Oral Answers to Questions

Pam Cox Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)]

4. What steps she has taken with the Crown Prosecution Service to support victims of crime.

[Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)]

7. What steps she has taken with the Crown Prosecution Service to support victims of crime. [R]

[The Solicitor General]

This Government are committed to restoring confidence in the criminal justice system, which means ensuring that victims of crime are properly supported through the justice process. The CPS is taking a range of measures to better support victims, including by offering pre-trial meetings to adult victims of rape and serious sexual assault, recruiting victim liaison officers to act as a consistent point of contact for victims, and delivering the groundbreaking victim transformation programme.

[The Solicitor General]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the necessary and important action that this Government are taking to address the crisis in our courts. Alongside that, the CPS is using every tool at its disposal to reduce the backlog, including by trialling new initiatives to expedite domestic abuse trials and weekly listing meetings with partners in the criminal justice system.

[Pam Cox]

I recently visited a Colchester organisation, the Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse, or CARA, which offers vital support to victims of rape and sexual abuse. Will the Solicitor General reaffirm the Government’s commitment to supporting such organisations, which carry out so much of that vital frontline work, and will she reiterate what she is doing to enhance the number of rape trials that actually proceed?

[The Solicitor General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the important role that organisations such as CARA play in supporting victims of rape and serious sexual violence. Supporting victims throughout the criminal justice process is a priority for this Government, and we are taking a range of measures to do just that, including implementing Raneem’s law to embed dedicated domestic abuse teams within 999 control rooms and introducing free independent legal advisers for victims of adult rape.