group of amendments is to ensure that the children, who are at the heart of these cases, are protected. We share that objective, but these amendments may cause more problems than they are intended to solve. The amendments are all intended to be made to legislation, either proposed or already enacted, which deals with slightly different situations—convictions for certain serious sexual offences, children conceived as a result of rape and where one parent has been convicted of the murder of the other. However, all these pieces of proposed or enacted legislation have one thing in common. They are not intended to be additional punishments or to replicate—far less, replace—the experience and expertise of the family court. They are intended to protect children who are caught up in these very serious situations as quickly as possible.

In each of these three situations, the Government have identified issues in which the crime for which the relevant person has been sentenced is so serious, with them usually serving a long prison sentence, that it is relatively straightforward to conclude that a prohibited steps order will be in the best interests of the child. These proposals allow the Crown Court judge automatically to restrict the exercise of parental responsibility at the time of sentence. At the moment, following sentence the remaining parent must apply to the family court to do the same thing, but this inevitably takes time and causes distress.

It is known that some perpetrators use their parental responsibility to continue to exercise control, even though they are behind bars. In relation to a parent serving a life sentence for the murder of the other parent, it is axiomatic that there will be no other parent to make the application. What this legislation does not do is automatically restrict the exercise of parental responsibility in all cases forever. The defendant who has had it restricted can apply to the family court to have it restored. It does put the onus on them to do so. These provisions merely provide a quick and convenient method of protecting children and victims. However, restricting the exercise of parental responsibility is an extremely serious thing to do. For this reason, the Government must give serious consideration to how to balance the competing principles that are involved.

Against this background, I turn to Amendments 13, 14, 15, 19, 22 and 27, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie. They seek to broaden the offences that are within the scope of this measure and reduce the minimum sentencing threshold from four years. The Government believe that any individual who poses a serious risk to children should not be able to exercise their parental responsibility. For the avoidance of doubt, I make it clear that the Government’s view is that parents do not have rights. The only rights are those of the child.

However, to create a power allowing the automatic restriction at the point of sentence, we must be sure that to do so would be in the best interest of the child. That is why we have set the threshold at sentences of four years’ imprisonment. In our judgment, if the behaviour of the defendant is sufficiently serious to warrant a sentence of four years or more, it is safe to assume that it would be right to restrict the exercise of parental responsibility. We have set it at four years because this is already a threshold for seriousness used for other purposes in criminal sentencing. For certain offences, including sexual offences, an offender who is sentenced to four or more years serves two-thirds rather than a half of their sentence in prison. It already recognises the particular seriousness.

This pre-existing legislative provision is why we have chosen four years as the indicator of seriousness. If we were to lower the four-year threshold, we could risk moving away from where we can be sure that restricting the exercise of parental responsibility will always be in the best interests of a child into territory where it is less clear. Equally, we must ensure that these measures are not in contravention of a person’s human rights. In particular, we need to ensure that any interference with a person’s right to private and family life under Article 8 of the European convention is a justifiable and proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim. We have set the threshold at four years for serious child sexual offences as we are of the view that, given the risk of harm to children, this intervention is justified.

That is not to say that the parental responsibility of offenders who have committed sexual offences, whether against their own child or someone else’s, but have received a sentence of less than four years, cannot be restricted. In those cases, an application can still be made to the family court, which is best placed to consider all circumstances, including what is in the best interests of the child.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised a number of issues about shortcomings in the family court. With the greatest of respect to her, this is perhaps not the time and place to expand on those, though they are of course serious points. As I think the noble Baroness knows, I have responsibility for family justice policy within my department, so these are issues that perhaps she and I can discuss on another occasion.

When we met, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, asked about appeals, and it has been raised again today. I promised him a reply. In cases where there is a successful appeal and an offender is acquitted or the sentence is reduced below four years, the Bill provides a clear process for the review of the prohibited steps order. The relevant local authority will be under a duty to make an application within a very short time to the family court, so that the family court can consider, exercising its expertise and experience, whether the prohibited steps order imposed by the Crown Court should be varied or discharged.

I turn now to Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston. The offence of having sexual communications with a child carries a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment, so this could not be added to the list unless the requirement of a four-year minimum sentence were removed.

I turn now to Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, put her name and has spoken. This would expand Jade’s law, which provides for the automatic restriction of the exercise of parental responsibility in cases where one parent kills the other. The noble Lord and the noble Baroness wish to amend the legislation so that it includes cases of attempted murder. I am grateful for being told that that was at the suggestion of the Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, for whom I have the utmost respect.

I entirely recognise that, in order to be convicted of attempted murder, what the defendant has done will have been truly horrific—after all, a defendant can be convicted of this only if they had the intention actually to kill—and nothing I say is intended to minimise that. But I repeat what I said earlier. The automatic restriction of the exercise of parental responsibility is not intended to punish the defendant, far less to act as a mark of societal disapproval. It is about children. I repeat that Parliament must be satisfied that restricting the exercise of parental responsibility will be in a child’s best interests.

The sad but determining factor in these killing cases is that the child is going to have only one parent left, and that parent will usually be serving a life sentence. There is no other comparable situation. Where the defendant did not succeed in murdering the other parent, although they intended to do so, they will usually be serving a long sentence, but there will be a surviving parent. In most cases, the surviving parent will be able to make an application to the family court if one is felt necessary. This lessens the need for an automatic referral to the family court.

It would also be difficult to justify why, if attempted murder were included, other serious criminal offences such as Section 18 wounding, which also carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, were not. Your Lordships should also be aware that adding a further measure into Jade’s law at this point will risk delaying its implementation, which has already taken a lot longer than the Government would have wished.

I have been asked for the reasons for that, and I will give them as quickly as I am able to. It is a complicated situation, but this is a unique piece of legislation. There is no existing process that we can import or learn from. There has been significant engagement with various partners that will be involved in the delivery of Jade’s law: local authorities; the Crown Prosecution Service; the National Police Chiefs’ Council; and His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service. The Government also have to make changes to criminal and family procedure rules, and we also have to develop broader guidance for practitioners and families. But we are on it. We must bring Jade’s law into force as soon as possible to protect the children who need it most. We must be cautious about doing anything at this stage that could extend this process.

As with the measures we are bringing in through this Bill, officials are developing a robust system to measure how Jade’s law works in practice. We want to understand how it works in practice, and from there we can properly consider whether other changes can be made to it. For all these reasons, I invite your Lordships not to press these amendments.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

If I understood my noble friend correctly, the protected steps order can be made only if Clause 3 is activated, and there is no discretion in the Crown Court to make a prohibited steps order in other circumstances, particularly where the offence did not, as drafted, carry a four-year imprisonment. In fact, I think my noble friend then said that parents can apply to the family court for the protected steps order. I find that rather awkward. Surely, when the Crown Court has all the facts in front of it and is in a position, therefore, to make a prohibited steps order, it should do so because it has the necessary knowledge. Of course, the prohibited steps order could be adjusted in a separate application to the family court.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The short answer to my noble friend’s question is that he is right: there is no discretion. The reason that there is no discretion is because, in fact, the Crown Court is the one court that does not have all the experience and all the knowledge—it will not have Cafcass reports or anything like that. It is simply making an automatic order when there is a certain level of seriousness that has been reached. It is for the family court to consider all the important factors in other cases about whether such an order is in the interests of the child. The Crown Court judge does not have the expertise, and it will cause delay. I have said it once before today—I may have already said it twice—the one thing the criminal courts do not need is any further delays.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lords who have spoken during this debate. As I said right at the start, we are looking at the entire spectrum of time as to where the responsibility for imposing these orders should start and stop, and that is anywhere between any child sexual offence and a sentence of four years.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, for his comments about parental rights and responsibilities. I absolutely understand that. I am sure he also understands that, to the other parent, it often feels as though the convicted parent has more rights than their children. That is where the problems lie, and that is why there is such passion about this among those parents who are trying to make sure that their children are protected. I am also grateful to him for highlighting the data. It is important for us to remember that around 1,000 children might possibly be at risk if this goes wrong.

Just before I respond to the Minister, I want to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. Yes, the court system is starved of resources. I want to go further than he does. It is not just about looking at resources; it is about a clear plan to increase resources and ensure that duplication and anything else does not happen. But we know the court system is under real pressure, and I say to the Minister that I recognise, in the amendment that I have table, that the last thing that we would want to do is to impose further burdens on an already difficult area.

I completely understand that the Government have to balance their competing restrictions. The problem is that those of us who have tabled amendments say that four years is not the safety net that the Minister alluded to; it is too high. I wondered whether there might be any way to provide guidance to the family court that asks it to look very clearly at any child sexual offence, even if it is not a four-year sentence, so that the Crown Court is not burdened with the responsibilities of looking at it in the way that the family court would.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions that have been made. I shall begin with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, in his amendments, which seek to clarify what is meant by, for example, the “relevant local authority” in this Bill, as well as to put extra provisions in place concerning parental responsibility. We support the aim behind Amendment 17 that others with parental responsibility for the child in question are properly and, indeed, promptly informed if a prohibited steps order is made against an offender. These are clearly well-intentioned amendments that highlight that certain aspects of the Bill need to be thought through a little more carefully and clarified. I hope that the Minister will provide assurances about how that can be achieved.

I also thank my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth for bringing forward his amendments, which would allow the Crime Court to take into account not only the interests of justice but the best interests of the child when deciding whether to make a prohibited steps order. On these amendments, we are not at this stage able to adopt a settled position. That is not because the underlying principle is unsound, but because further clarification is required from the Minister. As drafted, one of the exemptions to the making of a prohibited steps order is where it would not be in the interests of justice to do so, but that, as has been observed, is a broad and somewhat opaque formulation. We would be grateful if the Minister could explain what circumstances the Government envisage falling within that exemption. In particular, can the Minister offer examples of cases in which it would genuinely be in the interests of justice for a child to remain under the parental responsibility of an individual convicted of a serious sexual offence and sentenced to more than four years’ imprisonment?

These amendments would add an explicit reference to the best interests of the child. That is a familiar concept in family law, but its interaction with the existing exemption is not at all clear. I invite the Minister to clarify whether the Government consider that the child’s best interests are already subsumed within the interests of justice, or whether this amendment would materially alter the test applied by the court.

Amendments 18, 20, 24, 30, 31 and 32 in my name reflect our concerns about the drafting of Clauses 3 and 4. As drafted, both clauses state that a prohibited steps order against an offender that restricts their parental responsibility will not immediately cease to have effect if an offender is acquitted on appeal. Instead, both clauses include sections that set out a review process whereby the relevant local authority must make an application to the court for the acquitted offender. That is hardly consistent with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, referred to as a short, speedy and summary order in circumstances where there is a successful appeal.

The clauses as drafted unnecessarily complicate and confuse the issue. The law should be clear that an acquittal brings the prohibited steps order to an end. People who are found to be not guilty of an offence should not have their parental responsibility, or indeed any other rights, restricted, even on a temporary basis. That principle is straightforward and our amendments seek only to ensure that the legislation reflects that clarity. I hope that will have the support of the House, and I urge the Minister to reconsider and simplify the drafting of Clauses 3 and 4. There is no compelling reason why these review orders should be left in place for innocent citizens and then be the subject of applications by a local authority on their behalf to another division of the court.

Amendment 18 is tabled to affirm our support for the provision of Clause 3 that, where an offender only has their sentence reduced, a prohibited steps order should continue to apply. We on these Benches already have reservations over why an offender’s length of imprisonment or detention must be four years or more for parental responsibility to be restricted. I note that the amendment made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, refers to a period of six months rather than four years. Clearly, there is scope for consideration as to where the line might be drawn as a matter of policy. If a sentence of four years is reduced on appeal, we do not believe that this should result in a prohibited steps order ceasing to have effect. It is quite unlike the situation where there is an acquittal on appeal. Such an outcome could create significant uncertainty for the child for whom the offender previously had parental responsibility. Crucially, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the offender remains guilty of a serious sexual offence against the child regardless of any adjustment in the sentence. An increased risk to the child’s safety or well-being could well emerge from such a situation.

There is also the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, about what happens in circumstances where a sentence is increased under the unduly lenient sentencing scheme. I invite the Government to address that point because clearly it has not been considered in the context of the present drafting of Clauses 3 and 4. For these reasons, I hope the Government will take all these amendments very seriously and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by repeating what I said in the debate about an earlier group. A prohibited steps order is not intended to be an additional punishment; rather, it is a tool devised to protect children. The aim of keeping the child safe and doing what is best for them is the central factor in every case. As I have already said, these powers are not intended to replicate, far less replace, the powers of the family court. Crown Court judges are simply not trained to make decisions about children, and they do not have the time to do so. The point has been made most powerfully by both the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. To ask the Crown Court to replicate the procedures of the family court could lead only to more time being needed to consider every case. As I have now said on at least three occasions today, the one thing the Crown Courts do not need is for cases to take longer.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Jade’s law was brought in specifically to prevent victims having to immediately go to the family courts. Why have things changed since that principle emerged in the Victims and Prisoners Act?

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[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

As far as the Jade’s law situation is concerned, it remains the case that it will be dealt with automatically.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

If the principle stands, why is that not also true when an offender has committed a sexual offence of a certain bar?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

We might be slightly at cross-purposes here. The question is whether the Crown Courts have the ability to consider what is in the best interests of the child rather than automatically making the order when the threshold is reached. That is the difference. As I say, the point has been made most powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. The Crown Court is simply not equipped to go that extra mile of starting to look at things like reports from experts as to what is in the best interests of the child.

I turn to Amendments 18, 20, 24, 30, 31 and 32 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. The aim of these is to ensure that a prohibited steps order made under Clauses 3 or 4 would cease to have an effect if the offender was acquitted on appeal. I repeat what I have said. This is not a punishment; it is designed to protect the child. The measures require that, following an acquittal, the relevant local authority must, in very short order, bring an application before the family court to consider whether the prohibited steps order should be upheld, varied or discharged. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned an innocent parent. This is not about the rights of parents; it is about the rights of children and protecting them. It is not a punishment and therefore it is not something that should be automatically swept away on acquittal.

We recognise the need for a quick resolution in these situations, which is why both clauses state that the application must be made by the local authority within 30 days of the acquittal. This process brings the consideration of the child’s best interests and their potentially very complex family dynamics to the correct forum, which is the family court. It will mean that in every case a judge will undertake a review of all the circumstances, including whether the original prohibited steps order has already been varied by the family court while the appeal was under consideration, or whether other related orders are in place, before deciding what should happen in the best interests of the child. The family court is the right place for this to happen because that puts the interests of the child front and centre, where they should be.

I turn to Amendments 17, 21, 23, 26 and 29 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Murray of Blidworth and Lord Meston. I think we can all agree that it is vital to have clear processes for identifying the offender’s children, notifying other parental responsibility holders of a prohibited steps order, and making the victims of a rape aware when the court has made an automatic order, but the Government’s view is that primary legislation is not the best way of doing this. These matters are better suited to being addressed in guidance, where we can work closely with those responsible for delivering it to ensure that we have a process that works in practice. We do not want a system that ties practitioners to an approach that cannot evolve with their own processes and where every time we want to make a change we have to come back and amend the primary legislation.

By way of example, we are not using primary legislation to prescribe the processes as we are working to implement Jade’s law. Instead, work is taking place across government—I ran through some of the things that we are doing earlier in relation to the previous debate—and with partners to develop a process that is clear and practical and that delivers the spirit of the aims of the amendment. In the case of these provisions, we will ensure that all relevant parties, including all other parental responsibility holders, are kept informed at each stage. We will take lessons from Jade’s law when this is implemented and, where possible, work with our partners to apply the same processes here. This will allow for consistency across all legislation in this space, rather than multiple processes for the same aim, which could lead to confusion and inconsistency in application. I warmly invite your Lordships to work with the Government to make sure that we get this right. I am more than happy to meet any of your Lordships who would like to discuss those matters with me, both in my capacity as Lords Minister and as Minister responsible for family justice policy.

In relation to identifying the children of offenders, this Government have separately committed to developing a mechanism to identify children who are affected by parental imprisonment to make it easier to provide support to them. I can assure your Lordships that the Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we can best identify all children affected and ensure that they get support to enable them to thrive, but to legislate only for children in the scope of this measure risks distracting from the broader work intended to support all children.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 35, standing in both my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, would insert a new clause into the Bill to extend the safeguarding framework in Clause 3 beyond serious sexual offending so that it also applied to those convicted of the most serious child cruelty offences. In effect, it would mirror Clause 3.

Before I address the amendment in detail, I want to place on record my thanks to Helen Grant, Member of Parliament, for her tireless work on this issue. Over a number of years and across several Bills, she has consistently drawn Parliament’s attention to a clear and troubling gap in our safeguarding framework—that is, the absence of a coherent, systematic response to the most serious forms of child cruelty. Her campaigns for a child cruelty register and her persistence in ensuring that these issues remain firmly on the parliamentary agenda are no doubt something that all noble Lords can both respect and support.

