Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it was an honour to sign this amendment and to join in some of the meetings with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and colleagues and Stella Creasy. Other colleagues have already explained the progress that has been made. We are hoping to hear from the Minister shortly, but I just want to say that, should the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, decide to call a vote, we on these Benches will support her. If she does not, we look forward to seeing an amendment at Third Reading.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am only going to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. I think she has shown huge patience and persistence. I am not surprised, because my honourable friend Stella Creasy has those qualities too. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said, should the Minister not satisfy the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, we on these Benches are ready to support her in a Division.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think that any message could have been conveyed more loudly and more convincingly than the one I have just received. I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan for this amendment and thank the other speakers on this topic.

As your Lordships have heard, the amendment seeks to revise current data protection legislation so that victims of malicious complaints involving third parties can prevent the processing—and subsequently request the deletion—of personal data from that complaint. The issue has been raised previously in the other place and discussed in your Lordships’ House in Committee. As my noble friend Lady Morgan has just said, the Government indeed recognise that complaints of this kind can be used to perpetuate harassment and that victims should be better supported.

In addition, as my noble friend also pointed out, we have to strike a balance between the processes for erasure and removal of all traces of such complaints and harassment on the one hand and the need to have regard to safeguarding concerns on the other. The issue is how we strike the balance. The Government’s present view is that the amendment as drafted is not one that we can accept because it is too wide and poses some operational and safeguarding issues. However, we have heard the concerns and, although we cannot accept the amendment today, I commit the Government to bringing forward an amendment at Third Reading to address these concerns.

To explain a little, if I may, we have to triangulate several different aspects: the nature of the harassment concerned, the provisions and procedures of the GDPR, the child safeguarding issues that are the concern of the Department for Education, the different procedures for various criminal and civil orders, the relevant police procedures and a number of other considerations, so it is not entirely straightforward. However, although it is not ideal to bring forward an amendment at Third Reading, this is a complex area and we should take the time to find an appropriate solution.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I am happy to add my name to these two amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. There is no need to speak at length about them; it is essentially about trying to ensure that victims have equality of rights, in this case with prospective prisoners. At the moment, frankly, they are disadvantaged and are put through a series of hoops—if, indeed, they can find out what in theory they are entitled to. I shall say no more than that I entirely support everything the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has said, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, we had a very full debate on this issue in Committee. From these Benches, we are deeply committed to these two amendments. This is a victims’ Bill, and it seems to me that we really need to be doing things to support victims, which is what these two relatively modest amendments do. If the noble Baroness decides to test the opinion of the House, we will support her.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 100 and 101 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seek to extend the current time limit for applications under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, which currently must be made within 28 days of sentencing and require a nominated government department to inform victims and families of the scheme, including the relevant time limits.

Having a fixed time limit reflects the importance of finality in sentencing for both victim and offender. While we will keep this limit under consideration, there are no current plans to remove the certainty of an absolute time limit for victims and offenders alike. However, the Government recognise that there is uncertainty over how far in advance of the time limit expiring a victim must ask for a sentence to be reviewed, given the fact that the Attorney-General must refer the case to the Court of Appeal within that fixed time limit. We also recognise that the number of requests made to the law officers and therefore the number of sentences they consider has increased in recent years, due in part to increased awareness of the scheme.

The Government are therefore tabling an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill which will amend the time limit in the unduly lenient sentencing scheme so that, where a request is made to the Attorney-General in the last 14 days of the 28-day limit, the Attorney-General will have 14 days from receipt to consider the request and, if appropriate, make an application to the Court of Appeal for a sentence to be reviewed. This will benefit victims as it will ensure that the Attorney-General will be able to consider requests that are made up until the end of the 28-day period.

As for informing victims about the scheme and the time limits, as I said in Committee, the victims’ code is already clear that victims should be informed about the scheme by the police’s witness care units at the same time as they are told about the sentence. This is expected to be done within six days of sentencing. However, I can go further and commit that when revising the victims’ code, the Government will look at the information about the scheme that is provided to make sure that it is as clear as possible. I hope this reassures the noble Baroness that action is being taken to address the issues she raised very eloquently in Committee and again today. Consequently, I respectfully ask her to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Thornton]

113: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—
“Major incidents: duty of candour(1) In discharging their duties in relation to a major incident, public authorities and public servants and officials must at all times act within their powers—(a) in the public interest, and(b) with transparency, candour and frankness.(2) If a major incident results in a court proceeding, official inquiry or investigation, public authorities and public servants and officials have a duty to assist—(a) relating to their own activities, or(b) where their acts or omissions may be relevant.(3) In discharging the duty under subsection (2), public authorities and public servants and officials must—(a) act with proper expedition,(b) act with transparency, candour and frankness,(c) act without favour to their own position,(d) make full disclosure of relevant documents, material and facts,(e) set out their position on the relevant matters at the outset of the proceedings, inquiry or investigation, and(f) provide further information and clarification as ordered by a court or inquiry.(4) In discharging their duty under subsection (2), public authorities and public servants and officials must have regard to the pleadings, allegations, terms of reference and parameters of the relevant proceedings, inquiry or investigation but may not be limited by them, in particular where they hold information which might change the ambit of the said proceedings, inquiry or investigation.(5) The duties in subsections (1) and (2) must—(a) be read subject to existing laws relating to privacy, data protection and national security, and(b) apply in a qualified way with respect to private law and non-public functions as set out in subsection (6), and(c) not be limited by any issue of insurance indemnity.(6) The duties in subsections (1) and (2) will be enforceable by application to the relevant court or inquiry chairperson by any person affected by the alleged breach, or the court or inquiry may act of its own motion.(7) Where there are no extant court or inquiry proceedings, the duties may be enforced by judicial review proceedings in the High Court.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require public authorities, public servants and officials to act in the public interest and with transparency, candour and frankness when carrying out their duties in relation to major incidents.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendment 113 on the duty of candour in place of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby and with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester.

