Victims and Prisoners Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I rise to speak to my new clause 33, a probing amendment based on concerns I expressed on Second Reading about the Victims’ Commissioner lacking enforcement power, undermining their ability to protect victims. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), made similar comments during his contribution. I welcome the fact that Baroness Newlove has been appointed as Victims Commissioner—that is a step forward from where we were on Second Reading. I hope she has had the opportunity to influence the Bill before today’s debate.

On Second Reading, I talked about my constituents, the family of the murdered Mike O’Leary. Since Mike’s death, the family have become avid campaigners for victims’ rights, and the main thing they consider is missing from this much-awaited Bill is the enforcement powers that would give the Victims’ Commissioner some teeth. The murder of Mr O’Leary was a particularly heinous crime—his body was desecrated—and I look forward to the Sentencing Bill on Wednesday, when we will have an opportunity to discuss whether a new crime should be introduced and whether sentencing guidelines should be amended to reflect the extra suffering of the bereaved families.

Baroness Newlove, in her response to the King’s Speech in the other place, mentioned a sobering survey that her office did on victims’ experience of the criminal justice system. Of the 500 people surveyed, 71% were dissatisfied with the approach of the police to the crime they experienced, 34% said they would not report another crime, less than 29% were aware of the victims code, only 29% were offered the opportunity to make a victim’s personal statement and only 8% were confident that they received justice by reporting a crime. If the aim of the Bill is to bring victims’ experience into the heart of the criminal justice system, it has its work cut out.

The commissioner should be the key role for driving the change that is needed. On Second Reading, I pointed out the powers of the Welsh Language Commissioner under the terms of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, introduced by the Welsh Government. The Welsh Language Commissioner’s enforcement powers range from offering advice and training to requiring an organisation to prepare a plan to prevent further continuation or repetition of the failure, requiring an organisation to take concrete steps to prevent further failure, publicising the failure of an organisation to comply with the measure and imposing a civil penalty of up to £5,000. Empowering the Victims’ Commissioner along the lines of the enforcement powers of other commissioners would considerably strengthen the hand of victims and help transform the criminal justice system so that victims are at its centre. I hope the other place may take up my new clause in its deliberations.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clause 1, and new clauses 2 and 3 in my name. When we talk about victims, it is important that we also discuss taking responsibility for the victims of Parliament’s activities, and some of the victims of Parliament’s activities are the IPP—imprisonment for public protection—prisoners. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has campaigned on this matter for years, and the Justice Committee has undertaken detailed investigations and reports, which I think we need to take more seriously in this House because of the urgency of the matter.

There are nearly 3,000 IPP prisoners still in prison. They are in prison under legislation passed in this House by David Blunkett, who now recognises that there is an injustice—there has been a miscarriage of justice—and is appealing to us to correct that injustice by legislating now. There is example after example of people who have gone to prison on small tariffs. Martin Myers was sentenced on an 18-month tariff, and he has served 17 years. Wayne Bell has served 16 years on a two-year tariff, and Aaron Graham has served 18 years on a three-year tariff. This is Kafkaesque. These people have committed relatively minor offences, but are trapped within the prison system and cannot get out.

It therefore behoves us to address this issue, which is why the Justice Committee undertook the review and brought forward not a policy of releasing these prisoners without protection and security, or whatever, but of re-sentencing, with special expertise brought in to assess each prisoner and see whether it is safe at least to give them a determinate sentence so as to give them some hope. That is the problem here: we have lost 88 of these prisoners through suicide because they had no hope. If we listen to the Prison Officers Association, the Prison Reform Trust, Amnesty, Liberty and the families, we can understand why, because it is not just the prisoners who are serving these sentences, but their families.

What have we found in the last year? We have lost another eight prisoners who have committed suicide, with 1,600 self-harm incidents among this group of prisoners over the last 12 months. What we need to do now is to take forward the hon. Member’s proposals, and if the Government are not satisfied with them at the moment, let us work on them until the Bill goes to the House of Lords and see what we can do in the other place. In addition to that, I have put forward minor amendments saying that we should at least offer such prisoners—those inside, but also those on licence—advocacy and mentoring so that they can prepare themselves properly for resettlement and release from prison, but also so that when they are outside they are not recalled, as they are at scale at the moment.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I rise to speak to amendment 26, which I tabled. It is supported by hon. Members across the House and would enable victims to request a transcript of court proceedings free of charge, as that would be a huge step towards improving the transparency and accessibility of our justice system.

In 2020, my constituent Juliana Terlizzi was drugged and raped in her sleep by her then partner. Two years later, Juliana’s attacker was finally convicted, but she can barely remember what was said in the courtroom due to trauma and emotional distress. Following the trial, she was advised by a therapist to apply for a transcript of proceedings to allow her to revisit and process what was said in court. Her application for a free copy of the transcript was rejected, and she was then quoted an astonishing £7,500 by one of the private companies outsourced by the Government to produce transcripts. I soon discovered that Juliana’s extortionate quote is not an isolated case. Other victims have faced fees of up to £22,000. How can anyone be expected to pay such a fee? Court transcripts should not be a luxury that only a few victims can afford; they are a vital tool in aiding victims’ recovery. As victims and bereaved families do not routinely attend trial, transcripts are often the only means available to them to establish exactly what happened in the courtroom.

I secured an Adjournment debate on the cost of court transcripts last month. During the debate, I was pleased to hear the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) affirm the Government’s commitment to the principle that justice must be open and transparent, and I welcomed his comments regarding the work that officials within the Ministry of Justice are doing to improve access to court transcripts. I welcome the Minister’s opening remarks committing to a trial of making sentencing remarks available free of charge. However, it is important to establish that we still need full transcripts to be available, so that victims can have the context within which those sentencing remarks are made. The importance of access to transcripts has been emphasised by the Victims’ Commissioner, the Justice Committee, charities such as Rape Crisis, Refuge, and Support after Murder and Manslaughter, and dozens of hon. Members from six different parties across the House.

There are steps the Government could and should be taking to reduce costs, such as utilising new technologies and assessing the value for money of contracts held with transcription services. I have repeatedly raised the idea to Government of enabling victims to request an audio file of court proceedings. That would be a low-cost solution to improving transparency and ensuring that victims can access a record of court proceedings. I welcome the commitment of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice in that Adjournment debate, and in written correspondence to me, that he will look in greater detail at that issue. Above all, victims and bereaved families need access to full, accurate transcripts of court proceedings at no cost to themselves. Anything less will be an injustice. I urge Ministers in the Ministry of Justice to listen to the concerns of victims, and to look more closely at what further can be done to tackle the injustices faced by victims.