Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

122: After Clause 28, insert the following new clause—
“Code for victims of major incidents(1) The Secretary of State must issue a code of practice as to the services to be provided to victims of major incidents by persons having functions relating to—(a) victims of major incidents, or(b) official inquiries and investigations following a major incident.(2) In this Part, the “code for victims of major incidents” means the code of practice issued under this section.(3) The code for victims of major incidents must make provision for services which reflect the principles that victims should—(a) be provided with information to help them understand the investigatory process following the major incident of which they are a victim;(b) be able to access services which support them (including, where appropriate, specialist services);(c) have the opportunity to make their views heard in the investigatory process following the major incident of which they are a victim;(d) be able to challenge decisions which have a direct impact on them.(7) The code for victims of major incidents may make different provision for different purposes, including different provision for—(a) victims of different descriptions;(b) persons who have different functions of a kind mentioned in subsection (1).”

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[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 122, I shall also speak to Amendment 123. I thank Justice and Inquest for the briefings they have given us about this issue. I hope the noble and learned Lord the Minister will be back with us at some point as the Bill proceeds, although the duo who have taken his place are doing a great job.

These amendments follow on from our debate at the end of the proceedings last week about victims of major incidents and how they should be treated. The amendments are about the fact that bereaved people and survivors in inquests and inquiries will have suffered serious harm but do not receive the same recognition from the Government as victims of crime, so are not entitled to the minimum level of support and services. Instead they are often expected to navigate complex legal processes, with little recognition of the harm they have suffered or the trauma they have faced.

Under Clause 2, the victims’ code in the criminal justice context would reflect the principles that victims

“(a) should be provided with information … (b) should be able to access services which support them … (c) should have the opportunity to make their views heard … (d) should be able to challenge decisions which have a direct impact on them”.

Applying these principles to the victims of major incidents and interested persons at inquests would have a significant, practical and symbolic benefit, consistent with the Government’s pledge to place victims at the heart of their response to public tragedies.

Extending the provisions of the victims’ code could be achieved by introducing a requirement in the Bill for the Secretary of State to issue a separate victims’ code relating specifically to victims in the context of inquests and inquiries. Such a code could be guided by the same principles and have the same weight and legal status as its criminal justice counterpart. Before drafting the code, the Secretary of State should be required to consult the survivors of major incidents and the bereaved. Further consultations should be required before any changes were made to the victims’ code or its provisions relating to victims in the inquests and inquiries context.

The Government could be invited to suggest their own way of achieving the proper support for victims of major incidents. These are probing amendments about the best way forward, and this may not be it. Inquest contends that

“affording victims of major incidents and Interested Persons entitlements under the Victims Code would represent a recognition of their status as victims of significant, and often wrongful, harm who should be treated in a manner that is dignified and promotes participation”.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for tabling these important amendments creating a code for victims of major incidents and the processes by which it should be laid before Parliament. At Second Reading, a number of noble Lords raised the problem in the Bill that faces victims who are not victims of a type of crime listed in Schedule 1 and relating only to the first part of the Bill. It is self-evident that the victims of major incidents are not all covered by crime, or sometimes criminality may not be evident for a long period after the incident. However, the consequences of these incidents are often life-changing and require the same sort of support that victims of serious crimes do.

It would be iniquitous if the victims of aircraft accidents, flooding disasters, stadium collapses and many others were not able to access the support of the relevant services via an advocate and agencies that they need. That is why amendments debated last week, as well as those today, make strong arguments for provision. The advocates also need to know what rights these victims have in major non-criminal incidents and which services to refer them to.

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[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for Amendment 122. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to prepare and issue a new code of practice for victims of major incidents. I will focus my response on the content of Amendment 122, as Amendment 123 is consequential on the former. While I understand the intentions of the amendments, I do not believe they are necessary, because existing codes and related commitments are already in place to achieve their aims.

First, the purpose of establishing an independent public advocate is exactly as the noble Baroness has outlined. It is to ensure that victims understand the processes and actions of public authorities and how their views may be taken into account; to provide information concerning other sources of support and advice; and to communicate with public authorities on behalf of victims in relation to the incident, especially in situations where the victims have raised concerns. Through the advocate’s ability to act as a conduit between victims and the Government, victims will have the opportunity to make their views known and have their voices heard to effect change in real time.

