Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Maria Eagle and Richard Fuller

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I commend the Minister for the excellent Bill and join Opposition Front Benchers in thanking him for bringing forward substantive amendments at this stage, rather than waiting to bring them forward in the other place. This is a good Bill. I will focus on victims of violent sexual crime and talk to my new clause 41, but first I will speak briefly in support of other amendments that I have signed.

New clause 19, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), provides for a presumption of non-disclosure of counselling records for victims of rape and sexual assault, and it makes it clear, for the first time, that counselling is there to explore feelings, not as a source for revealing or investigating facts.

Four amendments are proposed by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion): amendment 15 would include in the victims code a requirement to inform all victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy; new clause 4 would place a statutory duty on the Parole Board to enable victims to make a personal statement; new clause 5 would require the compilation of single core data sets on victims of child sexual abuse, a crucial first step in promoting consistency and enabling a greater degree of insight into that terrible crime; and new clause 6 would require the Secretary of State to assess the adequacy of the number of independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisers. I do not normally support amendments that look for a report in six months, but in this case that is warranted to help give us, here in Parliament, confidence that the right priority is being afforded to such victims.

Taken together, the amendments proposed by the hon. Member for Rotherham would provide a significant strengthening of the rights of victims of sexual violence. I hope that the Minister will reflect positively on her intentions and ours, because they have cross-party support, even if he is not minded to accept them today. Given his earlier comments, I think he has some positive views about them.

I hope that extends to my new clause 41, which would, for the first time across the UK, provide for independent legal advice and representation for victims of rape and sexual assault. My new clause builds on the findings from the scheme trialled in Northumbria, under the leadership of the police and crime commissioners Dame Vera Baird and Kim McGuinness. The findings demonstrate that a significant proportion of requests for information for rape complainants’ private data were excessive; that those excessive requests had a significant impact on the wellbeing of victims; and that the legal guidance on the matter was not clearly understood, which led to wide variations in approach.

I believe a national version of the scheme, which could be created at reasonable cost to the taxpayer, would provide for greater confidence for victims as they go through what can be a highly intrusive and painful evidence-gathering process. There are international examples—this path has been trodden by others. There is guidance for it in Australia—in New South Wales—Ireland and, in total, in eight of 14 of the adversarial legal systems. I strongly urge the Minister to look at ways in which that could be put into the Bill.

Under my proposal, this access to independent legal advice would be provided to victims in six specified situations, so we are not creating an open door or a difference that would occur in other cases. That is important because decisions about how credible the victim is deemed to be are often what drive the decision to continue with a criminal case. That is not the case in many other sources of crimes. A national scheme providing victims of rape and sexual assault with independent legal advice and representation will ensure that victims’ rights are respected where their interests diverge from those of the police, the CPS and other criminal agencies.

My new clause 41 would ensure that victims, where appropriate, have access to legal advice that will give them the confidence that all that is being sought is all that is needed to enable a fair prosecution, and no more. The clause would provide a mechanism for accessibility and improve the quality, efficiency and consistency of investigations. I hope the Minister will look positively on this initiative.

[Maria Eagle]

I rise to speak in respect of some of the amendments and new clauses in part two: specifically, Government new clauses 22 and 23; Government amendment 60; Government new clause 24; Government amendments 76 to 82; and new clause 14, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on behalf of the Opposition, on the Hillsborough law duty of candour.

If these new clauses and amendments are agreed to tonight, the Bill will be better than it was when it began its life at Second Reading, and it will be better than it was even after it had been through a monumental Committee stage. However, the Minister will not be surprised to hear me say that it will not be perfect, and it will not be all that I hoped for in my Public Advocate Bill or my Public Advocate (No. 2) Bill—I have been introducing such legislation since 2016, and my hon. Friend the noble Lord Wills has been introducing similar measures in the other place since 2014—but it will be better than originally drafted.

I welcome the fact that the Minister has conceded that the Independent Public Advocate will be established as a standing appointment on a full-time basis. It is a shame that he has not seen fit to go a little further to enable the families affected to be the people who call upon the public advocate to act, rather than the Secretary of State. One of the points of my legislation, and that introduced by my noble friend in the other place, was to give the families some agency—some power to act in the earlier stages of the aftermath of a public disaster and affect the way the aftermath is dealt with.

The whole purpose of the legislation that Lord Wills and I proposed was to ensure that things do not go wrong in the aftermath of public disasters, as they have done after Hillsborough and other disasters. One ends up with years and years—sometimes decades and decades—of subsequent campaigns, fights and proceedings, legal and otherwise, that end up costing society millions and costing the families their health and often their lives. Stopping things going wrong in the immediate aftermath of disasters is a good aim for public policy.