Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hampton]

21: Clause 2, page 3, leave out lines 8 and 9 and insert—
“(8) The victims’ code must make different provision for children and vulnerable and intimidated victims, and may make other different provision including for—”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the distinct needs and rights of children and vulnerable and intimated witnesses are reflected in the Victims’ Code.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, this is where I again declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher in east London. I will speak to Amendments 21, 34, 61, 118 and 119 in my name in this group. I thank the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for help with these amendments, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and my noble friend Lord Russell of Liverpool for adding their names to them.

At Second Reading, at the Cross-Bench meeting with the Minister and on the first day in Committee, the Minister stuck to his message that the Bill covers all victims, including children. I will try to continue to persuade him otherwise. As the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, said on the first day, we should put children at the top of the hierarchy of victims. I slightly disagree with my noble friend Lord Russell, who said that there should not be a hierarchy of victims. There is a hierarchy of victims, and children should be at the top of it. I am also aware that everything needs to be accessible, accountable and affordable.

We cannot lump all victims together. As the Children’s Commissioner said last week, children do not disclose like adults. It is important that children are treated differently as victims, and that is reflected in the amendments we have proposed. This will bear fruit not only in getting justice and restorative justice but, even more importantly, in repairing the damage done to those young victims and allowing them to become healthy adults. Would it not be lovely if a government department were to make decisions that could save money for other departments in future, and maybe future Governments? Could that be the Minister’s lasting legacy? The amount of work that the Children’s Commissioner, the Victims’ Commissioner, the children’s coalition and many other organisations are putting into this Bill, plus the number of noble Lords speaking to amendments, shows that we have a once-in-a-generation chance to put children first and really invest in our future.

Amendment 21 would make a different provision for children, ensuring that distinct needs and rights of children and vulnerable and intimidated victims were reflected in the victims’ code. They have different needs, and this needs to be reflected in the Bill to make it accessible.

Amendment 34 would insert “including children”. This is a vital amendment, which we talked about on the first day. It would mean that the victims’ code had to be promoted to children specifically, as well as to victims in general, as we need to make children aware—and they are not, at the moment—that if they are victims, they have rights. There should be a statutory obligation to advertise this in schools and possibly online—wherever—as a way of spreading this information so that it becomes widely understood. It would have little or no cost attached to it; it is affordable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

That, in my short experience of this House, was the most extraordinarily powerful debate and I thank everybody who took part in it. I was honoured—and I genuinely mean honoured—to hear Poppy speak recently, and anybody who was in that room will carry it with them for the rest of their lives.

I thank the Minister for his advice, and a lot of other people. There have been some extraordinary experiences. The experiences of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, have been extraordinary. The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, talked about the murders of the people in the court cases. I will go away with the good chaps theory of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, as an example. What I am taking away from this, because I am an optimist, is that the Government’s door is not at all closed. The advice is that we look at the code. There are mentions of children in the Bill, but not many. We will look at the code, but thankfully the Government’s door is not closed, and I beg to withdraw my Amendment 21.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.