Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, for clear constitutional reasons, it would not be right for me to direct the judiciary. I assure him, by repeating the answer that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), that the judiciary have indeed created a sensible series of practice guidance about how to deal with such cases. Individual delay issues could be raised from Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals. I cannot go into the merits of any individual case, but I hear him loud and clear about the importance of dealing efficiently with antisocial behaviour cases.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for standing up for the victims of sexual violent crimes through additional funding for victim support, and an increase in funding for independent sexual violence advisers. Will he provide assurances that a proportion of this funding will be ring-fenced specifically to support children who are victims of sexual crimes, and will he meet me to discuss how we can further the issue of protecting child victims?

[Robert Buckland]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend. She will know that the range of support we give involves the child victims of sexual crime, whether male or female. In the past year, we awarded £12 million to 91 rape support centres in England and Wales. As I have said, we have increased, by an additional £4 million until March 2022, funding for 120 new independent sexual violence advisers across our jurisdiction, which will go in some great measure to address the concerns she rightly raises.