Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Robert Flello

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating Superintendent Derek Lockie on and, especially thanking him for, his outstanding work for victims and victims’ organisations during his time leading the Victims’ Commissioner’s office? But does the Minister agree that the loss of such a talented and fiercely independent lead in that office is a matter of great concern?

[Damian Green]

I am happy to share the hon. Gentleman’s tribute to, I assume, his constituent, Mr. Lockie, but I do not share his worries because I know that independence and feistiness are still more than fully available in the Victims’ Commissioner’s office in the form of the Victims’ Commissioner, whom I look forward to both working with and being held to account by in the coming years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Robert Flello

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

6. What steps he plans to take to enforce the code of practice for victims of crime.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

We are working with all service providers who have duties under the victims code to ensure that their operational systems, guidance and training are updated to deliver their new responsibilities to victims of crime. We will continue to work with our criminal justice partners to ensure there is appropriate oversight of the new code at a local and national level.

[Robert Flello]

I am immensely grateful for that.

“There is more to be done to ensure agencies are made accountable under the code…this needs to be backed up by statutory powers.”

Those are not my words but the words of the Victims’ Commissioner herself. At every turn, the Government have paid lip service to victims and then acted against them. They have made the Victims’ Commissioner job part-time and then savaged the criminal injuries scheme. Will the Minister now give the victims code some real teeth, and not just warm words?

[Damian Green]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is massively out of touch with the sector that deals with victims if he expresses those views. When we launched the victims code, it was welcomed by a wide range of our partners in the voluntary sectors, including Victim Support and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The victims code is a significant step forward from the old impenetrable code that the previous Government put forward, and it has been welcomed by those who know most about the sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Robert Flello

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

We accept that section 28 is not easy to implement, but given the many recent appalling cases involving character assassination and the bullying of vulnerable witnesses, is it not now time to implement, as one measure, the approach proposed by many, including the Advocacy Training Council in its report “Raising the Bar”, of introducing compulsory training and certification for barristers in cases of this kind?

[Damian Green]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying there are practical difficulties in implementing this. We are looking at a range of measures. He will be aware that our consultation on the victims’ code closed only a few days ago, and the Minister for victims, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), will be publishing a response this summer. Obviously, that must align with the witness charter as well. I hope all these things will come to fruition shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Robert Flello

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I agree with my hon. Friend that mediation services do a very good job. He mentions Victim Support, which has, of course, asked all PCC candidates to sign up to five pledges. Many candidates of all parties—and, indeed, independent candidates—have signed up to those pledges. With the range of services involved, I repeat that it will be for the PCCs to make a decision, and they are best placed to do so in their individual areas.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Victims will almost certainly be adversely affected when PCCs are elected in November, but the Government’s plans for the criminal injuries compensation scheme could make that even worse. After we forced last week’s dramatic eleventh-hour retreat, victims rightly want to know the Government’s next steps. Will the Minister confirm whether the Government propose to try once again to shove this deeply unpopular proposal through, rewrite it, apply cosmetic changes in the hope of dampening down the opposition on their own side or, as we hope, to scrap it altogether?

[Damian Green]

In the first instance, I find it extraordinary that the hon. Gentleman should attack all PCC candidates, including his own right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael), who has just announced that he is a PCC candidate, and that the hon. Gentleman is telling the people of south Wales that his right hon. Friend would not spend the money as well as I would. That is an extraordinary assertion. As for the second half of the hon. Gentleman’s extraordinary question, we will, of course, look at what best to do, and we will want to bring back the scheme, but in a better form so that individual cases can be treated in a more individual and sensitive way. I assure him that if he condemns every PCC candidate as being unable to deal with public money before they are even elected, he really does not understand democracy.