Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

On my hon. Friend’s declaration of interest, I would simply say that nobody is perfect.

My hon. Friend raises a very serious point. There is no doubt that there have been bad examples of cross-examination in criminal trials. Let us be clear: intimidatory cross-examination is never appropriate. Defence counsel is entitled to put its case to prosecution witnesses, but it should never do so in an intimidatory way. Judges should intervene if that happens, and they now have the power to set ground rules before cross-examination takes place, which is a step forward. As my hon. Friend will be aware, we are in the process of making another huge improvement, namely the piloting of pre-recorded cross-examination for young and vulnerable witnesses, which is much better for many of them. We shall look carefully at the results of those pilots, and if they are what we hope, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor will wish to introduce the process more widely.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I thank the Attorney General for calling me last weekend to brief me on the DPP’s decision to bring criminal proceedings against Greville Janner following the review by David Perry QC. Of course, we on this side of the House welcome that decision. It allows complainants to see the allegations aired before a jury and shows that the Crown Prosecution Service’s victims’ right to review scheme, which was implemented by the former DPP, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), is working as intended. I now hope that the future focus will be on ensuring that historical sex abuse cases are properly funded, so will the Attorney General give a commitment to the £50 million of extra funding that the current DPP says she desperately needs to prosecute such cases?

[The Attorney General]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks, but I shall start with his last point. On the upcoming spending round, he will understand that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General and I will do our very best to make sure that the CPS receives the funding it needs. We should pay tribute to the way in which the CPS has made necessary savings and still maintained a good service on the front line.

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, he knows that it would be wholly wrong for me to say anything at all about the individual case of the noble Lord Janner. In any event, it would not be right for me to do so because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the protocols for Law Officers are clear: we are not engaged in the detail of any potential prosecution against a parliamentarian.

Let me say this as a more general point: it is vital that our system has independent prosecutors—prosecutors who are independent of us as politicians—who make these difficult judgments. We should stand behind them when they do so, and the victims’ right to review, which the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras introduced during his time as DPP, is a positive step to enable victims to challenge those decisions and, where appropriate, for those decisions to be changed. It seems to me that that system worked as it was designed to work in this case.