Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

This presents the Minister with challenges; I do not doubt that. He will not be surprised that we are challenging him. But we are also offering to help to work out how to do this. I look forward to his remarks and I hope that he will recognise that this is the beginning of a process.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for my lateness—I got slightly confused about the Northern Ireland Bill and when it was coming.

I will speak to Amendment 4 in the name of my noble friend Lord Russell. I follow my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, so there is very little more to be said. The only thing I can say is that ASB is so important. ASB is far more common than we know and far more common than the police will say. It must be taken seriously. I have a friend whose father was the victim of ASB over many years and actually snapped. He attacked the person who was causing it and ended up with a custodial sentence himself. So you can turn victims into perpetrators with this and it needs to be defined in this Bill.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords very sincerely for their most moving and constructive speeches. I will first respond to the invitation of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to conduct these proceedings in as open and consensual way as possible. In the other place, my right honourable friend Minister Argar did precisely that, and I propose to follow exactly the same approach, and to discuss as widely as we can the various difficult issues that are in front of us. That is an essential function of this Chamber.

To a great extent—I think my noble friend Lady Newlove accepted this, up to a point—we have made very considerable progress in support of victims generally over the last few years. But the problems that remain are, in particular, that victims are still often unaware of their rights, that the required services are not provided, or that the relevant authorities are not accountable. So the questions in front of us are not so much points of principle as questions as to how we change the culture of a system to make sure that victims are properly supported, as they should be.

I suggest, in shorthand, that essentially we should seek four things. First, victims should be aware of their rights and entitlements under the code. Secondly, those services should be accessible. Thirdly, those responsible for providing them should be accountable. Finally, the system should be affordable; speaking on behalf of the Government, I am bound to make that point. Essentially, we have four As: awareness, accessibility, accountability and affordability. It is within that framework that I will respond to the various points that have been made, with great conviction and sincerity, about the definition of “victim” in the current draft of the Bill.

We are dealing with five questions all together. One is about carers and those who suffer vicarious harm, which is raised in Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. The second is about people who have been victims of a defendant who has subsequently been made the subject of a hospital order as distinct from another criminal sanction. Thirdly, there is the question of anti-social behaviour. Fourthly, there is the question of homicide abroad. Finally, where the criminal conduct has been caused by another family member, there is the question of whether they are still a victim; that is raised in the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I will take those points, and probably in that order.

As regards Amendment 1, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, as I read it, the definition of “victim” is not confined in its present form to victims of serious sexual or violent behaviour; it is very broad, extending to all crimes. It refers first to persons who have been subject to witnessing a crime. The Government’s position is that those who have witnessed a crime are already covered fairly explicitly in the definition in Clause 1.

That takes us on to the difficult question of how far you go on the carers of victims and others who have suffered indirectly rather than directly. On that point, the Government’s present thinking is that we should have a system that serves the direct victims primarily, and that we cannot, at this stage at least, extend the definition of a victim too far. If I may say so, there is force in the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: if one makes the concept of a victim too wide, one may well finish up with a system that is not as workable as it otherwise would be. There are all kinds of people who are, in one sense, victims but who are not necessarily the direct victims to whom we must give priority. The job of a Government is to make decisions as to how to prioritise services. We are very pressed on resources on all fronts, so I urge your Lordships to take that point into account and to consider that the definition of victim in Clause 1 is already very wide. I will come to certain points made in that connection in a moment. It would not be the right approach, by statute, to extend that already broad definition any further than it is. Broadly speaking, that is the Government’s position on Amendment 1.

On the point about hospital orders in relation to Amendments 8, 12 and 19, the question is whether the victim is a person who has been subject to criminal conduct. A person may well be the perpetrator of criminal conduct but still finish up being ordered by the court to be detained in a secure hospital, rather than serve a criminal sentence. The Government’s position is that many of the victims whose perpetrator has finished up in front of a mental health tribunal are already victims under the Bill. They are covered so long as the conduct is criminal. Your Lordships may have seen the tragic case in Nottingham this week, where the defendant, who was clearly schizophrenic and should never have been on the streets, was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of dismissed responsibility. It was criminal conduct, so those unfortunate families are victims. The point that is rightly made—

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[Lord Meston (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group, which seek to ensure better focus on the position and needs of children and thereby provide a better framework of support for children who are victims or potential victims.

