Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, for me, there were echoes of the arrival of the Online Safety Bill in your Lordships’ House earlier this year when this Bill arrived. The similarities they have are years in gestation, promises repeatedly made, and undertakings and apparent commitments made, particularly to victims, but the feeling upon arrival is slightly underwhelming. Rather like the school reports which my despairing parents had to read year after year when I was put in various penal establishments which purported to be educational establishments, which would say, “Could do better if he tried”, in this case, as the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, said, it is, “Could do better if His Majesty’s Government tried”.

As the Minister said at the beginning of his speech, we need to avoid the needless politicisation of the Bill. When the Minister was kindly giving us a briefing last week, I said that the duty of most of us in this House is to try to drain the politics from the Bill. That is certainly what I intend to do. Yes, we are apparently going to be in an election year quite soon, but in no way, shape or form should victims become political footballs.

The huge imbalance in the resources that are going to be applied to different parts of the Bill mirrors rather accurately the differing focus on priorities. Are victims really at the centre of the Bill? The estimated costs of Part 1 are £30.4 million. The estimated costs of Part 3 are £530 million. Part 1 is 18% of that total; that does not feel like a particularly strong focus on victims. To add insult to injury, Part 3 is part of a continuing effort by His Majesty’s Government to repair a parole system which was comprehensively blown up by an earlier iteration of this Government, almost exactly nine years ago. However, we are where we are.

I will be focusing primarily on Part 1 of the Bill as it goes through Committee and Report. The victims’ code must be made flesh. It must not just be an aspiration, or a nudge to authorities to do the right thing. We tried that approach over many years and it does not work. If at first you do not succeed, you emphatically should not try repeatedly to do what has been proven to fail.

I would never be so rash as to deem to speak on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, but I always listen to what she says with great attention. I suspect her patience and hopes of delivering a marked improvement to the unacceptably varied experiences which victims are undergoing is being sorely tested by what is currently going on. If she, the domestic abuse commissioner, the victims’ commissioner for London—to whom the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, referred—and the Children’s Commissioner are collectively or individually unhappy with parts of the Bill, I think the Government can expect significant pushback from a great many of us.

As I think the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said very forcibly earlier on, unless you have two things in tandem, this is not going to work. You need a serious fundamental culture change and you also need resources. It is a painful word for the current Government: money.

There are many examples of where we could do better but I will mention only a couple. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned, stalking is one of the most common and prevalent crimes which creates victims. However, looking at the Bill it is very hard to see an acknowledgment that this is the most prevalent type of crime and that it has the most impact on the largest number of victims, particularly women. We can and we should do better there. The lack of funding to support community-based services, where 70% of domestic abuse victims receive their support, should certainly be looked at.

Other noble Lords have mentioned having a proper statutory definition of child criminal exploitation to ensure children who have been forced into committing crimes are recognised as victims and not as perpetrators. The Children’s Commissioner has come up with five very clear asks, which I am sure have been forwarded to the Minister, and I support all of those.

Lastly, on needs, I will mention a friend of mine. She is a lady called Stella Creasy, and one of the bravest Members of Parliament I know. Some of you may have read what she went through in the press. As your Lordships probably know, she is somebody who is not afraid to call out misogyny in its many forms. Some men do not like this. A particular man put in a complaint to Leicestershire Police, basically saying that, given her views on men, she should no longer be in charge of her children. Leicestershire Police, in its wisdom, made a formal complaint to Waltham Forest Council. This eventually went to court and was completely and comprehensively thrown out. The response of Leicestershire Police was that this had been referred to its professional standards department and some “advice and reflective learning” was provided to officers. What she has gone through is pretty shocking. She is a brave and a tough lady. I saw her the other day and it had really shaken her. Out of sheer spite, somebody had tried to take her away from her children. That is totally and utterly unacceptable.

Working with other noble Lords, I am trying to elicit from the police and other victim services what they want from the Bill. We are talking about an awful lot of push today—what we would like and what is not working properly. Those that are charged with doing something to help victims know they are not doing a good job and they want to do better. I am trying to encourage them to come forward to say what would be most helpful and useful for them in the Bill. But in such a devolved and disjointed landscape, with 43 police forces and the same number of police and crime commissioners, how do you get best practice? Each change in leadership results in a change of focus and prioritisation. The victim ends up being a powerless bystander in this transient postcode lottery. That is not good enough.

We have to avoid in this Bill the temptation to say, “My victim is more important than your victim”. They are all equally important. We have much to do. Let us try to do it in a co-operative spirit, focusing on the victims. If it is not working for the victims, let us not insult their feelings by trying to justify the unjustifiable.

Lastly, let me I say how sympathetic I am to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, who is about to give his maiden speech. Normally in your Lordships’ House, a maiden speech happens about a quarter of the way through. He has been made to suffer a cruel and unusual punishment by waiting so long, and I wish him all the best.