Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Hacking Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to which I have added my name. I have listened carefully to what the noble and learned Lord has said, but this is not an attempt to encourage lots of challenges to unduly lenient sentences. It is, above all, an attempt to achieve a degree of parity between the way offenders and defendants are treated.

The intent of the amendment it to suggest that a government department nominated by the Secretary of State should do the informing. It would need to be a body that was viewed as genuinely neutral, but it would be perfectly possible to inform the victim of their right and make quite clear the orbit within which an appeal against an unduly lenient sentence is likely to be successful and the parameters beyond which it would be highly unlikely to be considered, so as to make very clear to the victim, from the very beginning, the possibility of their having a case that might be over the threshold as opposed to being clearly below the threshold. It is entirely possible to imagine that one could create that.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, when I say that I will be brief, I will be very brief. I have listened carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. He is quite right in his observations, and particularly about the ultimate test of whether a sentence is set aside because it is unduly lenient. However, I think the answers have already been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell: this is a notification. The CPS is not taking a position on the merits of making the application; it is just setting up a timetable.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, I will deal first with the existing time limit. We are listening—I am making a “we are listening” speech—not just to the strength of views in this Committee and in the other place on the time limit for the unduly lenient sentencing scheme but to the victims themselves. We are consistently hearing that this time limit is simply not long enough when victims are processing the outcome of the case, and I am extremely sympathetic to their representations. A ticking clock is the last thing that they need at a difficult time. The Government have been persuaded by arguments that something needs to be done, but we want to make sure that we get this right. Currently, we have been given a number of conflicting views on the best way to go about this. I would like to meet all noble Lords who have tabled amendments, and indeed any other interested Members of your Lordships’ House, to discuss the best way forward.

Turning to the question of notification, it goes without saying how important it is that victims are made aware of the ULS scheme. It is another subject that comes up over and again; it is not much of a right if you do not know that you have it. I am afraid that I am not persuaded by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, saying that we should not tell people that they have this right in case they want to use it—if that is not what he meant to say, I apologise and withdraw the remark. The way it is supposed to work is this. Under the victims’ code, police-run witness care units are required to inform victims about the unduly lenient sentencing scheme within five working days. However, we are hearing that this is not happening, so we need to ensure that it does. The question is how best to go about it.

At present, I am not persuaded that putting the obligation into primary legislation is the best way. The first reason is that, usually, if you create an obligation, you have to create a penalty for the breach. The second is that if you want to change it, you have to amend primary legislation in order to do so. The victims’ code is a statutory code of practice. Last week, we launched a consultation to ensure that we get it right and that the code is fit for purpose. Again, we would welcome your Lordships’ engagement with that consultation before it closes on 30 April, and any other ideas before we reach our final conclusion. For now, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.