Victims and Prisoners Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Oliver Heald and Jess Phillips

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Jess Phillips]

Q Finally, you are an independent person, no doubt, but you work very closely alongside the Home Office, and I am sure that you have worked with the Ministry of Justice as well. What is your view of the sudden, last-minute—sorry, I should not put judgment into this. What is your view of the inclusion of part 3 of the draft Victims Bill in this Bill? As one of the nation’s leading victims’ advocates, were you aware that the Victims Bill was no longer going to be the Victims Bill and was going to be something else?

Nicole Jacobs: No. I had heard something along the lines of there being an interest in making sure that there were improvements to parole. I was surprised, and I understand the arguments made about the optics of it. On a practical level, I feel strongly that we really have to achieve the ambition of the Bill.

On the parole reforms, I talk to families, particularly bereaved families, and they often do not have a very good experience of the parole system, in terms of feeling informed and feeling that their concerns about release are being dealt with. One of the things that I am most curious about regarding the last-minute changes is how strong the parole provisions will be and how the family liaison care will be improved. I am very interested in what mental health assessments will be required when prisoners are released who have committed domestic abuse or murder. You are right: my thinking about this is probably less developed, because this was added on quite quickly.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Q I have questions on two issues. The definition of victim in the Bill is quite broad in some ways. What do you make of that? Is that a good idea, because it wraps up categories of individual who previously would not have been included, or does it run the risk of widening the category so much that you have difficulty providing the core service that you were talking about?

Nicole Jacobs: I think broader is really positive. If you were to limit the definition to people who are accessing criminal justice remedies, then when it comes to domestic abuse, for example, that would narrow it way too much. Of course, the Domestic Abuse Act has a definition of children as victims in their own right. I am quite comfortable with the definition and feel good about what it is signalling, which is that in the victims code we want support for all victims, regardless of whether they engage with the police, for example. Services should be there.

One of my main concerns when it comes to genuinely providing services for all is that with domestic abuse, you are still leaving out migrant survivors and people who are in this country as students or with some other visa status; they have trouble accessing domestic abuse services. That could be fixed quite simply by allowing recourse to public funds for domestic abuse services for the period when a migrant is here—often victimised by a citizen here, let’s keep in mind. Having the provision of care that any other victim has: that is the one key thing I would highlight.

Birmingham Pub Bombings: Legal Aid

Debate between Oliver Heald and Jess Phillips

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Courts and Justice (Sir Oliver Heald)]

May I join in the tributes to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and pay tribute to those who have supported her? We have heard tonight from the hon. Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), and from my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight).

I was a young student when the bombings happened. Like others of my generation, I remember the sense of deep shock and horror at this event in November 1974—it was shortly after the general election when Harold Wilson won by a narrow majority—when bombs exploded in two public houses in central Birmingham. Twenty-one people were killed, and 222 others were injured. At the time, it was the deadliest act of terrorism that had happened in Great Britain since the second world war. It caused great shock, not only in Birmingham, as the hon. Lady has said, but right across the country. People were horrified by what had happened. I remember the deep national mood of mourning at the time. The Government express their heartfelt sympathy to the friends and the families of all the innocent people who lost their lives in that shocking crime, and to those who were injured and had their lives changed by this awful event.

There are inquests where families need more help than they would get in an ordinary—if one can call it that—inquest, which is a matter of finding out fairly simply what the situation was, with the coroner asking the questions. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which has been mentioned, enables the provision of exceptional case funding for representation in such cases if certain tests are met. The Legal Aid Agency decides legal aid applications entirely independently, which is why Ministers have said—rightly so, I think the hon. Lady would agree—that it is not for politicians to interfere in its independent decision making.

Two applications have been received by the Legal Aid Agency. So far, one has been granted and, as the hon. Lady said, a way has been suggested of finding the other application to be within the rules. Those applications do not cover all the families who have been bereaved, so there may be further applications. I welcome, as she has, the fact that one of the applications has been accepted and that a way has been found to proceed with the other.

The Birmingham and Solihull coroner, Louise Hunt, has decided to reopen the inquests into these deaths, because she felt that there was sufficient reason to do so. That is partly because of the campaign that has been waged to resume the inquest and to look at the new evidence, which she feels should be investigated. I do not know whether the hon. Lady would agree, but I take the view that there is a role for campaigners to get behind an issue, to press and to push, and for Members of Parliament to help them. She mentioned Chris Mullin, and it is true that he took part in such a campaign, as she is doing in relation to this.

The exceptional case funding scheme is not intended to provide a general power to fund cases that fall outside legal aid. Legal aid is fundamental to our system. Resources are not limitless, as we all know, and it is always necessary to make sure that public confidence—

[Jess Phillips]

I wonder whether the fund that the other actors in the inquest will have is limitless.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

That is a point that the hon. Lady has made. I will come to it in a second, but I think there is an issue here that needs examination. The decision about whether to provide legal aid funding in an individual case should not be a political one. It is solely for the director of legal aid casework at the Legal Aid Agency to decide whether a particular case is within the regulations and the laws, which we in Parliament have set.

On the overall position mentioned by the hon. Lady, I want to make it clear that we acknowledge there is a wider issue. It turns on the perception that, as she mentioned, families in very difficult circumstances with complicated cases have gone unrepresented while public bodies and individuals are represented at a cost to the public. The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are rightly working collaboratively to consider that issue.

As the hon. Lady said, the families at the 7/7 inquest received legal aid exceptional case funding, which was under an earlier scheme. The issue related to the terms and conditions for receiving legal aid. In fact, it is obvious from what has happened in recent days that it is possible to receive legal aid under the current scheme.

Questions have been asked about other possible funding arrangements, and the arrangement used for the Hillsborough families—the Home Office made direct grants for representation at the hearing of inquest—does raise a question. The Hillsborough inquiry was expertly conducted by Lord Justice Goldring, who investigated the case in a very sensitive, effective and thorough way, but there are lessons to be learned about the tragic history of Hillsborough. As the hon. Lady may know, Bishop James Jones, who played a distinguished part in tackling the Hillsborough case, is preparing a report on how it was dealt with, and we want that report to inform how we take this work forward.