Clause 3 introduces an important and welcome provision for the protection of children. The logic is compelling: where conduct is so grave that it demonstrates a fundamental incompatibility with the exercise of parental responsibility, there should be an automatic safeguarding mechanism. Amendment 35 asks a simple but profound question: why should that logic apply only to sexual offences and not to other, most serious forms of child cruelty?

The new clause proposed by the amendment would mirror the architecture of Clause 3 in many ways. It would introduce a duty on the Crown Court to make a prohibited steps order where an offender with parental responsibility was convicted and sentenced for a defined list of serious child cruelty offences. The threshold for such offences would be a custodial sentence of two years or more. We suggest that that is an appropriate balance between protection and practicability.

These offences have been carefully selected and reflect those on Helen Grant’s proposed child cruelty register, for which the Government have previously expressed support. They embrace serious crimes such as causing or allowing the death or serious harm of a child, child cruelty and neglect, infanticide, certain offences under the Offences Against the Person Act where the victim is a child, and offences relating to female genital mutilation, FGM. During the Crime and Policing Bill, the noble Baroness said,

“Ministers will continue to pursue this issue with vigour”.—[Official Report, 20/1/26; col. 250.].

The offences set out in this amendment strike at the very heart of a child’s safety and well-being. It is only right that a prohibited steps order be imposed.

If the Government truly believe in acting to prevent child cruelty, then to reject this amendment would be to defend an inconsistency in the current framework which we say is difficult to justify. A parent convicted of a serious sexual offence might automatically be prevented from exercising parental responsibility, while a parent convicted of causing severe physical harm or life-threatening neglect may not be. From the child’s perspective, that distinction is artificial. The harm is real, the risk is real and the need for safeguarding is just as acute. This amendment does not undermine family life unnecessarily. It does not sever parental responsibility permanently. It simply ensures that in the most serious cases, no steps may be taken by the offender without the oversight and consent of the family courts. They are best placed to make decisions concerning welfare and long-term outcomes. The amendment would bring coherence to the Bill and align it with the broader safeguarding principles that Parliament has repeatedly endorsed.

This amendment is motivated by a simple proposition. Children who have suffered the most serious forms of cruelty deserve the same automatic safeguarding protections as those who have suffered serious sexual abuse. I commend this amendment to the Committee and urge the Government to engage constructively with it, in the same spirit in which Clause 3 itself was conceived. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the automatic restriction of a person’s parental responsibility is a novel change to the law and must be done in a responsible and proportionate manner. The Government want to understand how these new measures operate in practice before we consider expanding the scope to other offences. We will carefully monitor how the provision operates once it is implemented and, as part of that implementation, officials will develop a system to help us understand the impact the measures are having, how the measures work in practice and how we can make improvements. For cases not in scope of the measure, whether that is because they fall outside the four-year threshold that has previously been debated or because they involve different crimes such as child cruelty, there are existing routes available in the family courts to restrict the exercise of parental responsibility. It is our evaluation that it is right that children are protected in that way while we evaluate the effect of the measures in the Bill. For these reasons I invite the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I find that an interesting reply. No reasons are given other than that this is novel. The provisions in Clause 3 are themselves novel, and all we ask is that where a serious offence of cruelty has been committed in respect of a child, that should be sufficient reason to adopt the same approach as that taken with sexual assault. What is the difference in practice for the child between being sexually assaulted and suffering cruelty? Having said that, we hear what is said and will engage with the Minister between now and Report, but we will wish to consider the position on Report.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has just used the phrase “common sense”, and I think that that is what is expected by people who are affected, who know that they could look to consular services for help if they have lost a passport, but not in such a difficult situation as this. I simply say—and this is not addressed to the noble Baroness but possibly to some of her colleagues—that over the period that we have discussed this issue, there has almost been a sense of, “That’s the Foreign Office, it’s not us”. If we could get this into the victims’ code, it might mean a duty on the FCDO to be prepared to be more effective, and actually to be more effective.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 36 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seeks to add agreements entered into by the National Crime Agency, the NCA, to the list of agreements in new subsection (7) that are exempt from the measure. Non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, should not be used to silence victims or cover up crime: I think we can all agree on that. New subsections (7) and (8) of Clause 6 provide that the provision will not apply to a narrow cohort of specified agreements, in the interests of national security.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for everything she said. Early on, she said that the problem is that the victims’ code is not always applicable abroad. Can she comment on proposed new subsection (2) in the amendment, which talks specifically about the Secretary of State by regulation issuing an appendix to the victims’ code, setting out how the code applies to these victims? It is understood, from our side, that it would be different.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this point. Our current position is that we do not believe that that is necessary, but I am happy to meet her and get her to try to persuade me why I am wrong and she is right—there is my challenge to the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Finlay.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

The FCDO has a duty of care and a responsibility for UK citizens when they are in whichever country. It does not seem too bizarre or extreme to hope that it would accept a degree of responsibility for the very small number of unfortunate victims who, for whatever reason, are unlawfully killed in the course of a year. For the FCDO to accept that that is part of its responsibility—a very small part, albeit an important one—and to prepare itself thoroughly enough to be able to fulfil that duty in a professional, proper and sensitive way in the unhappy event that it is required does not seem too much to ask.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Russell, puts it very persuasively and it is extremely tempting, particularly given that I do not speak for the FCDO, to say that it sounds utterly reasonable. However, I am sure he will understand why I cannot give that kind of commitment from the Dispatch Box, but I can commit to meeting and discussing this further.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

Forgive me for interrupting again on this issue. Can the Minister undertake to discuss with the FCDO the concept that each embassy or consulate has one named lead person for when it experiences managing one of these tragic situations, and that it is handed over to another named person when they leave? They could also come together as a group to provide support for, and learn from, each other, and compare where particular difficulties have occurred so that, over the years, the training can improve for each of these people. The worry at the moment is that these cases are so unusual in some places that it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for some of the staff.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Again, the noble Baroness puts it very persuasively and, listening to her now, it all seems to make total sense. If, as a Government, we are committed to supporting victims of crime and putting them front and centre, that does not stop at our borders. However, I do not think that I can give an answer today and it would not be right to do so. I will commit to meeting the noble Baroness and seeing whether I can find out from the FCDO at least what its approach would be to such a suggestion. If she would put it in writing to me I could then pass it on so that we can try to take matters further.

Amendment 47A, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeks to add victims of persistent but non-criminal anti-social behaviour to the definition of a victim, as set out in Section 1 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024. The Government agree that anti-social behaviour is a blight on our communities and its impact should never be underestimated. We have committed to provide better support and information to victims of anti-social behaviour and have taken significant steps to do so. This includes the measures in this Bill that will strengthen the Victims’ Commissioner’s powers to hold the agencies that support anti-social behaviour victims to account.

Where anti-social behaviour amounts to criminal conduct, such as criminal damage, victims will benefit from the rights and entitlements within the victims’ code. However, expanding the definition of a victim to bring those affected by non-criminal anti-social behaviour within the code would, in our view, not be appropriate, as it is not an effective or efficient response to this kind of the behaviour. For example, in our view, it would be neither appropriate nor necessary for a victim of a neighbour who is playing loud music on one occasion to be brought within the scope of the victims’ code. Doing so could create unrealistic expectations and divert attention and resources from those experiencing serious criminal harm, such as victims of child sexual abuse.

In our view, there are better routes available to help these victims, including the anti-social behaviour case review, which gives the victims of persistent behaviour the right to request a multi-agency review to secure a resolution. In the proposals for the new victims’ code, on which we are currently consulting, we have clarified what victims of criminal anti-social behaviour can expect from the code and provided information about the case review process. I would welcome your Lordships’ responses to the consultation to outline in detail what further provision would be required for these victims.

On Amendment 47B, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, my noble friend Lord Bach and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I begin by acknowledging the problems brought by our current inability reliably to identify the same victim or witness across the criminal justice system. We accept that this results in duplication of records, slows the flow of information and leads to inconsistent data across the agencies. In addition, this fragmentation places a significant administrative burden on staff, who must reconcile records manually and then chase the missing information. However, perhaps most importantly, it means that victims and witnesses are sometimes provided with conflicting information, which can cause confusion at best and serious distress at worst.

The Government are already working to address these issues through the cross-criminal justice system data improvement programme, jointly led by the Ministry of Justice and Home Office. This programme aims to strengthen data sharing across the criminal justice system and is actively exploring how individuals, including victims, can be more reliably recognised across agencies. We are clear that improvements to data sharing must be underpinned by robust safeguards to ensure personal data is handled lawfully, securely and proportionately, with a strong focus on minimising unnecessary circulation of sensitive information, which I know is a key concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

The Government are open to considering legislative options to improve data sharing, data quality and the use of unique identifiers where that is shown to be necessary and proportionate. However, introducing a statutory requirement at this stage, ahead of the completion of the work of the programme, could unintentionally constrain future design and implementation choices, before we are confident it would deliver the intended benefits for victims and the wider criminal justice system. For these reasons, the Government do not believe that primary legislation at this stage is the appropriate mechanism.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

For well over a decade, since the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, we have been discussing as a House a unique identifying number for children who may end up either in the health system or care system as well as schools. It has taken well over a decade—they are just about to use the NHS number as part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. I urge the Minister to have a look at this again; otherwise, we will be here for another 10 years, arguing the same point.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

This Government have not been in power over the whole of the last of the decade, and we are doing our best to look at it. I will certainly look at it and discuss it with her. We are simply saying that, at this stage, we do not think primary legislation is the right way of dealing with it.

Finally, I turn to Amendments 55, 56 and 57, in the names of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, who is not in his place, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. Before I do, let me say that I recently had the privilege of meeting with Emma Webber and with Julian Hendy of Hundred Families. They explained very clearly to me the issues as they see them, and it was a very moving experience. I pay tribute to their strength and honour the memories of those they have lost. Their experiences, along with the experiences of all victims of crime, must continue to guide us.

Part of the rationale for providing information to victims is to help them to feel safe and so they can plan for an offender’s eventual release or discharge. That is why the legislation requires that hospital managers provide victims with specified information where appropriate, regardless of any assessment by a hospital manager of the victim’s safety and well-being, because we acknowledge that the hospital manager’s assessment could well be different from the victim’s own assessment.

Where hospital managers receive a request for information from an eligible victim outwith the specified list within the Bill, they will consider whether it is necessary and proportionate to provid it, and this assessment can of course include considering the risk to the victim. Where there are specific concerns about a victim’s safety, there are other, more appropriate processes to be followed. It is important to note that this is not the primary purpose of the victim contact scheme.

Where a decision is made that it is not appropriate to provide some information, reasons can and should be provided wherever possible. However, these should reflect the victim’s communication preferences, and considerations about this would, in our view, be most appropriately set out in operational guidance, which would also provide the necessary flexibility to adjust requirements as we monitor practice.

We agree that victims should have a route for some recourse where information is not provided. There are existing complaint routes for all cohorts, and the Government consider that a more effective way of going about this would be to make sure hospital managers understand and fulfil their obligations to victims at the outset, rather than introducing additional bureaucracy. My officials are working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to consider routes by which to support hospital managers, including whether a joint departmental protocol, or via planned updates to the Mental Health Act code of practice—statutory guidance under the Mental Health Act 1983—might provide an appropriate vehicle.

In relation to all the amendments in this group and many of the others, we are listening and we want to get it right. We will continue to work with your Lordships and with victims’ groups, but for now I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this wide-ranging and thoughtful debate on the operation of the victim contact scheme and the wider support network for victims. The debate has demonstrated broad consensus on the principle that victims’ rights and access to information must keep pace with changes in sentencing policy and criminal justice practice. The question is not whether victim engagement matters but whether our current structures are fit for purpose in the systems we now operate.

Several amendments in the group had common concerns: gaps in coverage within the victims’ code and the victim contact scheme; lack of transparency, consistency and accountability in how information is provided; the risk that victims fall through the cracks; and the technical thresholds or institutional boundaries that exist. Taken together, these amendments seek to ensure that victim support is timely, trauma-informed, consistent and capable of scrutiny. The amendments also recognise that, among others, where the state chooses to sentence offenders in the community, it assumes a greater, not a lesser, responsibility to support victims. Victim engagement must be strengthened not weakened in a non-custodial sentencing landscape. I therefore urge the Government to consider carefully how victims are to be protected and informed under current policy. In the meantime, I seek leave to withdraw my amendment.

Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate and to the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Goudie, for bringing forward the amendments.

Amendment 38 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, proposes a new clause that seeks to place a duty on relevant authorities to commission support services for caregivers of victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence or exploitation. The amendment would ensure that those with responsibility for the victims are not overlooked by the system and have access to the appropriate support. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response as to how the amendment could be delivered and might function in practice.

Amendments 43 and 44 would introduce new clauses concerning restorative justice. These build on the provisions in the Bill, better to enable victims to explain the impact of a crime to the offender and to participate meaningfully in the justice process. Some victims engage with restorative justice services, but such engagement must be voluntary. Victims should not be placed under any pressure to engage further with the offender. None the less, there are findings showing that these services reduce the likelihood of offenders reoffending and can result in other social benefits, including delivering value for money. We on this side are interested to hear from the Minister how the Government will ensure that services such as these are used where it is thought they are likely to be beneficial.

Amendment 45 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, seeks to implement the recommendation of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee that victim navigators be rolled out nationally so that they are available in all cases. In response to that recommendation, the Government stated in December 2024 that they want to build on the research of the previous Government on how best to support victims. In addition, the Government said they had met the NGOs delivering the victim navigator programme to understand its impact and to explore options for expansion. We have also heard an authoritative and persuasive speech from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who obviously has real hands-on experience in this area. We should listen carefully to what he has to say, and I hope the Minister will speak to him and engage with him.

We look forward to hearing an update from the Minister on what further research has been undertaken and what conclusions the Government have reached since then. I reiterate my thanks to noble Lords for raising these important issues, all of which speak to the purpose of the Bill: to ensure that victims receive the support and services they deserve throughout their journey through the justice system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

I shall speak first to Amendment 38 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Hamwee. While entirely understanding the motivation for the amendment, the Government believe that it would be neither necessary nor helpful to place a statutory obligation on certain authorities to commission certain support services for this cohort. In a world of finite resources, that would prioritise provision to third parties.

I reassure the noble Baronesses that the parents and carers of victims of abuse and exploitation can already access support services. The funding that the Ministry of Justice provides to the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund and to police and crime commissioners can be, and is, used to commission specific support services for parents and carers.

Parents and carers will often access services that the victim themselves is accessing, particularly where the victim is a child. Parents and carers of victims of crime can also seek mental health support or other support through local services and the NHS. Having said this, I recognise that more can be done to support this cohort. As part of the violence against women and girls strategy, this Government has committed up to £50 million to transform support for victims of child sexual abuse through expanding the use of child houses. These are incredible places, as anybody who has had a chance to visit the one in London can tell you. They offer vital wraparound support to non-abusing parents and carers in one physical location. In addition, the Ministry of Justice has founded the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse to develop an online directory of support services for those affected by child sexual abuse. This can be easily navigated to identify services for parents and carers and other affected adults.

I turn now to Amendments 43 and 44 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton, Lady Jones and Lady Hamwee. This Government recognise the positive impact that restorative justice can have in appropriate cases and are very grateful to the restorative justice providers who continue to offer this important service. We agree that when delivered in the right circumstances restorative justice can improve victim satisfaction, reduce reoffending and bring benefits to victims, offenders and their communities. Under the current victims’ code, victims must be told about restorative justice services when reporting a crime, but we have been told that this may be too early—we are listening— and that is why under the new code consultation launched last week we are retaining this but have proposed an additional entitlement for the victim to be told about restorative justice again after an offender has been convicted. We look forward to engaging stakeholders during the code consultation.

Where services are available and victims and offenders are willing, referrals are already made, and that is supported through PCC-funded local services alongside our facilitation of restorative justice across prisons and probation. However, placing referral to restorative justice for all victims on a statutory footing, in our view, is neither necessary nor appropriate. Restorative justice self-evidently requires the consent and participation of both parties and the safety and welfare of those involved is paramount. Automatic referral is therefore not always suitable. For example, a victim of stalking who has fought tooth and nail to end all contact might understandably see the offer of restorative justice as, at best, insensitive and, at worst, a way in which the perpetrator in their case could continue their campaign.

The Government already monitor delivery. PCCs submit biannual reports as part of the MoJ grant management process, providing insight into victim support services, including restorative justice. Many PCC police and crime plans also set out clear commitments to supporting restorative justice. In our view, introducing a further national assessment would simply duplicate these existing measures. As we prepare for upcoming changes to the PCC commissioning model, we will explore changes to the delivery of victims’ funding, including restorative justice, to ensure that this is delivered in the best way in the future while avoiding unnecessary statutory requirements. For these reasons, I invite the noble Baroness to not to press her amendments.

