"My Lords, I am very pleased to support my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. We sat together as youth magistrates for many years at the old Hammersmith youth court. She has fully set out what must be an anomaly. I have not heard any explanation in defence of the …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"My Lords, this Bill aims to enhance the rights of victims within the criminal justice system, introducing measures to ensure that their voices are heard and offenders are held accountable. As we have heard, it is a brief Bill at only 18 clauses long. As we have also heard in …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement and I welcome almost everything in it. I wanted to raise one point which I am less happy about. Brian Leveson recommended for the Crown Court Bench Division that it should be a judge and two magistrates but the …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"My Lords, I support my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, in the amendments they have spoken to in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, was quite right to draw attention to gambling and how that can be an addiction, like other addictions which are …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"My Lords, we have had a great deal of expertise demonstrated in the questions we have heard today, from the MoJ and from people dealing with offenders. I want to pass on my own experience as a sentencing magistrate. When I started 20 years ago as a sentencing magistrate, when …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"My Lords, I visited HMP Wandsworth last Thursday and was told that there are about 2,000 releases every year from there. I was visiting the independent monitoring board. One of the issues that it raised with me was a review that is going on into the IMB process and the …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"My Lords, the key word in my noble friend’s question was “holistic”: that is that the victims have to tell their story only once within the Lighthouse model—which I have visited, like many other noble Lords. What can my noble friend say about extending that holistic approach into the criminal …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"I think that is, if I may say so, a similar question to that from my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. I have heard that the ongoing discussions are in fact reasonably positive, and we are very hopeful of reaching an agreement in the coming weeks and months. It is certainly …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"As I think I said in answer to an earlier question, the Government have been quite clear that, under the duty of candour, public officials will be bound by that duty, with criminal and professional consequences—the noble Lord is shaking his head. What I also said is that we think …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech
"I take the point that the noble Lord makes, and we will see what the recommendations are. As I have said in answer to earlier questions, it is foreseen that, under the duty of candour, the professionals involved could be subject to criminal and professional consequences with the full might …..." Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - View Speech