Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to the Donovan Trust and my hon. Friend’s work with it. I am a big supporter of restorative justice, but it needs to be victim-led. It is important that any decisions with regard to it very much involve the victims first, rather than it becoming some sort of pro forma, which would be a negation of what restorative justice should be about. It needs to be meaningful, and that is what I believe will continue to happen right through this crisis and beyond.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) [V]]

The Istanbul convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence imposes obligations on the state to ensure that investigations and judicial proceedings on all forms of violence covered by the convention are carried out without undue delay and that they take into consideration the rights of the victim at all stages of the criminal proceedings. The Scottish Government are working hard to ensure that, despite the pandemic, those obligations are complied with. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman assure me that the UK Government take the obligations equally seriously?

[Robert Buckland]

I refer the hon. Lady exactly to my response to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who asked a question in very similar terms. The hon. Lady is right to ask that, and we do take that obligation extremely seriously indeed and are working to meet it at all times.