I turn now to Amendment 45 in the name of my noble friend Lady Goudie and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. We value the excellent work delivered by Justice and Care through its victim navigator programme. This Government are committed to ensuring that victims of modern slavery and human trafficking are supported to help rebuild their lives and to engage with the criminal justice system to bring those who have exploited them to justice. We recognise the positive impact that tailored support can have on securing victim engagement, and that is why we have already put provision in place across a number of areas important for supporting prosecutions. Adult victims of modern slavery and human trafficking are already supported by the modern slavery victim care contacts in England and Wales. That is where they have access to a dedicated support worker who will support them to help access legal aid, legal advice and legal representation and assistance during criminal proceedings.

The Home Office is also in the process of procuring the new support for victims of modern slavery contract for adults. To support child victims of exploitation and modern slavery, the government-funded independent child trafficking guardian service provides specialist modern slavery support and advocacy, across two-thirds of local authorities in England and Wales, to child victims and professionals who work with them. This includes help for the child to navigate the complexities of the criminal justice system. An invitation to tender for the national contract, which covers all of England and Wales from 2027, is currently live. Because of the existing provision, the Government do not consider it necessary to enact an additional statutory requirement to fund independent victim navigators, as this would duplicate the support services they have already put in place. I hope that, in the light of this, my noble friend will feel able not to press her amendment.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I shall add a couple of very brief points. First, from my own experience, also nearly 20 years ago now when I was a victim of stalking, as were some of my colleagues, I found that the police encouraged me to make a victim statement, but we were advised quite specifically to talk not about what the stalker had done but solely about the effect on us of what he had done: in other words, to completely avoid making any comment about him or his actions. That was quite difficult. I was advised very heavily not to get involved and show how emotional many of us were as a result of his actions, and I chose not to do that at all.

However, I talked last week to Glenn Youens, the father of a four year-old who was killed. He and his family were asked if they wanted to do a victim impact statement, and the police advised them not to use certain language because the court had advised them not to. They were told that bluntness might upset the perpetrator, they could not call him a child killer; they were not allowed any props in court, such as their daughter’s teddy bear; and the CPS advised them not to appeal the unduly lenient sentence, because it might actually make the Attorney-General get less for him in the long run. So, this particular family’s experience of making a statement was the exact opposite of what it was intended to be. While I have some sympathy with some elements of the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, I think I am more with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, on the grounds that we would have to design it so carefully to make sure that a victim is doing it willingly and that they are able to say what they want without jeopardising the court process. I am afraid that that would also mean very strict guidance on the officials helping them not to do so in a way that prevents victims speaking in their own voice.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for talking about what happened to her, because in your Lordships’ House, that kind of personal experience really resonates with all of us. I thank her for that. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for speaking from his experience in the courts. He speaks with a great deal of authority and I know the House has vast respect for him.

Let me start with that with which we all agree: of course I recognise that victim personal statements are a powerful tool for victims and their families to tell the court about the effect that these crimes have had on them. The victim personal statement is also important for the judge when deciding the appropriate sentence. The VPS provides evidence and information which can help the judge in determining the seriousness of the offence as part of the sentencing process, and plainly it is right that victims should have a voice in that. However, it is also right that this must be done fairly. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, that there are limits to what can be said in the VPS, as we cannot have legally irrelevant matters—for example, other behaviour of which the defendant has not been convicted. The judge is not by law allowed to take account of such things.

That said, I too have heard from victims and their families about their concerns about how the VPS process operates in practice. I completely understand how frustrating it must be to be told that they cannot express themselves in the way in which they expected to be able to, or to include all the information which they feel the judge ought to have. We agree that further work is needed to consider how we can make sure that victims fully understand the process, including the value of being able to have their voice heard in the sentencing process, but also an explanation as to why there have to be limitations on this.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for bringing forward their amendments and helping to shape what has been a valuable debate about the issue of just compensation for victims.

Amendment 40, in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, raises an important concern about how the victims of fraud, bribery and money laundering offences can be better compensated both domestically and abroad. Indeed, I have heard his arguments on more than one occasion before and never failed to be persuaded by them.

These crimes do not just inflict monetary loss on victims; they often involve sophisticated deception. They can cause significant psychological distress, emotional trauma and lasting insecurity. More widely, they undermine trust in our society, and so deserve the Government’s attention. The Government must look carefully at my noble and learned friend’s suggestions for a review. It could be important and beneficial for the City of London, as a centre of finance of worldwide renown. If we can take the lead on this, that would be an encouragement to people to do business here.

This brings me to Amendment 67, in my name. I should say that a gremlin came in here—and I am not blaming the typist. Where it says:

“Sentencing guidelines on court fines”,


it should of course say compensation orders. The amendment is intended to correct an imbalance for victims. Its purpose is clear: to ensure that victims are compensated properly, according to the actual value of items stolen. This principle would apply in cases of fraud, burglary or theft, and in any other crime which has resulted in a victim suffering financial loss. The responsibility for repayment should be put squarely on the offender through the issuing of compensation orders. It is only right and just that offenders pay back the value of what they have stolen to their victims. There should be a direct link, so that offenders fully face up to the consequences of their actions in a real and logical way.

This measure is simply proportionate. At present, offenders may not be made even to begin to compensate for the damage inflicted, which only adds further insult to injury. To correct this imbalance, the amendment would require the Sentencing Council to revise the relevant sentencing guidelines within 18 months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent. This would lead to a more consistent approach across cases, and sentencing would recognise and account for the amount actually taken or lost. Justice for victims should be material, not merely symbolic. That would help to strengthen public confidence in our courts. We urge the Minister to give serious consideration to the amendment.

Amendment 46, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and Amendment 47, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, concern the criminal injuries compensation scheme. The former seeks to broaden its eligibility to all victims of child abuse; the latter aims to bring online-only child sexual abuse into the scope of recognition of the scheme. It is important that the scheme keeps apace with the evolving landscape in which criminal activity now takes place. All victims must be properly supported, with access to the appropriate mechanisms for compensation and redress. I look forward to hearing the response of the Minister, on how the scheme can be updated.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords—

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

My Lords—

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do apologise.

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

Not at all. I apologise. I waited for the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, to introduce his amendment before I spoke.

I will speak briefly to Amendment 40, moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and then to Amendment 67, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. I will say nothing on Amendments 46 and 47 on child sexual abuse, except that I fully support them, for the reasons that have been given.

Amendment 40 is on fraud, bribery and money laundering. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, rightly says that it is not the first time that he has brought this issue before the House or before Parliament. Indeed, he has been a formidable campaigner on the issue for a number of years. On these Benches, we think he is right about it. It is a very difficult area on which to propose legislation in precise or specific terms. With this amendment, he seeks to require a review of the whole area of fraud, bribery and money laundering within the UK and abroad.

The background is the inevitable inadequacy of existing civil proceedings, in this jurisdiction or elsewhere, not only from a jurisdictional point of view but because of the inevitable cost of civil proceedings, the difficulty of valuation and the difficulties of enforcement for the victims of substantial economic crime. They cannot be properly compensated by the existing regime of compensation orders. A review is needed to consider how compensation might be ordered and to consider the principles that are brought into play by complex economic crime for criminal activity here and abroad, and not always just in one jurisdiction but often across countries and in multiple jurisdictions.

The noble and learned Lord highlights our poor record as a country—though rightly he says that we are better than many—in providing compensation for victims of economic offences. He highlights that there may not be just individual or corporate losers; there can also be organisations or states which deserve compensation but for which, presently, our law and the law elsewhere makes no proper provision.

These are difficult issues and there are very difficult issues concerning quantification. The inadequacy of how we fail the victims of overseas corruption and other economic crime amounts, in effect, to our holding our hands up and admitting defeat in the face of those issues. The review for which the noble and learned Lord calls needs to be illuminated and energised by some extremely innovative and imaginative thinking which holds out the prospect of real improvement of the position and accepts that we may not be precise in any award of compensation. A real attempt to provide adequate compensation can be made and should be made.

I am bound to say that I also agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, that grasping this issue could enhance the business reputation of London as a centre of economic and business excellence where others have failed in this area.

Amendment 67, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seeks a review of sentencing guidelines to insist on compensation which is commensurate, they say, with the value of stolen items, although I appreciate that the way the amendment was opened goes wider than cases of theft.

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So, while the amendment may have some superficial attraction, to expect the criminal courts to act as civil courts in imposing and quantifying compensation orders is neither sensible nor just. I suggest that the Sentencing Council in its present approach, which embodies the kinds of submissions I have made, has got it about right and should remain undisturbed.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I apologise once again to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for standing up before him a few moments ago.

Amendment 40 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, raises the important issue of compensating victims of economic crime. I really mean it when I say that I am grateful to him for his continued interest in this matter. No one could accuse him of not being consistent. Indeed, he and I are due to meet after the Recess to discuss his amendment further, and I look forward to that.

As the noble and learned Lord knows, I practised at the Bar in the area of economic crime, including fraud and other crimes, and I want to make it clear that the Government take the compensation of victims of economic crime very seriously. It is of critical importance in limiting the harm of these often ruthless and cruel crimes. We are committed to ensuring that, whenever possible, funds are taken from criminals and returned to victims.

As the noble and learned Lord knows, as things currently stand, there are already several mechanisms that enable victims of economic crime to be compensated. For example, the asset recovery powers under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 already provide the court with the ability to prioritise the payment of compensation orders to victims. Noble Lords may be interested to learn that, where both a compensation order and a confiscation order are imposed but there are not enough funds available to satisfy both, the court may direct that the compensation order be paid out of the confiscation order funds to ensure that victims are prioritised. A total of £47.2 million was paid in compensation to victims from the proceeds of confiscation orders in the financial year ending March 2025. Of course, I acknowledge that we could do better.

In addition, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 allows applications for stolen crypto assets or funds in accounts to be released to victims at any stage of civil forfeiture proceedings.  

 Through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, the then Government legislated to require the Payment Systems Regulator to introduce mandatory reimbursement for authorised push payment scams. In the first nine months of the APP reimbursement scheme, 88% of eligible losses were reimbursed, with £112 million returned to victims. This further protects victims and provides incentives for firms to prevent these scams in the first place.  

Victims of unauthorised fraud, where payment has been taken without the victim’s permission, are already reimbursed by payment service providers. But we want to go further. The Government recognise the serious financial and emotional impact that fraud can have on victims, which is why we will shortly publish a new fraud strategy that will improve how we safeguard and respond to victims of fraud.

I am of course acutely aware that one of the noble and learned Lord’s major considerations is overseas victims. As far as they are concerned, the Serious Fraud Office, Crown Prosecution Service and National Crime Agency compensation principles have committed law enforcement bodies to ensuring that compensation for overseas victims of economic crime is considered in every relevant case and to using whatever legal mechanisms are available to secure it whenever appropriate. 

Internationally, victims’ interests also continue to be a priority issue for the United Kingdom. As a signatory to the UN Convention Against Corruption, the UK places great importance on the recovery and return of the proceeds of corruption to those affected by bribery, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, trading in influence and other abuses of official functions. The UK is required to return funds where the conditions for mandatory return are met. However, the UK also exercises its discretion to return funds in appropriate cases even when it is not otherwise required to do so. 

The noble and learned Lord’s amendment calls for a review, but the Government have already publicly committed to reviewing UK policies and procedures for compensating victims of foreign bribery in the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025. We look forward to the results of this review, expected in 2027. 

In addition, I refer to the Crime and Policing Bill, which will introduce a new measure to redirect funds to victims when a confiscation order is increased if it is identified that the defendant has additional assets with which to satisfy it. The Bill will also reinforce that compensation orders are to be prioritised over confiscation orders.

There are already significant measures in place, and further work is being done to strengthen the rights of victims of economic crime to compensation. I hope that this provides the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, with some reassurance. I look forward to discussing this further with him, but for now I invite him to withdraw his amendment.

I turn now to Amendments 46 and 47 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. This Government share the strength of feeling in this House and in the other place about the importance of supporting the victims of child sexual abuse. The proposed new clauses would implement a recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse about which the previous Government consulted. However, in April last year, the Government announced that we would not take it forward. The reason is that such changes would benefit only victims of child sexual abuse, and that would undermine the scheme’s core principle of universality—in other words, it compensates all seriously injured victims of violent crimes, and the payments are based on the injury suffered rather than the crime type from which they resulted. We are very concerned not to create a hierarchy of victims in which some are seen as more deserving than others. Different support for different violent crimes would imply that some victims are less important than others. It would also put the scheme under more financial pressure. It is taxpayer-funded and is already facing record and increasing demand. However, we agree that the scheme needs reform, and it is our intention to decide how best to support all victims with the resources that we have. We will update Members of both Houses as our work progresses.

Dealing very briefly with Amendment 47 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I am going to ask him to leave it with me for the time being. I want to give this some further thought. He and I began to discuss it when we met about a week ago. We did not make an awful lot of progress on that occasion, but I would like to talk to him about it further. I know that he has sent me some literature, and I will look at that and consider it further. While I am grateful to the noble Baronesses and the noble Lord for ensuring that we remain focused on the criminal injuries compensation scheme, I ask them not to press their amendments.

Amendment 67 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, would require the revision of sentencing guidelines so that the court would have to award compensation to a victim to the value of the items stolen. When a judge passes a sentence, she or he is already required to consider making a compensation order that requires the offender to make financial reparation to the victim for any personal injury, loss or damage resulting from an offence, and that includes the offences captured by this amendment. Magistrates are subject to the same duty, but for simplicity I am going to refer just to the judge for the rest of my remarks. If the judge decides not to make such an order, she or he must explain why they are not doing so. There is no set amount for compensation, because that would fetter the discretion of the independent judge. The law says that compensation may be ordered for such an amount as the court considers appropriate, having regard to any evidence and any representations made by the offender or the prosecutor. For adult offenders, there is no limit on the value of a single compensation order, and compensation is paid to the victim first before any other financial orders made by the court are satisfied by the offender.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, has already powerfully made the point that it is not always a straightforward process to determine the value of the loss. I am not going to repeat that, but I am going to add to the second part of his concerns about this. As part of the process of deciding on the level of compensation, the court must also consider the financial circumstances of the offender, so far as they are known. The reason is to ensure that the offender has sufficient means to pay. This amendment would require the judge to ignore the fact that there may in some cases be absolutely no prospect of the offender being able to pay. This would create a system requiring the authorities to spend time and money chasing people for money that they are never going to be able to pay, in the process causing a cycle of unnecessary harm and emotional distress to victims whose expectations had been raised that they were going to receive compensation for the full amount.

I want to reassure your Lordships that most judges will order the full amount unless the defendant does not have sufficient means. For these reasons, the Government are satisfied that the existing system allows courts to strike an appropriate balance between seeking compensation for the harm caused to victims in a way that is enforceable and ensuring that victims are not left waiting for debts to be paid to them which were always unrealistic. The Sentencing Council has issued explanatory information on compensation which outlines these matters to help sentencers when considering or making compensation orders. I therefore invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by apologising to noble Lords who had other amendments in the group for not addressing their arguments, but I do not think they needed my assistance. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandhurst and to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for their support for my Amendment 40. As has been pointed out, my amendment asks for a review. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that we need to be imaginative and inventive—those were not his precise words, but I think that is the thrust of what he was saying. I suggest that doing nothing, doing a little slowly or patting ourselves on the back for what we might have done in the past are no longer acceptable.

I know that the Minister is sincere in her response. I am also aware of her professional experience, both in private practice and at the Crime Prosecution Service, and I look forward with gratitude to our meeting. I am aware of the terms of the 2002 Act to which she referred, but it does not meet the problem I have identified, as I know from my own professional experience. Furthermore, the provisions of FiSMA are untested, or insufficiently tested in my view, and I am not sure that reliance on that statute answers the problem we have been discussing. The review that the Minister spoke about is not due to report until 2027. Everything is always tomorrow, the week after, the month after or the year after; nothing is ever grabbed now and answered. This is my experience, having spoken about these questions for many years in the past, so I ask the House to forgive me if I come across as cynical.

That said, I look forward to having a positive discussion with the Minister during the Recess.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

After.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend quoted from a briefing from the Victims’ Commissioner, I think from when she was the London victims’ commissioner, about the costs that have been charged and the costs of transcripts for a whole case—which have perhaps been requested rather than actually charged, for obvious reasons. She also mentioned paperwork. I had this briefing. It refers to a form which some courts are asking bereaved families to fill out, so I had a look at that form. I am appalled. I think it is four pages. The amount of detail requested is so intrusive, and it is unclear to me why that is necessary. Why disclose for this purpose the rent you are paying on a home and all your assets, in a whole number of categories? Does it matter how many Premium Bonds you have? On expenses, there are 14 categories, ranging from council tax to TV licences and anything else you can imagine. I wanted to express that, even though it is late. I will not take longer on it.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has just talked about open justice. It seems sad if the courts we are talking about cannot go in the same direction as other courts. The Lady Chief Justice talks about the work being done to issue press releases to explain the decisions of the courts elsewhere in our justice system.