I took the time to read the reasons why the Minister did not want us to proceed with this in Committee. I remind the noble Earl that we agreed about the duty of candour in 2014 when we put it on the statute book, in, I suspect, the very large Bill of the now noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on the reorganisation of the NHS, or one that followed shortly after. The whole House agreed that the duty of candour was an important matter within the NHS, and it has become part of the culture of our NHS. I should perhaps declare an interest as a non-executive director of the Whittington Hospital and part of its governance structure.

This amendment seeks to extend that duty to all public organisations—I thank Inquest and others for their briefings—to cover those operating across all public services. This has been Labour policy for some considerable time. Inquest believes, as we do, that there is an urgent need to introduce a duty of candour for those operating across all public services. A duty of candour would place a legal requirement on organisations to approach public scrutiny, including inquiries and inquests into state-related deaths, in a candid and transparent manner. We are talking about major incidents here, so this is very important. This duty would enable public servants and others delivering state services to carry out their role diligently, while empowering them to flag dangerous practices that risk lives.

In Committee, the Minister said that he thought this could

“give rise to many difficult and conflicting views, making the whole process almost impossible to manage and drawing civil servants into conflict with each other and their employers”.—[Official Report, 26/2/24; col. 819.]

It seems to me that a duty of candour does exactly the opposite: it actually allows for a transparent discussion about what might have gone wrong.

I am not going to go into any more detail, because we had a very good discussion about this in Committee. However, Justice’s report When Things Go Wrong found that

“In both inquests and inquiries, lack of candour and institutional defensiveness on the part of State and corporate interested persons and core participants are invariably cited as a cause of further suffering and a barrier to accountability”.


If noble Lords think back to Hillsborough and other inquiries, how true that statement is. That is why this is important.

Bishpop James Jones concluded that South Yorkshire Police’s

“repeated failure to fully and unequivocally accept the findings of independent inquiries and reviews has undoubtedly caused pain to the bereaved families”.

That is the point of this amendment. Failure to make full disclosure and to act with transparency can lead to lengthy delays in investigations and inquiries, and actually make things so much worse for the victims involved. A statutory duty of candour would significantly enhance the participation of bereaved people and survivors by ensuring that a public body’s position was clear from the outset, limiting, we hope, the possibility of evasiveness. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Manchester is also a strong supporter of this amendment, which he has signed, and he regrets that he cannot be in his place today to speak to it himself.

As we have heard, six years ago, the former Bishop of Liverpool published his report on the Hillsborough disaster, The Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power. This report recommended the introduction of a duty of candour for the police, which was adopted in the College of Policing’s Code of Practice for Ethical Policing only earlier this year. I am glad that issuing a code of practice for ethical policing will become a statutory duty under the Criminal Justice Bill, but this is just one body. A duty of candour needs to apply to all public authorities. More often than not, crises, scandals and disasters which require an inquiry involve multiple, overlapping public agencies, all of which need to be under the same compulsory responsibility to act with transparency for that inquiry to be fully effective.

A duty of candour would challenge the instinct of institutions to focus primarily on reputation management in the wake of crises. This instinct leads only to more suffering and delay for affected persons. There is also a more pervasive effect whereby institutions are unwilling to be candid about their failures, so it is extremely difficult to learn from past mistakes. I do not believe that a duty would solve every problem, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

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[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl for his usual comprehensive and very straightforward summing up, but we do not agree with him.

Part of the problem is that, although the Hillsborough charter may be comprehensive, a large part of it is voluntary. What we are discussing is something that covers everybody. Frankly, if a duty of candour can be applied equally in a hospital to the most senior consultant and a porter, I cannot see why it cannot be applied in this case to everybody. I am a non-executive director, and my chair and I both have the same duty of candour within the NHS, wherever we work and whatever we do. A duty of candour is not a silver bullet—I absolutely accept that it is often very tough to implement, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, knows—but it can change an organisation over a period of time.

The noble Earl himself has found many ways to achieve many things in his public duty, including the duty of candour in the NHS. It must be possible to say that all public servants should be bound by a duty of candour and to ensure that it is possible to do that regardless of whatever codes they are following and whatever they are doing.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. Apart from inquests and statutory inquiries, what are the circumstances in which she expects this to be necessary?

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

Earlier in the debate, it was quite clear from our discussions about the report on Hillsborough that it should cover everybody who gives evidence and is involved in an inquiry or whatever arises out of a serious incident. That is what we are seeking to do. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House.