Queen’s Speech

Baroness Newlove Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to join your Lordships’ debate on the humble Address. I ask you kindly to bear with me as I speak, as you may be wondering where I am going with this, but there is a point and one which I hope your Lordships will agree it is very important to speak about—it is very close to my heart and the hearts of many victims of crime up and down this country. For too long, victims and their entitlements have been forgotten. Over recent years, there has been an effort to try to provide victims with more rights. We have seen this through the introduction of the victims’ code and the implementation of an EU directive for victims.

The Government have committed to introducing a victims’ law during this parliamentary Session and, although it was not explicitly included in Her Majesty’s gracious Speech last week, I understand that work is still under way to consider how this commitment can be taken forward. A victims’ law is a real opportunity for victims, and it should be seized on. Victims have told me that they often feel sidelined by the criminal justice system and made to feel that their only role is to help to secure a conviction. Victims deserve so much more. Introducing a victims’ law is a real opportunity for the Government to make sure that victims receive the entitlements they deserve and that they are treated with dignity and respect. A law is a good way to assure victims that there is a framework of rights available for them.

For many years, the focus has been on the offender and their rights, and I agree that they should not be treated unfairly or discriminated against. For example, we know that there are many safeguards in place to ensure that the offender has a fair trial. Even today, my noble friend spoke about the aims of the prison and courts reform Bill which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders to ensure that improvements made to the prison estate and giving prison governors more powers gives offenders better life chances. But what is in place for the rehabilitation of victims and their life chances? Victims should be given the same opportunity to rehabilitate their lives; they should have help and support to enable them to recover from the crime from which they have suffered. Victims do not ask for much: they want sufficient information to understand what is happening with their case and they want to be treated decently. Time and again, victims are made to feel unimportant and unsupported. That is why I was so dismayed that there was no explicit mention of the Government’s commitment to creating a victims’ law. Creating such an effective law will be a journey with many stages and will take time. It is important to get the foundations right and make sure that it is not rushed. Meaningful conversations need to take place with victims to identify how a law can deliver genuine improvements for them.

In my role as Victims’ Commissioner, I meet many victims. Their accounts not just of the crime but of how they have been treated by criminal justice agencies are so disheartening to hear, especially when the Government’s commitment through the victims’ code sets out what entitlements they should receive. Through my work, I have been able to report that there is a gap between what victims are supposed to receive and what they actually receive.

If a victims’ law comes into effect, it needs to be deliverable and mean something to victims. It cannot be another example of window-dressing or meaningless concessions. A law has to deliver real entitlements for victims and include provisions for what happens if and when those entitlements are not met, otherwise there is no point in creating new legislation. Anything less will be just a fad or a sop for victims, and the Government and we in this House cannot let that happen.

By all means let us reform our prisons to ensure that they are places of rehabilitation and find ways to improve education, healthcare and life chances, but surely it is right and fitting to ensure that victims are supported through education and healthcare too, in order to improve their life chances. That is what is called rehabilitation for victims.