The noble and learned Lord is looking puzzled, but I am saying that I agree with him—I know that may be unusual, but on this occasion the direction of travel—a horrible phrase—suggests that we should be going much faster than a trial pilot from next spring. That brings me to my question. When is spring for this purpose? We have known that the seasons of the year are somewhat false when it comes to what Governments propose to do.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I start with Amendment 41, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Hamwee. As your Lordships are of course aware, the Government recently announced the expansion of the provision of free transcripts of sentencing remarks to victims whose cases are heard in the Crown Court upon request. That is now contained in the recently passed Sentencing Act 2026. The detail of timeframes and processes for providing these transcripts will be set out in regulations, following a review of current operations. I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, for his work with the Government during the passage of the Sentencing Bill which has brought this about.

Sentencing remarks have been chosen because the way they are structured and what they contain can give victims a real insight into what happened in the sentencing hearing. They are always structured in the same way. They start with a summary of the case and the facts, and go on to explain the background of how the plea came to be entered, if it is a plea, or how the conviction came about. They then set out why the sentence was imposed, which guidelines have been referred to and applied and, if not applied, why, and the various calculations that go on as to what the starting point was and whether it has been increased or decreased. That is all in the judge’s own words.

Bail decisions and summings-up are very different. Extending provision of free transcripts for victims to a wider range of hearing types also risks creating significant operational burdens on the court. I will deal first with bail decisions. The victims’ code sets out a victim’s right to be told the outcome of any bail hearing and any relevant conditions imposed “within five working days”. This is carried out by witness care units, which are also supposed to provide victims with other timely, tailored updates about proceedings. In that sense, we are already delivering the information the victims need in a proportionate and effective way, without the cost and risk that mandatory transcript provision would entail.

Bail decisions are rarely delivered in a structured way that would tell the victim any more than they will already have been told by the witness care unit. What happens normally is that the judge listens to both sides and then simply says that bail is refused—for instance, if there is a failure to surrender, or the prospect of the commission of further offences. Alternatively, they will say that they are prepared to grant bail subject to certain conditions, and they rattle those off. This is exactly what victims are going to be told by the witness care unit. I am not sure what more information I can offer to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton; in my experience, there is nothing more.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The problem is that the witness care unit does not always provide that information.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

That is what needs to be looked at, then. Providing transcripts is not going to solve anything that would not be solved by making sure that the witness care unit does what it is meant to do. The noble Baroness gave the example of the victim who had not been told that the bail conditions had been amended. That simply should not happen. That is not a transcript issue, though; it is a witness care unit issue. It is something that plainly needs looking at, though, if it is a problem.

In addition, the vast majority of bail decisions are dealt with at magistrates’ courts, where proceedings are not currently recorded and cannot therefore be transcribed. Without that recording ability in place, it would not be operationally feasible to create a statutory entitlement of the kind proposed. We cannot extend an entitlement that the system is not yet equipped to deliver. As the noble Baroness will know, one of the proposals the Government seem likely to accept from Sir Brian Leveson’s review of the criminal courts is that all proceedings in the magistrates’ courts should be recorded, and that it will become a court of record. At that point the situation may change, but at the moment we simply cannot provide transcripts of bail decisions in the magistrates’ court.

In the Government’s view, a transcript of the summing-up is unlikely, in most cases, to add significant value for many victims. The summing-up consists of two parts: there is a set of directions on the law, which are written out and handed to the jury, and these could be given to the victim without any difficulty at all if it would help them. Most victims are not especially interested in what is said about the application of the law. The only other thing it contains is a summary of the evidence, wherein the judge decides the level of detail to include, what to put in and what to leave out. The important thing to note is that the summary has to be even-handed, and the judge is not meant to make any comment one way or the other, so the summing-up is not going to help the victim to understand how or why the jury reached its verdict. As these remarks are not an explanation of the outcome, victims may well feel that the summing-up bears little resemblance to their lived experience of the case. So there is a real danger of the summing-up being misunderstood and, in some instances, causing further distress, rather than providing clarity or closure.

For these reasons, we do not propose to extend free provision to include summings-up in cases where the defendants are acquitted. Expanding access further would also create significant operational and funding pressures. Providing transcripts of bail decisions and summings-up free of charge would require a substantial increase in resources, diverting key and limited resources away from core court functions. Importantly, it would take resources away from implementing our existing commitment to provide free sentencing remarks to all victims who request them.

I have heard what the noble Baroness said to me and to the Committee about victims being discouraged from attending the rest of the trial on many occasions. It should not happen. When I was a judge, I used to say to the victim, once they had completed their evidence, “Would you like to observe the rest of the trial? I can have arrangements made for you to do so; we encourage you to do so, and that includes attending remotely where you can’t be seen but you will be able to see and hear, and we can have those arrangements made”. It ought to happen all the time. If it does not, again, that is something that we should look at.

I turn to Amendment 73 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. While the Government remain firmly committed to improving transparency across the justice system, this has to be balanced carefully against our capacity to deliver existing priorities and commitments. Imposing a blanket obligation to publish all sentencing remarks where they have been requested would create significant operational and financial pressures at a time when we are focused on rolling out free access to Crown Court sentencing remarks for all victims, a major step towards increased transparency in its own right. The level of anonymisation required to protect victims’ identities in a published transcript is very different from the level required in a transcript provided to the victim themselves. It is not just a question of redacting the name; it is also a question of removing any other details which might permit a jigsaw identification of the victim. That anonymisation cannot yet reliably be carried out using AI; it has to be done manually and it would have to be done by a judge, taking them away from other duties and inevitably adding to the backlog.

Furthermore, this amendment as drafted places no constraints on who may request a transcript. It could be the offender; it could be their family; it could be a journalist or simply a curious member of the public. A situation where the victim does not have an opportunity to object to sentencing remarks containing intimate details of their case being published online, but another requester does, is not a proposal that this Government can support, and it is likely to contravene the victim’s Article 8 rights.

I reassure noble Lords that the Government’s commitment to openness and transparency is ongoing. In cases of high public interest, sentencing remarks are already made publicly available online. Furthermore, broadcasting of sentencing remarks is possible, with the agreement of the judge, providing an additional route through which the public may access this information. We are also actively exploring the opportunities offered by AI to reduce the cost of producing transcripts in the future. I therefore invite the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment and the noble and learned Lord not to press his.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, particularly my noble friend Lady Hamwee for giving details of the ridiculous form that victims have been asked to fill in to access sentencing remarks for free. I hope the noble Baroness will look at that and make sure that it does not continue in this format. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for his amendment and I very much appreciate what the Minister said, but I think we are looking for transparency in the longer term. I remain concerned, as is the noble and learned Lord, about the closure or erasure of information from Courtsdesk. I hope we might be able to discuss that in another forum, because it is extremely concerning that it seems to be happening very quickly and suddenly— I am sorry for that quick diversion, given the hour.

I thank the Minister for her explanation. I am not surprised that she has raised the issue of costs. I appreciate the issue about magistrates’ courts, and I really hope that Sir Brian Leveson manages to resolve that in his report in a way that will make it work. Judicial summings-up are important. When we meet on Wednesday, we will be looking at unduly lenient sentences, and judicial summings-up are very helpful to victims if they are considering making an application to the Attorney-General—they have quite a lot of information in them. Victims may not understand it, but if they are going that far, they are likely to consult a solicitor or somebody else involved, and it is quite likely to be helpful.

I think the issue about bail conditions is important, barring the example I gave, which may not have been quite correct. Again, it is useful for victims to see in writing, when something has been gabbled off, exactly what all the conditions are. This is particularly important in domestic abuse and stalking cases, where there may be a perpetrator who is particularly following people and there may have been some form of abuse. However, I am very aware of the hour, and I hope we can continue discussions with the noble Baroness outside your Lordships’ Committee, so I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for outlining the detail of the amendments in this group. I was slightly surprised by what he said, because I understood that it was not about whether a prison term was suspended or not, it was the conviction itself that acted as the trigger for the victim’s rights. I see the Minister is nodding. Just to double-check, I went to the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime. This makes it absolutely clear that the moment there is a possible crime against somebody which falls within something that could be considered by the code, the victim is entitled to support and help. For certain particular crimes, they are entitled to enhanced rights and help. I am sorry: I printed it off the web and it does not have a page number, but it states that victims of the most serious crimes are eligible for enhanced rights under this code. There is no question at all of them being reduced or stopped if a conviction is suspended. Once again, I repeat that this is exactly what happened to me. In my particular case, the offender was given a prison sentence and it was suspended, but the victim support continued in spite of that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity of setting out the Government’s position. Our approach is carefully considered. I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seeks to make party-political points out of this by using language such as “insult to victims”, particularly when, in relation to the principal part of his argument, he is just plain wrong.

The starting point is that we must prioritise public funds to ensure that they go where they are most needed. We have done this by providing proactive support to those victims where the court has imposed a longer sentence, because a longer sentence reflects the seriousness of the offence. Of course we recognise that all victims of crime will want information about the offender in their case. For that reason, we are introducing a new route for all victims—the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is quite right about this—to request information via a dedicated helpline.

This is why new Schedule 6A is in three parts. Part 1 ensures that the most serious cases, involving victims of violent, sexual, and terrorism offences where the defendant has been sentenced to a custodial sentence of 12 months or more, can receive proactive support through the victim contact scheme.

Part 2 ensures support for victims of stalking and harassment offences, regardless of sentence length. We recognise that, even where there is a short sentence, this cohort of victims needs and will receive proactive support through the victim contact scheme.

I am just trying to ensure that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, can hear the information I am giving him back, because we think that what the noble Lord said is not right, so I thought he might be interested in hearing what I have to say about it.

Part 3 ensures that victims of other sexual and violent offences, and breach offences linked to violence against women and girls, will be able to get information through the helpline should they request it, including for those offences in Part 1 where the sentence for the offence is less than 12 months. We consider that this is the right place to draw the line, but we will keep eligibility under review to make sure that we are reaching the right victims.

The Bill includes regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State to amend the list of offences, and the specified lengths of sentence of such offences, which determine eligibility for either service. The Bill also includes a discretionary power that enables victims of any offence, where the offender is serving a sentence of imprisonment, to be provided with either service, where they request it and probation deem it to be appropriate.

The victim contact scheme and the victim helpline will apply only where there is a custodial sentence. That is not only because of the consideration of public funds but because the information provided via these routes, such as the date of release on licence and conditions of licence, self-evidently does not apply unless there has been a custodial sentence. Where a suspended or community sentence is imposed by the court, under the victims’ code, the police witness care unit will explain the sentence to the victim.

Finally, regarding Amendment 54, I am pleased to reassure the noble Lord that there is already a route for victims to request a senior probation officer review of a decision about what information to provide, so this is already catered for. In the circumstances, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I addressed this at some length in opening. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the Minister for correcting my errors. I shall add nothing more. I am also grateful for the Minister’s explanation of how—she hopes, at least—this will work in practice. On that basis, I shall withdraw the amendment.

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I support the Government’s intention in Clause 8 to expand the role of the commissioner to considering the cases of particular victims or witnesses when those raise issues of public policy that are of relevance to other victims or witnesses—in other words, the function is a general function—but I do not support what the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, is seeking in Amendment 59, if I have understood it correctly, that the limitation that it must be a case that raises general issues of importance should be removed. It seems to me quite right that that is what the Victims’ Commissioner should be focusing on.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government firmly believe that the Victims’ Commissioner—I have known the current occupant of the role for many years and have the utmost regard for her—has a crucial strategic role in representing the interests of victims and the witnesses of crime and anti-social behaviour.

Amendment 58 would significantly widen the commissioner’s remit by requiring her to support and protect individuals who assist victims. Of course, we agree that the work of those who dedicate their efforts to supporting victims is crucial, but the proposed widening of the Victims’ Commissioner’s statutory functions would, in the Government’s view, dilute the fundamental purpose of the Victims’ Commissioner; that is, to promote the interests of victims and witnesses themselves. In fact, the commissioner’s statutory function of promoting the interests of victims and witnesses already allows her to work with and support those who themselves support victims, and she does not need an explicit statutory function to continue with that.

Since the definition of “those assisting victims” could be interpreted broadly, this amendment also risks heavily extending the casework burden that would be imposed by the two other amendments, to which I now turn.

The Government have already brought forward Clause 8, which proposes to amend the existing statutory limitation on the exercise of the commissioner’s functions in relation to individual cases to allow her to exercise her functions in relation to cases that indicate a wider systemic issue. But Amendments 59 and 60 would go further—either entirely removing or narrowing the existing limitation. We understand the amendments to be creating an alternative. We do not believe that this is the right approach and consider that our carefully designed Clause 8 achieves the right balance.

The Victims’ Commissioner is not a complaints body, and it is important to maintain this distinction. Her role is to advocate for victims as a group and to address system-wide issues—that is what Clause 8 does. It is up to her to decide which cases she believes create those system-wide issues.

Individual victims already have a clear escalation route through the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman if they are dissatisfied with their experience of the criminal justice system. Expanding the commissioner’s involvement in individual casework to this extent would shift his or her role towards handling complaints rather than overseeing the system as a whole.

It is also vital that decisions of the judiciary and other independent public bodies that support victims of crime remain free from external influence. The current legislative bar, and the amendment to it that we have proposed through Clause 8, safeguards that independence and avoids any uncertainty about the commissioner’s role in such processes. We do not believe that Amendments 59 or 60 achieve that.

The point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which she has raised and discussed with me before on the many occasions on which we have now met—obviously, I look forward to many more—is a good point and one that we need to keep under review. Perhaps the noble Baroness and I can discuss it further the next time we meet. As I say, I very much look forward to that.

I hope the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, agrees that preserving the Victims’ Commissioner’s strategic function is essential to holding the system to account effectively, and I invite him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with interest to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, had to say, and indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I encourage the Minister to listen with care to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said and perhaps to move our way on certain aspects.

Dealing with Amendment 58, the law should not leave people such as Mr Hehir exposed to detriment for acting courageously. It may be that the Victims’ Commissioner is not the right person, but we put this forward in the hope that it would allow consideration of what to do in such situations. The amendment sends a clear message that civic responsibility and bravery should not be met with silence or indifference on the part of authority.

Amendment 59 would remove the restriction on individual cases. We appreciate that the commissioner has a strategic role to promote the interests of victims and witnesses generally, but that cannot be done effectively if individual cases are placed beyond reach. We accept that Clause 8 enables the commissioner to act in cases relevant to public policy, and we are grateful for that, but individual cases often reveal systemic failings. Removing the restriction entirely would enable oversight and the identification of patterns that will require reform. If we are serious about learning lessons, we suggest that the commissioner should be able to look at cases from which those lessons arise, but do so with discretion.

If the Minister considers that Amendment 59 is too broad, Amendment 60 would provide a possible balanced alternative. It would preserve the integrity of live criminal proceedings, it would allow engagement in individual cases once proceedings have concluded, and it would ensure that the commissioner can examine outcomes, seek information and promote improvements without interfering with the courts. It reflects a sensible constitutional boundary.

In summary, these amendments would not unduly expand the commissioner’s role but would clarify and strengthen it. They would ensure that individual experiences inform systemic reform and that statutory restrictions do not undermine the purpose of the office itself. A Victims’ Commissioner who cannot meaningfully engage where necessary with individual cases is constrained in fulfilling the commissioner’s core duty.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

The noble and learned Lord has said what I wanted to say much more sensitively and tactfully, but I will say what I was going to say.

There is a danger that lawyers of my generation— I shall just apply it to my generation and not suggest which generation other Members of the House belong to—are prejudiced against lawyers who do not have standard qualifications, if you like, or the backgrounds that many of us come from. I understand from CILEX that there are 133 members working as associate prosecutors who cannot progress or get promotion. That is a real shame. It is a much wider issue than just prosecution.

I think the noble Lord answered his own point because he was talking about members of the Bar progressing. The Minister will tell us—I cannot believe it is not the case—that no one joins the CPS and prosecutes a murder the next day. Every profession has its hierarchy, and one progresses in the hierarchy dependent on both skill and experience. The current position is out of date, so, even if it were not to solve an immediate problem, what is proposed in the Bill is a good idea. I am afraid that we cannot support the opposition to the clause.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, it is vital to ensure that the Crown Prosecution Service can recruit and retain a sufficient number of qualified Crown prosecutors. We suggest that Clause 11 supports this aim by increasing the CPS’s recruitment flexibility through the removal of an unnecessary legislative barrier. In turn, this will help increase the pool of eligible candidates for appointment as Crown prosecutors. It is axiomatic that a shortage of Crown prosecutors adds to the backlog because it cannot make decisions quite as quickly about prosecutions as it could if there were more of them.