I assume that the word “person” in Clause 1 includes a child but nevertheless I think that should be emphasised in the Bill, as so many noble Lords have said. The priority to be given to children should rest on at least three obvious points. First, children are much more vulnerable than adults. Secondly, children are less able to speak for themselves; exploited and abused children notoriously lose self-esteem. Thirdly, clearly children have much longer than adults to put up with the consequences of abuse and of inadequate decisions made when the abuse comes to light.

The Government may say that it is not necessary to highlight particular types of criminal conduct, as attempted in Amendments 5 to 7, and that they are already covered by Clause 1. I am not entirely convinced of that, and if there is any doubt about it, I hope the Government will look again to ensure that the particular categories of abuse highlighted in those amendments are indeed covered.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to which I have added my name digitally. We start on the thorny subject, to which I think we will return, of children. I declare my interest as a secondary school teacher in Hackney.

I am delighted to have my noble friend Lord Meston with me, because he can say it far better than I can when we are trying to persuade the Government that children should be defined separately as victims. I will speak more about that in the sixth group of amendments.

I join the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, in saying that we need a definition of victim, which is not contained in Keeping Children Safe in Education—there seem to be variations on that—and we need to deal with the children of victims of modern slavery. I support all the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, on these Benches we add our thanks to the Children’s Commissioner for her very helpful round table and briefing notes. We also thank Hestia. I thank other noble Lords for their amendments, which specify children in the definition of a victim. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lady Benjamin made strong arguments to include who victims of abuse and criminal exploitation are, as well as those who are victims of modern slavery or human trafficking.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is a salutary reminder that children can be damaged by verbal harm. Intense and repeated verbal abuse is damaging. That is somewhat different from the point the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was trying to make, which was about young people having arguments about matters of principle and offence; that is not what we are talking about.

Some years ago, I lived next door to a family who used the most extraordinary bad language to their toddler, time after time. The example I can just about repeat in your Lordships’ House was his name, which was “Paul, you little bleeder”. It went on, from worse to worse. As he grew up, we heard his own language mirroring that of his parents. One of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, is right to propose this is that a child like that needs help and support from other agencies, as do his parents. It can be within a house, or it can be separate, but it is very different from the argument the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was trying to make, and I hope she would accept that.

In a later group, probably next week, we will come to a group with much more detail about the protection required for child victims. All these amendments would ensure that definitions at the start of the Bill recognise that child victims have as many needs as adults. Agencies need to remind themselves that child victims may not always present in the same way as an adult and may not always need the same services as an adult. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, the lessons of Rochdale show that too many agencies do not always see children as victims. There, I am afraid that the police and some other agencies saw them as perpetrators. That is absolutely unacceptable.

I apologise again to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, but I am picking up on the arguments she made about the lack of sympathy from officialdom and police. She went on to argue that it is important that people recognise that these children are victims. But this is not about sympathy; it is about getting help and support for these children. Sympathy may be part of it, but these amendments are not put forward to get sympathy for children; it is to change their lives, and to recognise that they are victims and will need specific services thereafter.

I am mindful of Nicky Campbell and others who were abused at the schools he attended and how their experience of not getting support early in their lives has affected them for their entire lives. This is not just an issue about children; it is about how those children grow up and manage their own lives. As I said at the end of the previous group, one can save money in the longer run on services by ensuring that victims—in this case child victims—get support as early as possible.

Finally, I echo the points made by my noble friend Lady Hamwee in Amendment 7 on the child victims of modern slavery or human trafficking. Hestia’s briefing was very helpful in reminding us that everyone in a family unit, especially the children, is affected by modern slavery and human trafficking, the consequences of which have long-standing impacts. So it is becoming clear from all parts of the House again that we need a separate definition of child victims. Their experiences, needs and the services they seek are all different.