Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have two minutes in the gap to register my interest, and that of Plaid Cymru, in this Bill. I identify with most of the concerns expressed over the past five hours.

The Bill raises issues which I hope to address in Committee. I certainly concur with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on IPP sentences. That is an issue on which I campaigned for several years back in Wales. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on his comments in a splendid maiden speech.

I highlight the uncertainty across party lines in Senedd Cymru in relation to the impact of this Bill on devolved responsibilities. The Welsh Government have complained about a lack of consultation before the Bill was published and suggest that it trespasses on areas of devolved competence. Can the Minister clarify what the latest position is on this?

As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, a moment ago, there is also a question about who funds the compensation to the victims of the infected blood scandal, which occurred long before the existence of devolved government. Will the UK Government pay those in Wales who have an entitlement or is it expected that the Welsh Government will do?

Welsh Women’s Aid has highlighted the danger of specialist support services such as advocacy, recovery groups and counselling falling outside the scope of the proposed ISVA and IDVA in Clause 15. There needs to be some clarification and perhaps further thought on that matter.

In Clause 12, a “duty to collaborate” is placed on PCCs and local authorities in England only. Will that apply in Wales? If so, does Senedd Cymru have the necessary devolved powers to make it happen or will such powers be transferred to it?

These and other issues are ones which I hope to address in Committee and I am grateful for this brief opportunity to draw them to the attention of the House.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I apologise that I was not able to be present at Second Reading—the day job had to take precedence. I rise to endorse thoroughly what the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, said in her speech. I wish not to speak to each amendment but to add a bit of heft to what she said. I do not exactly declare this as an interest, but I was a professional linguist before I went into the Church, so language has been important to me right the way through.

We heard in the Minister’s response earlier that victims must get the information they need. They also must get it in a form they are able to read, or hear, and understand. In this country language is often misunderstood or not taken as seriously as it ought to be, or as one might find in some countries in continental Europe, for example, where you live on boundaries and have to operate in a number of languages. Because we are an island nation, this is something we do not necessarily experience.

Having trained as a translator and interpreter—these are very different skills and professions—I understand the problems of inaccuracy and of getting even nuance wrong. We are talking here about victims who are already seriously disadvantaged. That disadvantage, that damage, should not be exacerbated by running the risk of them simply not being able to be understood, or to understand what is being represented to them.

There is something here about professionalism. If noble Lords do not believe that this is important, I hope they watched the funeral of Nelson Mandela, where the deaf interpreter simply went awry—it looked like he was conducting an orchestra, but badly. He said afterwards that he was simply overawed by the experience, but many people doubted that he had the skill to do what he had been signed up and paid to do. It really matters. I found it very entertaining but not very edifying, so I emphasise the need for professionalism in this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, referred to Google Translate, which most linguists go to for a bit of a laugh and to see what it suggests. When I lecture in German at German universities, I often run my texts through it for the entertainment value, but it is rarely accurate. Now we have translation by AI systems—Google Translate is that, really—which can be entertaining too. They can be helpful if you need a bit of a boost, but you would not rely on them for something that was important for life and death.

That is why the national register is so important. My understanding is that this country has a shortage of not only linguists—I could say much more about that—but qualified linguists able to go on the register and do what we are asking them to do. That triggers a different question. We cannot just say that we do not have the qualified people and therefore must make do; we have a bigger challenge to emphasise the importance of language learning, which has many knock-on effects for how we understand people and culture. As I often repeat, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, when giving advice to younger Germans asking him about going into politics, wrote: “Don’t even consider it unless you have at least two foreign languages to a competent degree, because you can’t understand yourself and your own culture unless you look through the lens of another. For that you need language, because language goes deep”. Some things cannot be translated; you need a degree of expertise to deal with them.

There is a wider issue, but I will not bang that drum any further now. This is fundamentally a matter of justice. If victims are to be heard and to hear accurately, this ought to be in the Bill.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward this amendment. When I spoke at Second Reading, I did not realise that this dimension might arise—clearly it can, and it is important. I address the Committee as one of a small minority here who do not have English as their first language. In fact, I calculated over the Easter Recess that I speak in English less than 10% of the time. This Bill will impact not just England but Wales, where Welsh is an official language. I do not see much evidence in the Bill of any adjustment being made for that purpose.