Currently, the Crown Prosecution Service is restricted in who it can appoint as Crown prosecutors due to an unnecessary legal requirement. This is set out in the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, which provides that Crown prosecutors and those who prosecute cases on behalf of the CPS must hold what is known as the general qualification. The general qualification is a term of art, having a very specific meaning in this context. It means that a prospective Crown prosecutor must have

“a right of audience in relation to any class of proceedings in any part of the Senior Courts, or all proceedings in county courts or magistrates’ courts”,

even though most of those rights of audience—for example, before the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court—are never going to be exercised by a Crown prosecutor in a million years.

This requirement can exclude certain qualified legal professionals, including CILEX practitioners—from the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives—who have relevant criminal practice rights but are prohibited from becoming Crown prosecutors. These legal professionals, including CILEX practitioners, often hold the right skills and specialist qualifications required to perform the Crown prosecutor role, including having rights of audience for the courts in which they will actually appear, as opposed to rights of audience for the courts in which they will not, but they do not meet the general qualification criteria. This restriction limits the DPP’s ability to consider a wider pool of legal talent and reduces the CPS’s flexibility in managing existing and future recruitment challenges.

The purpose of this clause is to remove the requirement for the general qualification and, in doing so, give the DPP the discretion to appoint appropriately qualified legal professionals, such as CILEX practitioners, as Crown prosecutors for the CPS. I can reassure the Committee that the removal of the general qualification requirement will not in any way dilute professional standards; there are appropriate safeguards to preserve standards.

Prospective professionals eligible to be a Crown prosecutor who do not at the moment hold the general qualification must still meet the authorisation requirements of the Legal Services Act 2007—they have to be appropriately qualified, authorised and regulated, and be able to exercise rights of audience and conduct litigation, both of which are reserved legal activities under the Act. It is a criminal offence under the Act to carry out reserved legal activities unless entitled to do so.

In addition, it is important to note that the measure does not require the CPS to appoint any specific type of legal professional. Instead, it gives it the flexibility to do so where appropriate and ensures that recruitment decisions remain firmly within the DPP’s control. The DPP will retain full discretion over appointments, ensuring that only suitably qualified and experienced individuals become Crown prosecutors. Newly eligible professionals must meet the same Crown prosecutor competency standards as those who qualify through more traditional routes. I also emphasise that those appointed following this change will, like all Crown prosecutors, be subject to performance monitoring by the CPS, including case strategy quality assessments focused on the application of the Code for Crown Prosecutors.

This change reflects the modern legal services landscape, spoken to powerfully by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas. Alternative routes to qualification are increasingly common, where professionals from non-traditional backgrounds play a growing role in the justice system. By removing this unnecessary legislative barrier, the clause may also support the recruitment of a diverse and representative cohort of Crown prosecutors.

I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has ever met any CILEX practitioners; I certainly have, and they are an amazing cohort of people. I am sure he absolutely did not intend to suggest that somehow those who have qualified through an alternative route are, by very definition, less competent than those who have gone through the traditional route. If that is the suggestion, then it is not one this Government can support. I therefore hope that the Committee will join me in supporting Clause 11 to stand part of the Bill and I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his opposition to it.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. At the heart of it lies the underfunded state of our criminal justice system—something which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, has highlighted. Looking forward, the criminal justice system needs more money and the prosecution service needs proper funding, as of course do those who defend in the criminal courts; but Clause 11 does propose a significant shift, extending the right to prosecute to individuals who do not hold the long-standing qualifications of solicitors and barristers. I cast no aspersions on CILEX, but I make that observation. There is a difference in their training and educational background. This clause will expand capacity, there is no doubt about it—and there is no doubt that the system requires it, for the reasons that others have outlined in this debate—but it will not address the underlying cause of problems faced in the criminal courts. We must not go down a route which results in weakening of standards, undermining of public confidence, and unfairness to victims and witnesses involved in the criminal courts.

A central issue remains the absence of clear evidence in support of Clause 11. We have sought clarity from the Minister on what assessments were undertaken on the impact of this change, whether risks to standards were considered, and whether safeguards are in fact in place to maintain standards over time. Without clear evidence, Parliament cannot truly judge whether the proposed reform protects the quality of prosecutions. We must not embark on a position where there are unclear professional boundaries and variations in training and oversight.

We recognise the pressures facing the criminal justice system and the need for more good people to embark on careers in the criminal courts, whether in defence or in prosecution; in this case, we are talking about prosecutors. We share the desire for a stronger, more resilient system, but Clause 11 does not, we suggest, properly address the causes of these pressures. We urge the Minister to reflect carefully on the concerns which I have raised and to consider whether Clause 11 provides the assurance and evidence that this House, our justice system and, indeed, victims deserve. That said, I will not pursue my opposition.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord has inevitably given us a very brief tour d’horizon of the problems of the costs and charges of the legal profession getting out of hand. Looking at the Bill over the weekend, I had to turn up the 1985 Act and write into it the changes that would be made by the Bill. It seems that the one to focus on is making the provisions subject to regulations, which boils down to the Lord Chancellor setting rates—at least that is how I read it. It is not much of a stretch to think that those are going to be linked to legal aid rates, and one can see the problem.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who explained some of the problems very clearly, mentioned consultation and rather dismissed it as being helpful, but it is important that the Committee should know what is planned by way of consultation. I hope the Minister can help us on that, because so much turns on its outcome.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, in the view of the Government, Clause 12 provides a modest enabling power for the Lord Chancellor to set through regulations the rates at which private prosecutors may recover expenses from central funds where a court has ordered that such costs be paid. To be clear at the outset, this clause does not set any rates, and it does not affect the long-established right to bring a private prosecution, which remains protected under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.

I should say at this stage that I have a great deal of experience in the area of private prosecutions, both as a state prosecutor working for the Crown Prosecution Service, where I oversaw all the private prosecutions that came to the CPS for consideration, and in private practice, where I brought a number of private prosecutions on behalf of clients and advised on many more.

The Justice Select Committee, in its 2020 report, Private Prosecutions: Safeguards, invited the Government to take a closer look at the private prosecution landscape, particularly where public funds are engaged. Taking an enabling power of this kind allows us to do precisely that in a careful and evidence-based way. The committee highlighted three key principles, which this Government agree should underpin reform: first, addressing the disparity between defence resources and those of private prosecutors; secondly, safeguarding the right of individuals to bring a private prosecution; and, thirdly, ensuring the proportionate and responsible use of public funds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and her eminent supporters for bringing forward these amendments, and to all noble Lords for their contributions in respect of Amendments 61 and 62. I think I can deal with Amendment 61 quite shortly. We have had powerful and compelling speeches on the amendment from its proposers. It seeks to remove a presumption that a computer and software system on which a prosecution relies is working and reliable. We all know what has prompted this: the terrible Post Office scandal.

It is absolutely plain that prosecutors must no longer be able to rely on the systems being necessarily in working order as evidence for the purpose of criminal cases. The Government have had long enough now—and officials even longer than this Government—to look at this problem. If they have not, they have been prodded with a sharp stick by these amendments, and I am confident that, prodded with that sharp stick, they will come up with a solution. They will have to do so by Report, because otherwise I think this amendment will be carried then. I need not say any more.

Amendment 62 proposes a new clause to prevent an overreliance on a person’s musical taste as probative of criminal proclivity or intent. On this side we agree that a person’s creative or artistic taste should not result in them being treated prejudicially by the judicial system. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, the noble Baronesses, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon and Lady Chakrabarti, and others in support of this amendment.

We have some reservations about this amendment as it is currently drafted. We accept the good intentions behind it. We understand the danger it is designed to meet, namely that people are treated prejudicially for their creative and artistic tastes, and it is undoubtedly the case that those from particular backgrounds are vulnerable to this and may in effect suffer, or risk suffering, mistreatment in our courts. Against that, we fear also that the amendment might create other difficulties, creating genre-specific shields for certain evidence and thereby treating some expressions differently from others—in other words, shifting the balance too far and creating another class that is not protected. While we are sympathetic to this amendment, for those reasons we cannot support it.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I get to my feet with some diffidence, given the range of eminent speakers, many of whom I have the most utmost respect for, who have spoken in favour of this group of amendments. I start with Amendment 61 in the names of my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti and Lord Beamish, my other friend, who is in fact also noble—the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot—and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. This is a powerful group, and I entirely accept what they say about the difficulties created when there is a presumption that a computer is working properly unless the defendant is able to produce evidence that it is not. That can create an enormous obstacle for defendants. It is extremely difficult to prove that something is not working in those circumstances, so I accept that. I also understand that what is sought here is to reverse that position and to take it back to the position of Section 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

I have already discussed this briefly with my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. The difficulty I have with this amendment is that it is extremely broad, and the problem with that is that, since Section 69 was introduced, what constitutes digital material has evolved significantly. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, says that it is no answer to say that computers are everywhere, but I am afraid we have to be realistic about this. The computer evidence that is adduced in the criminal courts is, for example, the extremely complicated accounting software that is relied on by banks. That is at one extreme. But there is also the routine evidence that comes into criminal courts every single day, which can include text messages from mobile telephones, email chains, social media posts, DVLA printouts, medical records from GP surgeries and even criminal records themselves from the police national computer.

There is a real risk that if the amendment in this broad form were introduced, it could bring the criminal courts to a standstill. I know that is obviously not the intention, but I am concerned about whether there is a way of finding that we can limit it so that it excludes the routine use of computers—often things that people would not even think of as computers at all; the law recognises that a mobile phone is a computer, but most people would not think of it that way—and is limited to the cases that have caused real concern to those in your Lordships’ House, where a conviction is often based solely or mainly on the evidence of a computer. I can see a very different case to be made for that kind of evidence as well.

I entirely understand the intention behind this amendment, and I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Beamish and the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, for the work that they have done in relation to Horizon. It is humbling to stand here and talk about the Horizon victims and survivors and what happened to them, and I would not want anyone to think that the Government are not listening in relation to this.

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[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

I am not opposed to consultation, but, I am sorry, this Government are hiding behind consultation. Once the consultation is finished, we then need action, but that is not happening, not just in this area but in a whole host of other areas.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do not accept that. My noble friend should think carefully about making accusations such as that.

The point is that we are looking at the evidence that we have received in order to evaluate it to ensure that we make evidence-based and informed changes. The Government are considering this matter carefully. I am not announcing another review or another consultation; I am simply saying that we are looking at the evidence that we have.

I hope that my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti will hear the words that I am using. She knows that I understand the problem and that I am not unsympathetic, but we need to find a way that does not create a lot of unintended consequences.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is competing with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

I would never compete with the noble and learned Lord.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I will answer the noble and learned Lord and then I will give way to the noble Baroness, because, as she knows, we do not permit interventions on interventions.

The answer to his question is that this is not the only thing we are doing. Your Lordships know how much legislation is passing through this House. It is a question of bandwidth and having time to do things. I am trying to assure the Committee that our intentions are good ones and that we are listening.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

The words that the Minister used, which I believe her to believe, are exactly the same words that we have heard from several other Ministers. The only words that would give succour to members of the Committee are, “We will have something on Report”. While I take her point about broad and narrow, that is not an excuse that can last for years. That consultation was not the first consultation, so we have been waiting for years.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I entirely understand the point that the noble Baroness is making, and I pay great tribute to her expertise. She can imagine just how popular I would be if I gave that undertaking from the Dispatch Box right now. All I can say is: leave it with me.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

Having been a Minister myself, I know that the Minister can do that tonight. She knows what will happen if she does not bring it forward: an amendment will be tabled, and it will get passed.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I think I have already said that I am listening carefully.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

Before the Minister moves on to Amendment 62, would she please comment on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Russell, about the Law Society’s contribution to the consultation about a system of assurances? That may be a way forward that might allow her to bring forward her own amendment on Report.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

That is exactly what the Government are evaluating. I cannot go any further than that today, but those are all the things that are being considered. I cannot go any further than to say that I am listening.

I turn to Amendment 62, in the names of my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti and Lady Lawrence. I am very aware of these issues, particularly in relation to rap and drill. I knew about this amendment, but in the course of my practice and when I was a judge I have been to a number of lectures on the subject and read a number of articles, including some by Keir Monteith, King’s Counsel, who I see is sitting below the Bar today.

The question here, on the use of this material, is one of relevance. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I do not want to go into a boring exegesis of when evidence is admissible and when it is not. The real concern here is to make sure that if—and it is a big if—this evidence is to be used then it has proper probative value, on the basis that it goes further than either that this defendant is a bad person because they like rap and drill music or, even worse, some spurious and crude racial stereotypes. Judges have a duty to ensure that only evidence meeting these standards is adduced and they should exclude any evidence that does not meet the required threshold—that is not a matter of discretion. However, I understand the concerns about the fact that that has not happened in all cases.

It is axiomatic to say that creative and artistic expression is of itself not a crime, and it is rare that it would feature in the evidence of a prosecution unless it inherently involved criminal activity, such as damaging another person’s property with graffiti or drawing sexual images of children. As for musical expression, the Crown Prosecution Service is clear that creating or listening to music is not a crime, but it says that, on occasion, it has encountered cases where, upon investigation into a violent offence, it became clear that drill and rap music had been used in the build-up to encourage or incite violence or to reveal information about a crime that only the attackers would know. These instances are rare and, importantly, are already subject to rigorous scrutiny under existing evidential rules. However, I am aware of the disquiet, and we understand the community concerns.

I take the point made by my noble friend Lady Lawrence. I am a lover of crime fiction but I do not think anyone is ever going to use that in a prosecution against me—well, I hope they do not. She makes a valid point.

The Crown Prosecution Service is actively consulting on this matter through a public consultation, seeking views on whether formal prosecution guidance should be issued regarding the use of musical expression evidence. We want to ensure that any future approach is clear and informed by a wide range of perspectives.

It is the Government’s view that, as currently drafted, the amendment would be unduly restrictive and would, in effect, frustrate the ability of the Crown to adduce relevant and probative evidence before the court, with the potential consequences of frustrating justice for victims in some serious cases. The Government intend to await the outcome of the CPS consultation and announce next steps in due course. I invite all noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I did not speak to Amendment 62 when I briefly got up but I did some research on it. I think it is usually the case in a particular area of law that, where you have a body of experts in particular areas of evidence, it is not uncommon for those experts to be used by both the prosecution and the defence. In doing my research on Amendment 62, I found that that is not the case. The so-called experts who are used by the prosecution are solely used by the prosecution, while the experts who are used by the defence—who would be able to talk knowledgably in the sort of detail that the noble Lord, Lord Bailey, was able to give us—are used only by the defence. That in itself tells you that there is something wrong.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do not disagree with the noble Lord. I have already made it clear that I understand the disquiet, the concerns about it and the very real possibility for something that is in fact crude racial stereotyping to look as though it is evidence. That is why we need to await the outcome of the CPS consultation.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in what was a very important debate that did credit to the whole Committee. I am most grateful to my noble friend the Minister, who is a distinguished criminal lawyer and a distinguished former member of the CPS, but, with all due respect, no one should mark their own homework. It is not for the Crown Prosecution Service to mark its own homework, nor any other lawyers even.

In relation to Amendment 62, to go in reverse order, I urge my noble friend to consider what the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, and others have said about what is happening in practice—the University of Manchester study and so on—because just reading out the official statement from the CPS is hope-sapping—I know that my noble friend would not want to sap my hope in difficult times. In relation to Amendments 62 and 61, she suggested that she is listening and said it with some personal input. She is not AI. She is not a projection from the Government. She will forgive me for saying that she is one of our best advocates on these Benches and the Government are very lucky to have her. However, as I know our noble friend Lord Timpson has said, publicly and privately, many times, we are not all here for ever; we are not on this earth for ever; we are not in this Chamber for ever; we are not in positions of power and influence for ever. We must make the most of our opportunities to make change, as was promised, and make it for good. Race equality surely must be one of the foundations of any Labour Government, specifically one that has promised so much.

In relation to both amendments, I heard no proper pushback from any side of the Committee. On Amendment 61, I have to defer to the noble Lords, Lord Beamish and Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. The time is now; the vehicle is this Bill. Finally, I say gently to my noble friend that when she walks into rooms in the Ministry of Justice with officials or even Commons Ministers, I hope she realises that she is the cleverest person in the room or at least the one with the most direct experience of practising criminal law in the courts. If anyone can find a way through, I trust that that is my noble friend.

Amendment 62 could theoretically be dealt with by rules of court—but it must be dealt with—but with Amendment 61 we need an urgent legislative amendment in this Bill. My noble friend foreshadowed the possibility of a way through, partly on her concerns about sole and determinative evidence and partly responding to the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. I urge her to deliver for the Committee and for the people of this country, for the past victims of miscarriages and for all those who might come. I say that as respectfully and positively as I can to my noble friend. I hope she knows how much respect I have for her, but we are looking for something on Report in respect of both Amendments 61 and 62. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I can be brief. I support Amendment 63 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. We have already spoken about the need for consistency across our justice system. That includes extending the powers to compel offenders to attend their sentencing in the Crown Court to magistrates’ courts. This amendment would also bring the periods in which a case can be discontinued into alignment; indeed, I am interested to see what justification exists for the difference between the two. We have heard a compelling speech also from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, with a particular example. I know that one should be wary of individual examples, but it is a compelling example and we should listen to it carefully.

