Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Polak in his Amendment 7.

It is now rightly impossible for any public discussion of the Epstein files and grooming gangs—or rather child rape gangs—not to put victims front and centre. About a year ago, we were discussing child rape gangs in this House, and I flagged to the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, how the recent tragic news of the death of Virginia Guiffre demonstrated the long-term effects of child sexual abuse. I declared at that time my interest that my sister had suffered serious sexual abuse as a young girl and, thereafter, for the rest of her life, suffered long-term depressive and self-destructive effects. I mention that again simply to explain why I have signed the amendment. We can say that victims should be at the forefront but, without taking action, this could sound very much like virtue signalling.

I understand, as my noble friend Lord Polak has highlighted, that specialist domestic abuse and other trauma-focused services, particularly those supporting child victims of sexual abuse, have very high waiting lists, and that where counsellors with the necessary expertise are practising, funding is always inadequate to the need. I suspect that, even if sufficiently high levels of money were forthcoming, workforce shortages would become even more apparent. Have the Government done a needs analysis that would identify prevalence, the scale of the staff shortfall, how many more specialists are needed, how they could be trained and how potential candidates could be identified? Prevalence certainly appears very high. Could all professionals interacting with victims, including teachers, nurses, GPs, and police and prison officers, be given appropriate training in trauma-informed practice so that there was more of a whole-society approach?

I understand that this is straying a little from my noble friend Lord Polak’s amendment, but it gives us the opportunity to hear from the Government how they will put the victims of perpetrators such as Epstein and child rape gangs at the forefront, as they have promised to do.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I was very happy to put my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Polak, not least because he and I, every Thursday morning in the post-legislative scrutiny committee for the Domestic Abuse Act, hear from the sector exactly what is going on and, perhaps more pertinently, what is not going on.

The Minister, like me, is a great fan of the “child house” approach to treating children who have had the most appalling direct physical and sexual abuse. It demonstrates what best practice looks like. Best practice really makes an enormous difference and is incredibly efficient, is very incisive and can work very quickly. That is partly why His Majesty’s Government have thankfully decided to roll this out throughout England to a large degree; that is a great step forward.

As we take evidence, we are hearing again and again that there are examples of really good practice. I recognise that it is unrealistic to imagine that His Majesty’s Government are suddenly going to find coffers bursting with money to enable the whole panoply of support services that one would wish victims to be able to access—that is not going to happen. However, I appeal to the Government and their officials to identify those examples of really good or best practice that are making a difference, rather than taking a blanket approach and saying we need to try to cover all support services. Clearly, some are dramatically more effective than others.

My appeal to the Government is to try to strategically identify those support services that are making a huge difference. For example, two areas that make an enormous difference are the independent domestic violence advocates and the independent stalking advocates. The proof of the pudding in both those areas is that when those individuals are involved and work with the victim from very early on, first, the victim’s experience is transformed for the better, but secondly, and more pertinently from the point of view of the Ministry of Justice, there is a much higher chance of the case coming to court and there being a successful prosecution. Not only does it help the victim but it helps the Government achieve their laudable aim to reduce violence against women and girls.

I do not expect the Government to say that there is a magic wand and that Rachel Reeves is the Minister’s new best friend, but I hope that an approach to identifying services similar to the Lighthouse, which really make a performative difference, could be identified more strategically and assisted more proactively and in a more focused way.