Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Bach Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a particular pleasure for me to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, whom I admire hugely and with whose speech I agree 100%. She has seen everything in her very distinguished career, and the Government should take considerable notice of what she had to say about Part 4 of the Bill.

We can see from reading the debates in the other place that this is not particularly a politically controversial Bill, unlike many we have seen recently and, alas, may see again before very long. However, there are important arguments, very well put by the many experts in this House, that, as far as victims are concerned, while improving the position—the Bill does that—this may yet turn out to be a wasted opportunity.

I speak as the only Member of either House—so far, and perhaps not for long—who has served as an elected police and crime commissioner. I have therefore consulted opinion, to some extent at least, regarding the role of the police and crime commissioners, their offices and their responsibilities under the Bill. They are clearly being asked to do more than before. If the House will indulge me, I will briefly explain how they feel about the Bill at this stage. I tend to share their view.

Their general view is to welcome the proposals as they affect police and crime commissioners, but of course there is concern about effective implementation—the real question being: are there the facilities of leverage and resourcing that are needed for them to fulfil their roles? In particular, there is a view that the local criminal justice boards should be on a statutory footing. These are local fora where police and crime commissioners will seek assurances from criminal justice partners around code compliance—one of the responsibilities they are given—and shared accountability. The Home Office review on police and crime commissioners recommended that these local criminal justice boards should be statutory. That is not in the Bill. Have the Government changed their mind about that, or might we see this in the other criminal justice legislation that we will hear of in the months ahead?

Secondly, police and crime commissioners would generally welcome further levers to encourage code compliance, which is a duty imposed on them and others. Will they be given the power to demand and set expectations locally for other agencies? There is a welcome focus on good data and robust metrics, including feedback from victims, of course, and there are two new senior data analysts for each office of a police and crime commissioner. They are welcome too, but why the silence about long-term funding for those rather important posts?

Equally, as to the resourcing of the vital and welcome duty to collaborate, there are many similar duties in recent legislation that have gone through this House. In practice—that is the important point—these place a significant resourcing challenge to the parties involved, which, it is felt, are not always appreciated by the Government. Will the Minister please look at that issue again?

Finally, and more generally, where gaps in local services are found, there is no provision in the Bill for funding services. Will the Government step up to meet unmet victims’ needs?

Those, in short, are the views of police and crime commissioners. I cannot speak for them all, but I hope the Minister will take note of those views.

As for the code itself, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, on what she had to say about the need to strengthen the code and tighten it up in regard to victims who have English as a second language. It is an important point, and I hope we do that at a later stage of the Bill.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear me ask about legal aid for Part 2 of the Bill. I would like more clarity as to where legal aid will come in and whether it will be means tested. If victims of an appalling incident want—as they may well—to instruct their own lawyers in the circumstances, what will the legal aid position be? Is that yet clear?

Finally, I want to express the widely shared view concerning the Bill’s proposals for the future of the Parole Board. Of course, the change of heart in giving the Lord Chancellor the option to direct the Parole Board and then to refer the case to the Upper Tribunal is to be welcomed, but some questions arise and I would like to put them quickly.

First, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, asked, why was the Upper Tribunal chosen? Secondly, on the point that the Lord Chancellor will send some cases where he thinks the Parole Board has got it wrong up to the Upper Tribunal, but not others, why must he not send them all up to whatever the judicial body is? How will he pick and choose? A less generous Lord Chancellor than we have at the moment may well take a completely different view and not send anything up to the Upper Tribunal, which will of course make the effect of this alteration negligible.

Thirdly—I have some experience of how busy Cabinet Ministers are, from having been a junior Minister in the Ministry of Justice, albeit a very long time ago—will the Lord Chancellor himself decide these issues by reading the papers? Will it be a junior Minister or a senior civil servant, on behalf of the Executive, who will make the decision that will affect the lives of individual prisoners?

In principle, the Executive should have no—or a minimal—part in the area of sentencing and the disposal of individual criminals. That actually breaches the rule of law in a fundamental way. The strength of the Parole Board, as the noble Baroness said, has been its independence, but that independence is being compromised by the proposals in the Bill. Allowing the Executive any greater role needs to be scrutinised with great care and permitted only when the necessity is proven. In my view, that case is not proven here.