Apart from making the system more consistent in its procedures, this amendment would allow prosecutors in the Crown Court to discontinue a case at a late stage, preventing unnecessary, costly and time-consuming trials. In the context of a court backlog and the need for efficiency, allowing this more flexible mechanism for bringing prosecutions to an end appears to us to be a measured and sensible improvement. To be clear, Amendment 63 still allows the option to reopen a case following a successful victim’s right to review request, if it is concluded that the CPS has made an error in stopping the prosecution. This amendment would not do away with this important scheme which is available to victims. We thank the noble Lord for his efforts and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I will start with a little trip down memory lane. In either 2010 or 2011, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, when sitting in the Court of Appeal, heard a case called Killick. That was a case where prosecution had been restarted and, as part of his judgment in relation to it, the noble and learned Lord said that the Crown Prosecution Service needed to come up with a system that would allow victims to challenge a decision not to prosecute, without them having to bring judicial review proceedings. As he may remember, I was the prosecutor who remade the decision to charge in that case and, as a result, the Crown Prosecution Service—under a certain Director of Public Prosecutions, who may be known to your Lordships in another context at the moment, and I, working as his principal legal adviser—devised the victims’ right to review scheme.

I wrote much of the legal guidance, so the noble Lord, Lord Russell, is correct when he says I know quite a lot about it. I am a huge fan of the victims’ right to review scheme, because although the Crown Prosecution Service is in many ways a completely wonderful organisation, everybody is human and sometimes people get things wrong—and when we get it wrong, we want to put it right. Obviously, a right is not a right unless it has a remedy attached to it, and that is a real problem in some of these cases. The noble Lord knows, because I discussed this with him when we met, that my practice when I was dealing with reviews of cases was always that if I took the decision to offer no evidence, I would write to the victim and say, “In 14 days I am proposing to do this, unless you want to make representations to me as to why I should not, or seek judicial review proceedings”. I completely get the issue here.

The only note of caution I will sound is this. It would be a substantial change, with wide-ranging implications for both victims and defendants. For that reason, it needs to be considered carefully, because discontinuing a case is not simply putting a pause into proceedings. Restitution requires fresh proceedings, starting back in the magistrates’ court, which risks delay and uncertainty for both victims and defendants. It does not go straight back into the Crown Court as a restart. That is why robust safeguards and controls, which are not in this amendment, are essential when making these decisions.

For example, in the magistrates’ court procedure, which this amendment seeks to replicate, the defence can refuse to accept a discontinuance and insist on no evidence being offered, or insist that the Crown Prosecution Service makes a decision as to what it is going to do. We are anxious to ensure that discontinuance is not, for example, used in the Crown Court as a way of getting an adjournment that would not be got under other circumstances, as in saying: “We don’t have enough evidence here. We need another three months to get it, so we’re going to discontinue and then restart”. That could create awful uncertainty, both for victims and defendants, as to what is going on. There are, for example, cases where somebody is a youth at the time they are charged and, if the case is then discontinued, they may then be tried as an adult later on.

I am not saying that I do not understand the problem or that this may not be part of the solution, but it needs to be considered carefully. What we plan to do is to consider this proposal further in the context of the wider court reforms and Sir Brian Leveson’s most recent report, with his recommendations for improving efficiency. I also welcome the expansion of the CPS pilot, strengthening victims’ voices before final decisions to offer no evidence are made. The outcome of that pilot will also inform our thinking. For the time being, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the Minister very much for her response. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for adding her name and for the examples she put forward. As I surmised, the Minister does indeed know what she is talking about—on a 24 hours a day, seven days a week basis, from what we have heard—and she is looking remarkably well on it.

I thank the Minister very much for the broadly positive way in which she has responded. I think she acknowledged, as we have all acknowledged, that there is an issue and an inconsistency here. But putting it right is not a matter of just snapping one’s fingers and changing one thing, because that has knock-on effects. I am hoping that the Minister will agree to have some follow-up discussions between now and Report, to see either what it will be possible to do by Report or what changes one can start instituting or committing to look at carefully, which can then be enacted later. But on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, when I say that I will be brief, I will be very brief. I have listened carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. He is quite right in his observations, and particularly about the ultimate test of whether a sentence is set aside because it is unduly lenient. However, I think the answers have already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell: this is a notification. The CPS is not taking a position on the merits of making the application; it is just setting up a timetable.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I will deal first with the existing time limit. We are listening—I am making a “we are listening” speech—not just to the strength of views in this Committee and in the other place on the time limit for the unduly lenient sentencing scheme but to the victims themselves. We are consistently hearing that this time limit is simply not long enough when victims are processing the outcome of the case, and I am extremely sympathetic to their representations. A ticking clock is the last thing that they need at a difficult time. The Government have been persuaded by arguments that something needs to be done, but we want to make sure that we get this right. Currently, we have been given a number of conflicting views on the best way to go about this. I would like to meet all noble Lords who have tabled amendments, and indeed any other interested Members of your Lordships’ House, to discuss the best way forward.

Turning to the question of notification, it goes without saying how important it is that victims are made aware of the ULS scheme. It is another subject that comes up over and again; it is not much of a right if you do not know that you have it. I am afraid that I am not persuaded by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, saying that we should not tell people that they have this right in case they want to use it—if that is not what he meant to say, I apologise and withdraw the remark. The way it is supposed to work is this. Under the victims’ code, police-run witness care units are required to inform victims about the unduly lenient sentencing scheme within five working days. However, we are hearing that this is not happening, so we need to ensure that it does. The question is how best to go about it.

At present, I am not persuaded that putting the obligation into primary legislation is the best way. The first reason is that, usually, if you create an obligation, you have to create a penalty for the breach. The second is that if you want to change it, you have to amend primary legislation in order to do so. The victims’ code is a statutory code of practice. Last week, we launched a consultation to ensure that we get it right and that the code is fit for purpose. Again, we would welcome your Lordships’ engagement with that consultation before it closes on 30 April, and any other ideas before we reach our final conclusion. For now, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sater, my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, for tabling Amendment 68. We agree with the principle that children who commit crimes should thus be charged as children, even if by the time of their court appearance they are above the age of 18. What matters is the mental state of the offender at the time the offence was committed, not the lottery of when he or she comes to court. The amendment seeks to ensure that there is no loophole preventing this being the case, and we therefore hope that the Government will agree with that aim.

Amendment 70 in my name concerns the collection and publication of data relating to offenders’ immigration history and status. This is a sensitive issue. Illegal immigration has long been a core political issue for voters and has become even more salient in recent years. There continues to be widespread misinformation and unfounded assertions, both in person and online. That is because empirical evidence concerning immigration has not always been readily available. People perceive changes occurring as a result of policy, but often operate under the assumption that the Government are shielding themselves from transparency. That is not the case, of course, but it must be dealt with.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than with crime rates. The public feel less safe, they see the demographic change and they link the two. This is problematic. It can lead to misguided opinions about certain parts of society. There is no available data to inform opinions of what the true position is. Non-governmental studies and disjointed data releases have repeatedly justified this connection, but the lack of clarification from the Government still leaves room for the general public to be decried as fearmongering or bigoted. It is not just policy: people deserve to know the impact that government policies are having on their everyday lives, especially when they can have immediate impacts on their safety.

We say that there is a clear case to publish crime data by immigration status. Accurate and comprehensive data allows for informed debate and evidence-based policy. At present the information is scarce, it is fragmented and it leaves the public, and indeed policymakers, reliant on conjecture. If transparency and open justice are priorities, to release offender data by foreign national status and immigration history would provide clarity, support public confidence and allow all sides to address the facts without speculation.

The Minister will be aware of the time we have previously spent on the topics in Amendments 71 and 74. Amendment 71 would exempt sex offenders and domestic abusers from being eligible for early release at the one-third point of their sentence, while Amendment 74 would reaffirm the Government’s policy of favouring suspended sentences but once again seeks to exclude sexual offences and domestic abuse from the presumption. Custodial sentences should of course by judged by the extent to which they deter reoffending. We accept the Government’s belief that short custodial sentences often do not serve this end, but reoffending cannot be the sole metric by which the nature of a punishment is decided. The prison system at least prevents individuals from offending while they are incarcerated.

For sexual offences and domestic abuse, these considerations are not abstract, certainly for the victims. Victims’ lives, safety, sense of security, the opportunity to reorganise their lives and perhaps move or otherwise change their way of living, are directly affected by whether an offender is at liberty or in custody. In 2019, the first year for which comparable data is available, there were 214,000 arrests for domestic abuse and 60,000 convictions, a conviction proportion of 28%. In 2025—six years later and under this Government—there were 360,000 arrests for domestic abuse but only 41,000 convictions, a drop from 60,000 and a conviction rate of just 11%. Something must be done.

The Government have highlighted the scale and seriousness of sexual offences and domestic abuse. They have described violence against women and girls as a “national emergency”. They have committed to strategies including specialist investigative teams and enhanced training for officers, and demonstrated recognition that these crimes demand careful handling. It would be inconsistent to promote such measures while making it easier for offenders of these crimes to avoid immediate custody.

This principle also extends to early release. It becomes a moral question rather than a purely empirical one when an offender has drastically altered the life of a victim by means of their crime. I do not think it reflects who we are as a society if we say that those who commit as invasive and exploitative a crime as sexual assault or domestic abuse should not serve the full extent of their sentences.

I end by saying I hope the Liberal Democrats will support these amendments. They have made it a point of principle, as have we, that victims of domestic violence deserve targeted measures to prevent them suffering further harm. Their justice spokesman in the other place, Josh Barbarinde, tabled a Bill last year to prevent domestic abusers from being released early under the Government’s SDS40 scheme. They now have a chance to put their principle into practice, as Amendment 71 would have exactly the same effect. I hope they will be able to offer their support.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I start with Amendment 68 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. She spoke passionately about this issue during the passage of the Sentencing Act and I pay tribute to her wealth of experience on this topic. As a former youth magistrate and a member of the Youth Justice Board, I have a lot of sympathy for the issues raised.

However, this amendment would radically change the youth justice landscape. As the noble Baroness knows, sentencing guidelines already make it clear that, when an individual is dealt with as an adult for crimes that were committed when they were a youth, they are to be sentenced as though they were being sentenced at the time that they committed the offence and not when they appear before the court. They also state that the courts have got to consider not only the chronological age of the offenders but their maturity and other relevant factors that remind the court they are not just mini-adults and need to be treated differently. Our position is that we remain concerned about the operational and legal complexity associated with a proposal like this. We are worried that we may not be able to achieve this during the passage of the Bill. However, I would like to speak to the noble Baroness, if she is willing to meet with me, and let us see what we can do.

Amendment 70, in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, aims to place statutory duties on the Crown Court, HMCTS and the Secretary of State in relation to collecting and publishing data on sentencing. This Government remain committed to developing the data we publish on foreign national offenders. The Ministry of Justice has already taken action to increase transparency on the data published and, notably, in July, for the first time the offender management statistics included a breakdown of foreign national offenders in prison by sex and offence group.

Victims and Courts Bill

Baroness Levitt Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 10th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, for her Amendment 1, which addresses the thresholds proposed in the Bill. As she knows, we on these Benches have similarly expressed concern about the proposed threshold. This restricts the effect of Clause 3 to offenders sentenced to four years or more. Given the evident consensus against the current threshold, we on this side look forward to the Minister’s response.

Amendments 2 and 3, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, raise interesting and entirely reasonable points, revealing potential gaps in the present legislation, so again I look forward to what the Minister will say.

This brings me to Amendment 4, in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie. It seeks to extend the safeguarding framework in Clause 3 so that it applies to those convicted of the most serious child cruelty offences—and I emphasise “cruelty”, as it is not just about sexual offences. It should be noted that in respect of the Crime and Policing Bill we understand that the Government have tabled a new schedule, which lists child cruelty offences, taking the step of treating sex offenders and child cruelty offenders analogously. Our amendment uses the very same definition of child cruelty, so it is wholly consistent with the Government’s thinking.

Our amendment asks the Government only to take the same stance in this Bill to ensure that the parental responsibility of offenders is restricted when serious child cruelty has been committed. If the Government are not inclined to support this, we ask why. I ask the House again, regarding parental responsibility, why should our response to a child who has suffered cruelty differ from cases where a child has been sexually assaulted? I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government appreciate that this group of amendments is driven by a desire to safeguard the children who are, quite rightly, at the centre of these difficult and sensitive cases. As I said in Committee, this aim is one I share.

Amendment 2, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Meston and Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeks to apply our proposed parental responsibility measures to as yet unborn children. There are complexities to this, because there are three distinct groups of as yet unborn children who would be caught by this measure. These are as follows: first, a child who has been conceived as a result of the rape of the victim by the defendant, but who is as yet unborn at the date of sentence; secondly, a child who has been conceived but is as yet unborn when their father is sentenced to four years’ or more imprisonment for a child sex offence; and, thirdly, a child who will be conceived at some point in the future but has not yet been conceived. Different considerations apply in relation to each.

We thank the noble Lords and the noble Baroness for their amendment because, in the course of our consideration of it, we have realised that an unborn child who has been conceived as a result of rape is not covered by Clause 4, as currently drafted, to which the noble Lord, Lord Russell, referred. As my honourable friend Minister Davies-Jones said in the other place, safeguards are in place through the family courts which could restrict parental responsibility in these cases, but it is a serious gap in Clause 4, and I have asked my officials to look further at this and consider how we can best protect this group of children. This is complex, and I cannot address it today, here and now, but I will write to your Lordships with an update on this as soon as I can.

The second group, to which I have already referred in outline, consists of women who are pregnant by a man at the time he is sentenced to four or more years’ imprisonment for a child sex offence. I appreciate that these children are likely to be at the same risk as the living children for whom he already holds parental responsibility. Again, in relation to that category, I have asked my officials to consider what approach may be possible in these cases.

It is the third group covered by this amendment that causes us difficulties. It refers to any or all future children of someone who has received a four-year sentence for a child sex offence, in perpetuity. This would cover a child conceived, say, 50 years after that sentence had been imposed and served. It is this last cohort of children that is the reason the Government cannot accept this amendment. We cannot know what the circumstances of each case will be for future children, particularly when decades may have passed between the sentence and their birth. We cannot, therefore, be sure that we are acting in the best interests of a child who may not be conceived for many decades hence by automatically preventing the offender acquiring parental responsibility.

It is important that I restate what has already been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton: these measures are not an additional punishment for the offender. The point of them is to offer rapid protection to the offender’s existing children who are deemed to be at an immediate risk, right then and right there, in the Crown Court. That is why under the Government’s proposals, the restriction can and should happen automatically, at the point of sentence—but a child conceived many years later is a much more complicated and challenging proposition. In general terms, the proper place to make decisions about the welfare of future children is in the family court, so in most cases it is the family court where these applications should be determined.

As I have said before, criminal court judges do not have the training, the experience or, frankly, the time to consider, in each individual case, whether the restriction of parental responsibility is in the best interests of that particular child. That kind of consideration should be made by the expert and experienced judges of the family court—judges such as the much-respected noble Lord, Lord Meston—who will have the benefit of reports from, for example, expert social workers. It is self-evident that this kind of determination cannot be made in advance of the child’s birth, possibly many decades in advance.

Finally, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, and probably other noble Lords are aware, parental responsibility can be acquired in multiple ways, and while it may be the noble Lord’s intention that this amendment should apply only to parents who automatically acquire parental responsibility, it would not prevent an unmarried father obtaining parental responsibility for future children by being named on the birth certificate if the mother wished to do so. It is a fact that not all mothers accept the guilt of their partners, even post-conviction and sentence. This would create a situation in which some offenders could never acquire parental responsibility for a future child without a separate order being made, while others could. That would be a significant inconsistency in the law which we cannot accept. For these reasons, we cannot accept this amendment, but again I thank your Lordships for bringing to my attention cases where the mother is pregnant at the time of sentencing. Those unborn children require protection, and we will look at how best to provide it.

I turn to Amendment 3, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, but spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. This amendment seeks to create mandatory bail conditions preventing defendants contacting children for whom they hold parental responsibility while they are under investigation or awaiting trial on bail. We all want to ensure that children are protected when a parent has been accused of a serious sexual offence, but the Government cannot accept this amendment. Existing legislation already provides the police and courts with powers to impose robust bail conditions, which can include requirements not to have any unsupervised access to children and not to live and sleep at an address where children are living, and it is absolutely standard for there to be a condition not to contact prosecution witnesses, including children, in a case where those children are giving evidence. If there is a real danger to witnesses or to children, it is very likely that bail will be refused. However, in the real world, there will be some cases in which there is plainly no risk to the suspect’s children, so to remove the judge’s discretion would probably be incompatible with Article 8.