Secondly, it is likely that in most circumstances in which a major incident is declared and an advocate is appointed the victims will have been a victim of a crime. In such instances, they are already covered under the victims’ code, which sets out the services and support that victims of crime can expect to receive from criminal justice agencies. An additional code for victims of a major incident may therefore be duplicative, and as such may be counterproductive.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton, Lady Brinton, Lady Hamwee and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, have argued powerfully that non-criminal major incidents may need to be addressed. Victims of non-criminal major incidents will have an advocate appointed to help them access support services, navigate the processes—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I wonder whether the code would cover the Hillsborough situation. It seems that the definition the noble Lord has just given would not cover that situation—one in which people may think that a crime was committed but nobody has ever been charged with a crime, and there were definitely a very large number of victims.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. The other point he has raised about the type of—if I can call it this— “victimhood” completely ignores the experience of the victim, the journey they have to make, and the services, which are so vital to the victims’ code. How can he explain that victims of major incidents that are not deemed to be a crime at the time would be able access those services in the same way? They are no less victims.

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[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

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

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

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

Amendment 122 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

124: Clause 29, page 30, line 16, at end insert—
“(2A) When carrying out its functions under subsection (2)(a) in relation to a specific major incident, the standing advocate must seek, and relay to the Secretary of State, the views of victims of that incident concerning—(a) the type of review or inquiry held into the incident, and(b) their treatment by public authorities in response to the major incident.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require the standing advocate to communicate the views of the victims of a major incident to the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 124 I will speak to Amendments 125 and 128 in the name of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby. We are now, of course, continuing our discussion about major incidents and the role of the advocate.

The reason for Amendment 124 is that the press release introducing the standing advocate position states that the role will

“give victims a voice when decisions are made about the type of review or inquiry to be held into a disaster”.

However, there is no requirement in the Bill for the standing advocate to directly consider the views of victims of a major incident when advising the Secretary of State. The Bill provides for an individual other than the standing advocate to be appointed as the advocate in respect of a major incident. In these circumstances in particular, it is not clear from the Bill how and whether the views of victims will be communicated to either the standing advocate or the Secretary of State. That is the situation that Amendment 124 seeks to rectify. It would require the standing advocate to communicate directly to the Secretary of State the views of victims in relation to the type of review or inquiry to be held into the incident and their treatment by public authorities.

I turn now to Amendment 125. The Government have said that the appointment of advocates for individual major incidents will allow for expert insight from, for instance, community leaders who hold the confidence of victims. There is no requirement to consider the views of the community affected by the incident when deciding whether and who to appoint as a specialist advocate in relation to a specific incident. We appreciate that the need for rapid deployment of an advocate following a major incident—which noble Lords have been talking about already—may make it difficult to seek the views of victims before appointing an advocate in respect of that incident. However, once an advocate has been appointed, the Secretary of State should seek the views of victims as to whether to appoint an additional specialist advocate and who to appoint. This is what Amendment 125 in the name of my noble friend seeks to do.

Amendment 128 would require the Secretary of State to consider the views of the victims of an incident before making a decision to terminate the appointment of an advocate appointed in respect of that incident.

This suite of amendments strengthens the role of victims, which is what we are seeking to do in this Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for laying these amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for introducing them. After the last group, we continue to delve into the role of standing advocates. Once again, the lack of a victims’ code for those major incidents not deemed to be criminal, or not obviously criminal, means that the voice of the victim may not be heard.

One would hope that any standing advocate would seek and relay to the Secretary of State the views of the victims, but it is not evident from the Bill as published exactly how that would happen. These amendments create the golden thread that ensures that a standing advocate must do that, and that the Secretary of State, before they terminate the appointment of an advocate, must consider the views of the victims of a major incident. For example, there might be a conflict of interest with a future Government who are unhappy about the direction in which a standing advocate is going. The standing advocate might think that what the victims are saying goes beyond what the Government had hoped, and there might be a push to remove the standing advocate. Under this amendment, the standing advocate would be able to produce the evidence brought to him or her from the victims to say why the matter should be taken seriously. At the moment, there is no such structure to do that.

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[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that explanation. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Newlove, the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and my noble friend Lord Wills for their support for this small group of amendments. The Minister is right that we have no disagreement about the outcomes we wish to see at the end of this. Our concern is that giving a voice to victims in major incidents is so important that it needs to be explicitly mentioned in the Bill.

I accept that Clause 29(2)(a) does go some way, but it does not actually say that the job of the special advocate is that they have to talk to the victims. I listened to hear whether the Minister would say something about guidance or statutory instruments that might say that, because obviously that would help us with this issue. Certainly, a policy statement would be very welcome.

The question of the confidence that victims or the Secretary of State would or would not have in the special advocate is one of great sensitivity. It could be that the special advocate was giving the Government a very hard time and they may not be enjoying that, and we need to make sure that that person is protected by the statute under those circumstances. However, we have made some progress in opening up this discussion, which I know we are going to follow through in the next group of amendments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 124 withdrawn.