Fundamentally, the Bill deals with victims. There are perhaps four groups of victims for whom the language dimension is critical. First, there are children; at home in Wales, a large number of children—certainly tens of thousands—have Welsh as their first language. They acquire English as a second language as they get older, but under pressure they will no doubt want to revert to their first language, which is the natural language in which they express themselves. Another group of great importance to me and a number of other noble Lords is disabled people. When put under stress, they need assistance. If there is additional stress from dealing in a language that is not their first, they will need assistance.

That is also true for elderly people. As people get older, they revert to their first language, particularly those who have had strokes. People from Wales have found themselves in residential homes in the south of England; the staff think they are speaking gibberish, but they are reverting to their first language. That group also needs to be brought in. Finally, there is the general group of people who are under stress, whatever their age or background, and need to be helped to express themselves in their first language. This is important in Wales. Reference was made a moment ago to the Children’s Commissioner. We have our own Children’s Commissioner for Wales and our own framework, but I am not sure that the Bill takes that on board. Clearly, provision needs to be made.

The day has now passed when an ad hoc translator would be whistled up for a court case from those who happened to be around—usually a minister or a teacher, who could roughly translate what was being said. I have mentioned before in this House how many people over the centuries—although not in this or the last—were hanged without understanding a word of what was going on in the court that declared them guilty.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, Clause 28 does not apply to Scotland, which can have its own legislation to deal with this matter, but I am very much in favour of the amendment. I have gone over the ground of seeking consent many times in different situations, but in this one, where we are dealing with the choice of advocates, the choice matters very much indeed. I would have thought that there is great sense in the points made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that this is an area where the consent of Welsh Ministers is not only appropriate but required.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I have not taken part in earlier discussions on this Bill for reasons outside my control, but it would be strange for me not to get on my feet to reinforce the points that have been so well made by noble Lords. This is an important matter as far as Wales is concerned. There needs to be clarity and co-operation, and that has to be on a proper basis. I suggest that these amendments would help facilitate that.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, while we support the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Wills, in view of the explanations he gave for them in Committee and today I shall not add to what he said on them, except for Amendment 119AA, to which I will turn. I should also add that we thoroughly support the amendment tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. We should all be mindful of his question, “Is this any way to run a union?” No, it is not, because there is a certain tactlessness, which is offensive and should be reversed, about the way the London Government sometimes regard devolution.

I will say a word or two about Amendment 104, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, although he has not yet spoken to it. I intervened on the principle of that amendment in Committee because it seemed to me then, as it does now, that the number of people killed or seriously injured in an incident is not and should not be the determining factor in whether it is a major incident. In Committee there was discussion about whether the Horizon scandal could be classified as a major incident because of the number of deaths and the serious harm that was caused, even though that harm may be psychological or emotional, and we questioned that. We also considered the Fishmongers’ Hall attack in which the significant number threshold was plainly not met, but the effect on the wider public of that event was traumatic, deep and widespread, I suggest, certainly enough to enable it to be properly classified as a major incident.

Since Committee, the noble Lord has narrowed his amendment significantly. It now seeks to permit the Secretary of State to classify as a major incident any incident where the circumstances indicate systemic failings of a public body and that such circumstances might recur, even where the significant number threshold is not met. I should have thought that the Government could have accepted and should accept that amendment. I will be very interested to hear whether the Minister considers that it is acceptable or whether he has some alternative; and, if not, why he considers that the number of dead and injured is a necessary condition for the appointment of public advocates.

Amendments 109 and 110 from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, concern considering the views of the victims before appointing an additional advocate and before terminating the appointment of advocates. Those amendments go some way, although a limited way, to ensuring the independence of advocates. That independence is an essential cornerstone of the scheme: independent advocates having the ability, the willingness and, indeed, the obligation to tell the truth as they see it, to argue for the truth as they see it and to criticise where they see the need. Otherwise, there is a danger that this scheme could prove a route to whitewashing the blunders of public bodies, which is something we all wish to avoid.

As to Amendment 119AA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, on which we expect he may wish to divide the House, the decision on whether to hold an inquiry into a major incident lies at the heart of the scheme. I suggest that he has made a powerful case that the power to establish an alternative fact-finding inquiry is important, for all the reasons he has given. It is also self-evident that any fact-finding inquiry can be effective only with access to all the relevant evidence, which is set out in his amendment. The very fact that the Government are resisting this amendment suggests a lack of self-confidence to ensure a thorough and independent scrutiny of major incidents, and that is why we shall support the noble Lord, Lord Wills, if he divides the House.