As the law stands, there are no mandatory bail conditions of any kind for any type of offence. To start introducing them would restrict the important discretion of the police and courts to apply conditions on a case-by-case basis to address real risks. It would also interfere with the presumption of innocence and the presumption of entitlement to bail, both of which underpin our whole criminal justice system. The amendment also seeks to impose a condition which would require the accused to disclose the nature of any bail conditions imposed to the family court while they are under investigation or on trial if there are existing children proceedings. The joint protocol on the disclosure of information between family and criminal agencies and jurisdictions already provides a clear framework for the sharing of information, so there is no need for such a statutory provision. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendment.

I now turn to Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I have had a number of very useful conversations with the noble Baroness, whom I greatly admire, and I understand the aim of this amendment. I think and hope that she understands that I share her wish to protect as many children as possible, but Clause 3 is not a marker for when parental responsibility should be restricted; it is about when such a restriction should happen automatically at the point of sentence—that is to say, without the usual consideration by the family court. Any individual who poses a serious risk to children should not be able to exercise parental responsibility, but to restrict it automatically, we must be certain that the restriction is in that child’s best interests. The seriousness of the offences in scope of our measure, marked by a sentence of four years or more, ensures that we can be confident, in those cases, that that is the case.

That is not to say that an offender who has committed sexual offences against children but has received a sentence of less than four years’ imprisonment cannot or should not have their parental responsibility restricted; in some cases, that will be exactly what should happen, but an application to restrict parental responsibility can then be made to the family courts in exactly the same way as it can be now. They will consider all the circumstances of the case and make a decision in the child’s best interests.

Amendment 4 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, seeks to introduce an automatic restriction on the exercise of parental responsibility for offenders convicted of child cruelty and sentenced to imprisonment of four years or more. The Government believe the aim of this amendment is sound and principled; child cruelty offences are heinous, and we all wish to protect as many children as possible, so we understand why the noble and learned Lord seeks to extend the Government’s measures.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, reflects a commitment to ensuring victims are entitled to free transcripts on the route to verdict and bail decisions and conditions that are relevant to their case. In Committee, we supported the broader amendment, which included sentencing remarks as well. On the amendment now before us, which includes transcripts of the route to verdict, our position has not changed; if anything, we are even more supportive, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing this matter to Report.

Similarly, Amendment 16 in my name and in the name of my noble friend Lord Sandhurst is also designed to enhance access to important transcripts without charge, this time focusing on sentencing remarks. I will not rehearse the arguments and evidence for this, as we have all heard the benefits and how it would help the interests of victims and underlines our open justice system.

We have listened carefully and, after further thought, have revised the amendment that we brought forward in Committee. While we have not changed our position on this amendment focusing on sentencing remarks, the amendment now gives the relevant victims the right to anonymity rather than non-publication. In addition, it still requires the court to make victims aware of this right before sentencing remarks are published. With this crucial and pragmatic safeguard in place, we hope that the House finds this to be a well-considered and reasonable amendment that focuses on how this will work in practice and not only on the principle of transparency, on which I believe we are all agreed. In these circumstances, I intend to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 16.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their constructive engagement on the subject of court transcripts over recent weeks.

As the noble and learned Lord said, there is nothing between us on the principle of increased transparency for criminal court proceedings. As your Lordships will know, the Government recently announced that we will provide free transcripts of sentencing remarks for victims whose cases are heard in the Crown Court; it is one of the provisions of the Sentencing Act. Delivering this new entitlement is a significant operational undertaking. It is essential that we get it right, so that victims can receive the information they need in a timely way. However, the new proposals in the amendments in this group, taken either individually or together, would put that commitment under strain.

Through her Amendment 5, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, wants to include an entitlement to transcripts of bail decisions and the route to verdict. There are two difficulties with that. First, providing transcripts of bail decisions would involve extra resource. Transcripts are not free and producing even those for short hearings, if extended across England and Wales, would be expensive. Secondly, it would not provide significant benefits over and above the systems already in place. Transcripts on bail decisions are rarely informative for victims; they usually just set out the decision—where the judge says either that bail is granted and lists the conditions, or that bail is refused, with rarely any kind of reasoned judgment—and, as I said, they would come with cost implications. Under the victims’ code, victims already have the right to be informed of bail outcomes and release conditions.

We recognise that, when information is not provided in a timely or consistent way, this can cause distress and anxiety for victims and add to what is already a difficult experience. The experiences spoken to in Committee by the noble Baroness is clearly not what we expect or wish—nor are they, I am pleased to say, the norm. We are currently exploring how responsibilities under the victims’ code are being met by the relevant service providers and how better to support them in the delivery of the code.

We will also seek victims’ views on access to bail information and whether current processes are working correctly, through the ongoing victims’ code consultation. To strengthen that further, the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 will introduce a compliance framework requiring criminal justice bodies to keep their delivery of the code under review. Therefore, legislation needed to drive improvement in notifying victims of bail conditions is already in place.

Because this amendment arrived only yesterday, I have not had an opportunity to discuss the question of routes to verdict with the noble Baroness, but I think it is possible that she may have been misinformed about what a route to verdict is and what it consists of. It is our view that a route to verdict is unlikely to add significant, or indeed any, value for victims. It is usually a very short document; in most trials, it is typically about 10 lines long. Very rarely would a route to verdict be longer than two pages. It sets out a few questions that the jury should ask themselves in private, when they are applying the law to the facts of the case. However, the jury never gives its answers to those questions because we do not have reasoned judgments in criminal trials. Therefore, the victim will not be any wiser as to what the answers were; they would simply know the questions that were asked. These routes to verdict are almost always—unless the printer is broken—provided to the jury in hard copy, so a transcript is not needed and would add nothing.

The noble Baroness also raised concerns in Committee about victims being asked to leave the courtroom after giving evidence. I agree that this is a real issue and should not happen. I give the noble Baroness my assurance that I will work with the appropriate officials to ensure that victims understand that they are generally entitled to remain in court if they wish to do so and that arrangements—such as the use of screens or remote observation, so that they cannot be seen and do not have to see the person they accuse—can be made in some, if not all, circumstances. This is a practical and immediate step that we hope will make a real difference to victims’ experience without requiring further legislation.

Amendment 16 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, would require the Crown Court to publish transcripts of sentencing remarks within 14 days of a request for such remarks being made. Publishing sentencing remarks online is significantly more resource-intensive than simply providing them to the victim.

Public release demands a higher standard of anonymisation to remove both direct and indirect identifiers of victims and witnesses. Jigsaw identification is where a number of apparently innocuous pieces of information, when put together, particularly by people who have some knowledge of the local area, for example, can in fact lead to the identification of the victim. Even something such as the location of a shop, if there are people around who know it, could tell them who the victim is.

That kind of anonymisation is detailed and skilled work. Current AI-based tools cannot reliably carry out anonymisation for the complex and sensitive material heard in the criminal courts. The cost of getting it wrong is profound. It requires trained staff manually to review each transcript, and research suggests that it takes around 45 minutes of staff time to review every hour of a transcript before publication is possible. That means that even a modest increase in publication volumes would create disproportionate pressures in operational capacity in the Crown Courts, which cannot take any further pressure.

Furthermore, requiring the court to make the victim aware of their right to request anonymity, to make the appropriate redactions and to publish the transcript online within 14 days of any request is just not viable. Our priority must be delivering the sentencing remarks for victims, as set out in the Sentencing Act, properly and at pace, before taking on any further changes that could undermine or delay that work.

Finally, I would like to reassure your Lordships that we have listened to what was said in Committee, and work is already under way to improve the transcripts application process to make the system more accessible for all users. I thank your Lordships for raising these important issues. We all agree about the principle of transparency; the only issue between us is the best way to deliver it. We believe these issues can be and are being addressed through non-legislative means, and I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, if content, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the Minister for their contributions. I thank the noble and learned Lord for his support of our Amendment 5. We on our Benches absolutely agree that his amendment helps the interests of victims’ right to anonymity, and we are very grateful for that. As he said, it is practical.

I preface my reply to the Minister by saying that through these amendments we are seeking to ensure that the problems that victims have at the moment are resolved. The difficulty we have is that we are being told it is all too expensive, difficult and complicated. I have been sitting in your Lordships’ House for at least six years getting that sort of response. Victims are very grateful for the pilot that has gone through on the sentencing notes, but the issue is that there are other things that victims need to hear.

We appreciate that there are significant issues that need to be resolved, but it was only through pressure from your Lordships’ House during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Act that we got the pilot that is now being rolled out. I really hope we can convince the Government that they should do another pilot to at least look at some of the issues that either my amendment or the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, tackles, because we believe that to be important. However, in the meantime, because we think that this is just too far in the future, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, the important amendments in this group address real issues for victims and victim support. Amendment 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, seeks to introduce independent victim navigators on a national basis to act as a liaison between the police and victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. The principle behind this amendment has force. Victims of these offences often face complex barriers to accessing support. To navigate the criminal justice system can be daunting for those who have experienced exploitation or coercion. This specific service is needed. The amendment reflects recommendations made by your Lordships’ Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee. We on these Benches therefore hope that the Government will give careful consideration to the proposal, and we look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Amendment 7 in the name of my noble friend Lord Polak, introduced so eloquently by him and echoed by my noble friend Lord Farmer and others, likewise focuses on strengthening the framework of support available to victims. It places a duty on relevant authorities to commission sufficient and specific services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence and child criminal exploitation. The principle that victims should have access to appropriate and specialised services is widely shared across this House. To ensure that support provision responds to the varied needs of victims, including children and those with particular vulnerabilities, is an important objective. My noble friend’s Amendment 7 also draws on the recommendations made by the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee. It seeks to translate those recommendations into a more structured system of support. These are serious matters that deserve careful reflection. We hope that the Government will consider the intent behind this amendment with that in mind.

Amendments 11 to 13, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, address different but no less important aspects of victim support. They include support for caregivers of victims, access to restorative justice services, and the assessment of their use. Each of these raises serious issues about how the criminal justice system supports victims and those adversely affected by crime. It is important to do something in this direction. They highlight questions around the availability of services, the role of restorative justice and the broader framework through which victims are to be assisted. They all deserve serious consideration. Again, I look forward to hearing the Government’s response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 6, in the names of my noble friend Lord Hacking and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would require the Government to implement independent modern slavery victim navigators in every police force in England and Wales, and would also define their functions.

The Government welcome the interest shown in modern slavery and in providing assistance to survivors. I am grateful to my noble friend for meeting me to discuss the issue, and I was pleased to meet Eleanor Lyons, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. I have also been extended an invitation irresistibly put by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I hope that I can respond in an equally irresistible manner by saying that of course I will make a commitment to meeting, particularly since I think that I am committing my noble friend Lord Hanson to doing so, rather than myself. If, however, it is me, I shall be delighted to meet Restitute and, indeed, would be genuinely interested to do so.

I am sorry to disappoint noble Lords, but the Government cannot accept this amendment because it would duplicate existing services, so statutory funding is not an effective use of taxpayers’ money. We are not saying that victim navigators, who are widely valued, cannot or should not be used. They are already successfully funded through police and crime commissioners, through central government grants such as the Ministry of Justice’s victims fund and through charitable donations. Of course local areas can continue to use them: it is right that each local area should determine their value and provide funding if it is appropriate to do so. Each police force, and other law enforcement bodies, such as the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, has the autonomy to fund a victim navigator if it is considered a necessary resource to help it carry out its functions.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will start first with Amendment 8, in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier but introduced so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, and my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth. The amendment seeks to insert a new clause. It would require a review of how domestic and overseas victims of fraud, bribery and money laundering offences could be better compensated. Crucially, such a review must look into how this can be done without the need for civil proceedings, which we all know would be drawn-out, expensive and not always fruitful. I have supported this concept since my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier first started arguing for it: certainly as long as I have been in the House and since I was a member of the Select Committee inquiry into fraud four years ago. Something must be done.

We hope that the Government have given this serious consideration since Committee and I look forward to hearing from the Minister what steps the Government are taking to address the issue and whether conclusions will be reported to Parliament. Warm words—which we have heard—butter no parsnips. We on this side want to hear that something will be done. If it is true that a review has been offered that will report in 2028, that is far too long. As Mr McEnroe would say, “You cannot be serious”.

Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, also addresses an important issue that we should not overlook. The amendment creates a clarification to support recognition of certain forms of online-only child abuse. It would bring them into the scope of recognition of the criminal injuries compensation scheme. We can only ask, “Why on earth not?” As I said in Committee, the scheme must keep pace with the way in which and the places in which criminal activity now takes place. We look forward to hearing an update from the Minister.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 8, in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and the noble Lords, Lord Murray and Lord Marks, has been spoken to most persuasively, as ever, by the noble Lord, Lord Marks. I too join him in thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for his ongoing commitment to this matter. I am sorry he is not in his place today, but he and I met recently with my noble friend Lord Hanson to talk about this in more detail.

There is a review and it is a priority for all of us, and I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, for his continued drive to champion victims and his expertise in this matter. The Government take the compensation of victims of economic crime very seriously. We are committed to ensuring that, wherever possible, funds are taken from criminals and returned to victims. As I have said on several other occasions and will not repeat now, there are several existing mechanisms that enable compensation for victims of economic crime. We accept that they are either not used sufficiently or they do not go far enough.

The Government have an existing public commitment through the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy 2025 to review UK policies and procedures for compensating victims of foreign bribery. There is a review; it is comprehensive and I have happy news for the noble Lord, Lord Murray: it is not 2028 but 2027—and that is next year. I understand the desire of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, to see this matter addressed as soon as possible and I completely understand his frustration, which he has expressed both in this Chamber and privately when we met, but given the existing review and the other current and future measures, the Government do not believe that it is appropriate for a legislatively required review to be introduced at this time.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

Given the incidence of appeals where initially it was ruled that it was not a crime of violence but, on it being investigated further, it was acknowledged that it did count as a crime of violence, can the Government request that that be looked into more carefully and closely? The incidence of such crimes, which may or may not be viewed as crimes of violence, is increasing rapidly. Clarification from the board as to what criteria it is using, so that those who have suffered have a much clearer idea of whether that might be included, would be extremely helpful to them and save a lot of time and anguish.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I will certainly take that away and write to the noble Lord. A number of things are in issue here. For example, I do not know how many appeals across the board are successful. It may be that it is a greater number for this category of cases; it may be a smaller number. I simply do not know, so I will write to the noble Lord.

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

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive response on the question of a review. I know that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, was grateful for the meeting. Our continuing frustration is about the timescale. The noble Lord, Lord Murray, and I are very pleased to hear that 2027 is there rather than 2028, but we both know that that is next year and that now is March 2026. We would be even more grateful if there were a commitment to finish the review and produce results this year, because almost undoubtedly for a comprehensive scheme there will require to be legislation. That takes time, as we all know, and therefore the sooner that we can get on with this the better it is. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments clearly touch on important issues about victim safety, transparency and access to information. Amendment 10 raises an interesting question about how the victims’ code applies where a close relative has been killed abroad. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on that proposal.

With regard to Amendment 15 in my name, the victim contact scheme needs to be extended here, given that some offenders convicted of violent and sexual offences may now receive sentences much lower than before. It is important to consider whether victims in those circumstances will be adequately supported and informed. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on that amendment as well.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin with Amendments 9 and 15 in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, which seek to extend the eligibility for the victim contact scheme. As far as Amendment 9 is concerned, as I said in Committee, victims of coercive or controlling behaviour, stalking and harassment are already eligible for the updated scheme regardless of sentence length. Victims of violent and sexual offences, and of dangerous driving, where the offender receives a sentence of less than 12 months’ imprisonment will be able to request information through the new dedicated helpline.

The Bill already includes a mechanism for providing information about an offender to victims of any offence, irrespective of sentence length, where probation considers them to be at risk of physical or psychological harm if they are not given such information. However, the Government have a duty to safeguard taxpayers’ money and to ensure that it is used in the most effective and proportionate way. Our approach targets finite public funding on those most in need of the proactive contact through the victim contact scheme, while still providing the helpline for all victims to request information. Any expansion of the scheme would require diverting public funds from other essential parts of the criminal justice system.

That said, we will keep the eligibility under review. The Bill includes regulation-making powers for the Secretary of State to amend the list of offences and the specified lengths of sentence of such offences, which determine eligibility for either scheme. The Government believe that secondary legislation is the much more effective way of being able to tweak the scheme should it prove to be needed, rather than requiring primary legislation, which, of course, is much more difficult to deal with if it has an unintended consequence. Each of these amendments contains a requirement that information should be communicated in a timely and sensitive way. Of course this matters, but we believe that this is best achieved through guidance and training, not primary legislation.

Finally on the subject of these two amendments, I reassure your Lordships that we will be monitoring the scheme through the victims’ code compliance framework under the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which will include an annual report. With this in mind, I invite the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I turn next to Amendment 10 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I thank them both for their tireless work for victims and for continuing to raise this important matter. We have had a number of helpful and constructive meetings about this, and it is common ground between us that, when the unimaginable happens and a relative is a victim of homicide abroad, the help available to their families and loved ones can be patchy. We know that, and we all agree that it is not good enough.

As is so often the case with the noble Baroness’s and the noble Lord’s amendments, we agree entirely on the objective, but there is perhaps less consensus about the right way forward, because we think we can do this a better way. In addition—as the noble Baroness knows because I have discussed this with her—we are worried about unrealistically raising the expectations of victims’ families at an enormously sensitive and difficult time for them. The difficulty with this amendment, attractive though it may seem, is that many of the provisions of the victims’ code cannot and do not apply to most homicides abroad, because they cannot be prosecuted in the UK. In cases where the offence can be prosecuted in the UK, the code already applies.

Many aspects of support in these cases depend upon overseas judicial systems, which fall outside the scope of the victims’ code. Including them in an appendix risks creating unrealistic expectations. At a very stressful and dangerous time, we do not want families, who have had a quick look at the code and were not able to take in all the detail, to have the impression that they are guaranteed support and then to feel let down because decisions are made by foreign authorities over which the UK has no control.

Police in England and Wales can become involved only if they are formally invited by the relevant overseas authority. For example, under right 6 of the current victims’ code, victims have the right to be told by the police when key decisions on the investigation are made. However, in cases overseas, updates and access to information are determined by the processes and timelines of the foreign jurisdiction. This means that fixed reporting requirements, such as those in the victims’ code, cannot be guaranteed.

That said, we are all in agreement that these families can experience particular challenges navigating overseas criminal justice processes. For that reason, the Government published the victim-facing guidance in January 2026, and I am pleased to hear from the noble Baroness that she regards this as a good start. It brings together clear and accessible information for families in these difficult situations, setting out the services that can support them and directing them to the help that they need. As the new victims’ code is developed, we will review what further signposting information can be included to support all families bereaved by homicide abroad. Our feeling is that it should be a bespoke thing, rather than being tacked on to a victims’ code, most of which will not apply. The code consultation went live on 5 February; we are interested in encouraging everybody to contribute to it.

In addition, the newly updated organisational roles and responsibilities document, published in February 2026, sets out how the FCDO, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the Ministry of Justice, the Chief Coroner and the coroners service will work together when a British national is the victim of murder or manslaughter abroad. While every case is considered individually, this document seeks to ensure a consistent level of service for bereaved families.

Within this, the Homicide Service can and does support families bereaved by a homicide abroad, including emotional and practical support, such as by covering the cost of translated documents. I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will not be surprised to hear that I cannot confirm anything today about the long-term future and budget of the Homicide Service. I am sorry that I cannot do that here and now, but I am sure she understands.

When the Bill was in Committee in this place, I heard concerns that families accessing Homicide Service support for translated documents are not always having a consistent experience. In the delivery of the next multi-year Homicide Service contract from April 2027, the Ministry of Justice will work with the provider to look again at how translation services are provided for this group of victims. We want to ensure that their needs are properly met when documents require translation and that this is reflected in the contract.

In addition to addressing concerns from Members of your Lordships’ House, the FCDO will review and refresh the training provided to consular staff on supporting families bereaved by homicide abroad.

Finally, I am grateful to the office of the Victims’ Commissioner for engaging with the FCDO and other agencies through the murder and manslaughter working group, which brings together stakeholders from across government, policing and the third sector to share expertise, align efforts and drive meaningful improvement. Where appropriate, the FCDO’s senior officer for global consular services will offer to meet the Victims’ Commissioner herself, or her representative, when particular issues arise that merit further discussion. I have already put the Victims’ Commissioner in touch with those representatives whom the noble Lord and the noble Baroness met at our meeting.

I turn finally to Amendments 17, 18 and 19 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. Before I move on to the operational issues that concern the Government, there is a drafting issue, so I first must raise a technical point. These amendments apply only to new Sections 44F and 44K in Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Bill. Those sections apply where a restriction order or restriction direction is not made. In Committee, noble Lords indicated that their concern is with cases of homicide—entirely understandably—but, in such cases, the offender will almost certainly be a restricted patient. Those victims would therefore be eligible for the victim contact scheme and would not need to request information through the helpline. The provisions updating the victim contact scheme are in Part 1 of Schedule 2, so the amendments as drafted cannot achieve their aim. I believe that noble Lords are more concerned about homicide cases, which would not be covered.

However, I turn to the wider points of principle. I listened carefully to the contributions made in your Lordships’ House and to the powerful arguments made to me by Emma Webber and Julian Hendy of Hundred Families, whom I was privileged to meet. I entirely accept that these three amendments are motivated by a desire to improve the provision of information to victims of mentally disordered offenders, but the challenge we face is not a legislative gap. The most effective way to secure better outcomes for victims is to ensure that clinicians have the understanding, confidence and tools to get it right first time. That is not achieved through more primary legislation, nor through complex, costly bureaucracy; it is achieved through improving decision-making in the first place, increasing awareness and embedding a clearer understanding of responsibilities—ensuring that there is not a knee-jerk defensiveness about supplying information.

That is why I am pleased to announce that we will be bringing forward a comprehensive capability-building programme with three core strands. First, we will make sure that clinicians understand their duties. To do that, we will work together with the Department of Health and Social Care to update the statutory Mental Health Act code of practice. We are going to add victim liaison requirements to the NHS secure service specifications, introduce a detailed joint protocol for clinicians and HMPPS staff and work with the Caldicott Guardian Council to support guardians’ role as expert information advisers to clinicians. Secondly, we will improve victim liaison officers’ understanding of this complex area and provide training to bolster the role of specialist mentally disordered offender victim liaison officers. Thirdly, we will produce victim-facing materials to explain clearly what information is and is not usually provided to victims of mentally disordered offenders. These will also explain the routes by which they can make a complaint, including if they did not receive the information they expected.

I consider that these measures will significantly improve the consistency of information provided to victims, and I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Russell, not to press his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I am sorry, my Lords; I had not actually spoken to Amendment 9, as may have been noted, so it rather passed me by that it was for me to respond.

Having heard from the Minister, it is certainly my intention to support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which she will be moving.

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[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches, I have relaid the amendment on the victim’s right to review in the event of discontinuance of proceedings. Amendment 23 would extend the period that a case can be discontinued in the Crown Court to bring it in line with the magistrates’ courts. This would mean that the CPS could discontinue a case at the Crown Court, with the option to reopen it following a successful victim right to review application, if it concludes that it made an error in stopping the prosecution.

I was grateful for the Minister’s response in Committee, when she explained that this amendment would mean wide-ranging implications for both victims and defendants. I have relaid it because I hope that she will be able to clarify the timescale for the Government’s response to Sir Brian Leveson’s important report on wider court reforms and improving efficiency. Perhaps even more importantly, will this issue of a victim’s right to review be, at the very least, included in discussions in the MoJ in the context of Sir Brian’s report and the wider court reforms? While appreciating that all of this may take time, there is a pressing and unequal arrangement at the moment. We will, I suspect, continue to lay amendments on this and to question Ministers in the future.

My noble friend Lord Marks has supported Amendment 20 on private prosecutions, from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen. As he said, we will support the Conservatives if they should choose to divide on it.

Amendment 29, laid by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, would create exemptions to the early release scheme for sex offenders and domestic abusers. In Committee, the Minister referred to enhanced supervision when offenders of sexual crimes are released—that is, the use of tags and bail conditions that can impose wide restrictions on an offender visiting or travelling in areas that pose risk for the victims. That is as it should be. However, the proposers of this amendment say that it has not been working well in recent years—I have to say that includes when they were in power. If that is the case, can the Minister tell me how we can then protect victims from their offenders?

I want to ask whether those convicted of stalking and coercive control would be included in the category in Amendment 29, given that they are now included in the appendix of relevant serious crimes covered in the victims’ code and are exempt from automatic release after recall, such as breach of a protective order.

Having asked these questions, we are minded to support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, if he should decide to test the opinion of the House in due course.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin with Clause 12. There are two points that I want to make at the outset: the Government’s motivation for introducing this provision is not to save money, and we do not wish there to be a chilling effect on private prosecutions. Indeed, we are supportive of the long-standing right to bring a private prosecution and we recognise the important part such prosecutions play in the criminal justice landscape.

Expenditure on private prosecutions is, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has already said, a very small proportion of overall Ministry of Justice spending. But what matters, regardless of the scale of expenditure, is clarity, consistency, proportionality and value for money. The Justice Select Committee, in its 2020 report Private Prosecutions: Safeguards, invited the Government to take a closer look at the private prosecution landscape, particularly where public funds are engaged. An enabling power as in Clause 12 allows us to do precisely that, in a careful and evidence-led way. The Justice Committee highlighted three key principles which should underpin reform. These are: first, addressing the disparity between defence resources and those of private prosecutors; secondly, safeguarding the right of individuals to bring a private prosecution; and, thirdly, ensuring the proportionate and responsible use of public funds. We agree with the Justice Committee about these principles.

At present, there are no prescribed rates for private prosecutors recovering costs from central funds, which is public money. This results in significant uncertainty, with the courts and the Legal Aid Agency required to assess claims case by case, often by reference to civil guideline rates and leading to disputes, appeals and judicial reviews, adding to costs and delay in the courts. The courts play a vital role in overseeing private prosecutions and have made a number of important changes, but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said during debate in Committee, this is a matter with which the Government have to grapple. The question of the amount of costs recoverable in principle is a matter of public policy and it is appropriate that such policy decisions are made by a democratically accountable officeholder, rather than developed incrementally through case law. The enabling power in Clause 12 ensures that any framework adopted has a clear statutory basis and is subject to parliamentary oversight.

The majority of private prosecutions do not result in any claim on central funds and will be entirely unaffected by this measure. Moreover, most private prosecutors are assiduous in applying the full code test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors and in their overall conduct of the case. But there is some evidence that, at the margins, the near certainty of substantial costs recovery may cause private prosecutions to be pursued which are either disproportionate or an unsuitable remedy, when the issue in dispute is essentially one which requires a civil law adjudication.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a thoughtful debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and her supporters for their work on these issues.

On Amendment 21, I reiterate the sentiments expressed in Committee and by many noble Lords across the House from all parties. In light of the appalling Post Office scandal, keeping in mind the increasing use of artificial intelligence, the need to remove the presumption of reliability for computer evidence is now clear. The noble Baroness has responded to some of the concerns expressed in Committee in bringing forward this redrafted amendment. I commend her attention to this issue.

My concern is that the Government have had long enough to look at this. Their call for evidence closed on 15 April 2025, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister where we are now, given that the call for evidence is a year old. I am sure she will be anxious to update us on that.

I understand the basis for Amendment 22, but I have some reservations about its detail. There is an issue about the objectivity of the conditions listed in subsection (2) of the proposed new clause. I would certainly be interested to hear more about how the court should consider who is suitably qualified to give evidence about

“linguistic and artistic conventions and the social and cultural context of the creative or artistic expression”.

It is an important area, but it is also a difficult one that will repay further consideration.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 21 in the names of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti and a formidable trio of other Members of your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who is not in his place, is extremely important. I really mean it when I say I want to thank my noble friend, both for tabling it and for the work she has done to refine it since Committee. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lord Beamish, all of whom have given up their time to meet me during the last two weeks to discuss this amendment to try to get it right. I know the entire House wants to thank the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and my noble friend Lord Beamish for their ceaseless championing of the victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal. It is thanks to them that we are here taking the steps we are today.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. I put my name to both amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which we first laid in Committee. In essence, what the Minister said when she wound up this group in Committee was “We are listening and I am making a listening speech”. I hope that, even though she has been on her feet for much of today, she is still in listening mode. I do appreciate, as I think we all do, the way she has approached both Committee and Report; it is a refreshing change from some experiences one has had in recent years. I look forward to what I hope will be a positive “listening” response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my thanks to Claire Waxman, the Victims’ Commissioner, and to Tracey Hanson and Katie Brett, who have campaigned with great commitment on behalf of victims.

In Committee, much was said on all sides about the importance of the unduly lenient sentence scheme in ensuring consistency. As all who participated know, it is not an appeal for victims who are dissatisfied by the length or type of sentence: rather, it is a legal safeguard, exercisable by the Attorney-General, to correct sentences that fall outside the appropriate range. As such, it is a constitutional safeguard vested in the Attorney-General as guardian of the public interest, not a mechanism for anyone to relitigate sentencing. That said, victims will often play a vital role in drawing cases to the Attorney-General’s attention for consideration: we recognise and indeed encourage that.

As is generally known, the time limit is a strict one: 28 days with no exceptions. The Government are aware of and have listened to the comments of the victims and those supporting them, who have long complained that the system just is not working for them; in particular, that they are often not told about the ULS scheme; and, in any event, 28 days is not long enough.

Against that background, I turn to the amendments concerning the time limits, in the names of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Sandhurst. Your Lordships will be aware that the Government had been considering tabling their own amendment to increase the time limit. As I said in Committee, we hoped to bring something forward on Report. Today, I take up the invitation of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, to set out why we have not done so.

This is fundamentally a Bill for victims. Unsurprisingly, victims have told us that they want to be listened to by the Government. Both victims and the Victims’ Commissioner have told us clearly that increasing the time limit to 56 days would not address the problem they face. They have told us that any time limit, whether it is 28 days, 56 days or 365 days, is meaningless if they are not informed about the ULS scheme in the first place.

Plainly, all victims should be told. There are mechanisms in place for doing so, but we have heard enough from victims to make it clear to us that there are occasions on which this is not happening. To paraphrase what I said today in an earlier group, a right is not much of a right if you do not know about it.

To the victims, I say: we have heard you and we will continue to listen. The victims asked us not to bring forward our amendment extending the time limit to 56 days, and so we have not done so. This explains why we cannot accept Amendments 24 and 25.

I turn to Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I thank her for not only raising the issue but for the positive and constructive talks we have had. As some of your Lordships may have gathered, the noble Baroness and I have been spending rather a lot of time together over the last few weeks. I have enjoyed every moment, of course. I can understand why it is felt that an exception from the strict time limit would be a good thing, but there are a number of issues with it, and I will try to deal with these briefly.

First, it seeks to treat a symptom of the problem rather than tackling the cause. The underlying problem is that some victims are apparently not being told about the ULS scheme. The noble Baroness’s amendment seeks to address that by creating a mechanism to bypass the time limit if that happens. But this Government are not here to patch up the symptoms; the Government’s view is that we must address the root cause—victims are telling us that they are not being informed—rather than create a mechanism that responds only after the problem has occurred.

The second issue is the question of what exceptional circumstances would mean in practice. The Government’s concern is that the amendment will be self-defeating, because “exceptional” has its ordinary meaning—something unusual, not typical—and cannot be exhaustively defined in legislation, but something that is not genuinely unusual cannot be described as exceptional. Given that the noble Baroness’s reason for tabling the amendment is, regrettably, that victims do not get told about it, if they are not told, it cannot be exceptional. This is very likely to apply to the very cases that would not be able to take advantage of the law. I hope the noble Baroness will understand why the Government cannot accept the amendment and that she will work with me and my officials as we look to address the real issue: ensuring that victims are notified of the scheme in the first place.

Amendment 30 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, would require a public consultation. The Law Commission did exactly this. The Law Commission has held a public consultation on the ULS scheme, including specific questions about the 28-day time limit. Holding another one would be a waste of taxpayers’ money. I hope your Lordships will join me in looking forward to the commission’s final report when it is published later this year. The Government will, of course, consider its findings carefully.

I turn briefly to the remaining amendments, which seek to place a statutory duty on a designated government department or the Crown Prosecution Service to notify the victims. Again, there is no issue between us about the fact that the Government need to ensure that every victim is told. I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve, but I want to persuade her that there is a better way of doing it.

The amendments seek to create a duty which already exists. Police in witness care units are already responsible for informing victims about the unduly lenient sentence scheme. Using primary legislation to try to make people do what they are already required to do is not the best way of going about things. These amendments impose a duplicative statutory duty, potentially with different timeframes or differing lines of accountability. It must be self-evident that this risks confusion rather than clarity, particularly where concurrent statutory duties could blur operational responsibilities. The fear is that the victims might actually, as a result, end up worse off.

I therefore ask your Lordships to work with us, the Victims’ Commissioner and the victims themselves to get to the heart of the issue and develop practical, workable improvements to notification and awareness. We want every victim to be properly informed, in good time, so that they can exercise their rights with confidence. Our focus is on fixing the long-standing problems with notification rather than changing the time limits themselves.

We already have the commitment of the Attorney-General’s Office, the CPS, the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs’ Council to work closely with us to improve awareness of the scheme. They have all urgently assessed what actions can be taken in their respective areas. There is a quite a detailed plan.

Given the time, I will undertake to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, rather than read out the next four pages of my speech, for which I do not think anybody would thank me. For these reasons, I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation and understand that she is giving further consideration to this issue. In these circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.