Victims and Prisoners Bill (Second sitting)

Rob Butler Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Maria Eagle]

Q Finally, you have been focusing on part 1, which is where a lot of the work you do is focused. If part 1 is enacted as drafted, will that improve victims’ experiences, or will it not make much difference? What is your assessment of the overall picture of part 1?

Sophie Linden: I think it could improve, but it is not strong enough. My overarching view is that it needs strengthening, but we welcome the Bill. It needs significant strengthening in the way that I have talked about, in terms of compliance, enforcement, proper data sharing, duty to provide the data and then the ability to access other agencies’ databases, at a minimum. It would be better if we could track a victim through the system, rather than tracking them through policing, then the CPS, then the courts. I hope that there will be significant amendments to strengthen the Bill.

Caroline Henry: It is great that work has been done together already. I would like to thank the Ministry of Justice and yourselves for letting the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners be involved with putting the Bill together. I do think that it will definitely improve things for victims, because it puts things on a statutory footing. That is what we need.

DCC Barnett: If I speak on behalf of the policing role, I think it does put it on a statutory footing, and it is a real opportunity to continue the work we have been doing over recent years to strengthen our overall performance within forces around the service that we deliver to victims. The question mark for me relates to making sure we take the opportunity within the Bill, whether that is through a strengthening arrangement around compliance or the accountability piece, so that we can understand how the victim traverses the criminal justice system and their experience of it. It must not just be—as I think it is at the moment—front-loaded around the code and the policing activities. It has to be seen as a whole. That is an opportunity in the Bill, and if we take that, overall service should improve.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Q I know that the PCC for Thames Valley strongly supports compliance with the victims code sitting with PCCs. I think you have both indicated, Ms Linden and Ms Henry, that you do too. This morning, Dame Vera Baird spoke to us. She suggested that there should perhaps be a local version of victims’ commissioners in each PCC area; London effectively has that, I know. Ms Henry, what do you think about that as a proposal? Surely you are the victims’ champion. Would it not therefore cut across your responsibilities as a PCC?

Caroline Henry: Personally, I feel that I have a directly elected mandate to be the champion for victims in Nottinghamshire and to make sure that they get the justice and support they need. That is what my office does, so I am happy that my office will continue to support victims. I do not think we need a separate victims’ champion; I think it could be confusing locally if that happened.

[Rob Butler]

Q Ms Linden, how do you make sure in London that it is not confusing, and that you as, effectively, the PCC are actually the victims’ champion?

Sophie Linden: I know you had Claire Waxman in front of you this morning, and you are well aware of her role as an independent Victims’ Commissioner. It was an incredibly important development, when the Mayor was elected, that we appointed an independent Victims’ Commissioner. There is a very clear distinction between my role in holding the police to account and her role in bringing in the voice of the victim and advocating for victims. There has been no issue with the confusion of roles in London on that.

I am speaking for myself, not on behalf of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, because there is a difference of opinion, to be frank, but I think every force should have a victims’ advocate who is there purely as a victims’ advocate. The police and crime commissioner should use that voice coming into the commissioner’s office in order to be able to improve the services we commission.

[Rob Butler]

Q But aren’t the police, who are effectively accountable to you, more likely to take victims’ concerns seriously if it is you as the PCC who are their champion, rather than it being another voice in the mix?

Sophie Linden: My experience is that the Metropolitan police take my voice seriously and take Claire Waxman’s voice seriously. I think it makes it more powerful that there is a very clear voice coming in that is absolutely grounded in the experience of victims that she brings with her office and the work she does—for example, the rape review and her own analysis of victims code compliance in London—and then I am there as deputy Mayor and as police and crime commissioner to hold the police to account, having taken her advice.

[Rob Butler]

DCC Barnett, do you have a view on that?

DCC Barnett: I guess it is about being really clear about the lines of accountability. It is very clear that PCCs hold chief constables to account. That said, someone who brings the voice of the victim is absolutely going to help to shape service delivery. The two roles do not need to be the same. We can be very clear on a distinction around absolute accountability, but there is a wealth of information and experience that a victims’ commissioner can bring to a force area and all the criminal justice agencies.

[Rob Butler]

Q We know that one of the things that victims really want to see is speedy access to justice. The police frequently tell me that one cause of delay is the requirement to redact any personal details before they are sent to the CPS to make a charging decision—not at the stage when they are going to potential defendants, but at that very early stage. Is there any potential legislative change that the Bill could make to address that problem?

DCC Barnett: I guess it may well be covered in other legislation. It is about recognising that there are a number of requirements on policing in order to further an investigation for consideration by the Crown Prosecution Service. I know that a lot of work is done around minimising those requirements, because we would all like to see speedier access to justice. We also recognise that there are good reasons why those requirements are in place. Whether those can be addressed through the Bill, I do not know; I would have to give that a little more thought.

[Rob Butler]

Ms Henry?

Caroline Henry: I know that the police officers and staff would much rather not be redacting all that information, but be getting on with their job. It would be a great vehicle if it could be included in the Bill. Going back to the independent victims’ champion, one of the ways I listen to victims is through the local criminal justice board; we have a victims sub-group, which feeds into the board. I also go out to speak to people all the time.

[Rob Butler]

Q A suggestion made this morning was that in order to ensure that the police and potentially prosecutors comply with the victims code, any failure to do so should be sanctioned, perhaps by docking their pay. That struck me as somewhat excessive; looking at your facial reactions, I pick up the same from you. I wonder, so that we have them on the record, what your views are of the proposal to dock police officers’ pay if they are not in some way compliant with the victims code.

Caroline Henry: Our police work really hard. That wouldn’t be the first thing you’d want to do, would it?

Sophie Linden: An important issue is whether you are enforcing against the institution or the individual. In the Bill, you should be looking at the institution.

DCC Barnett: I absolutely do not support that suggestion. It is not about individuals; this is about the organisation’s ability to deliver. I will say that we have a robust complaints process, so if someone wishes to make a complaint about the police aspect, the code delivery or the service that people have had, they can make a complaint. That will then be assessed—it might be service recovery or quick resolution, or there might be a performance issue with an individual or a conduct issue if it is very extreme—and that works very well in policing. I would not advocate anything like what you suggest.

[Rob Butler]

It is not my suggestion. Thank you all very much.

[The Chair]

We have eight minutes and two Members left.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna McMorrin]

I was actually referring specifically to the CPS, because that was raised in the report. Thank you.

[Rob Butler]

Q Could I take you back to the provision in the proposed updated code to have a meeting at an earlier stage between the CPS with a victim of an alleged crime? You have suggested that that would be in a rape and serious sexual offence case after a not guilty plea. Who from the CPS would be having that meeting?

Jan Lamping: We want to ensure that we are responding to what victims need from us. That is why we think it is really important to have some flexibility about who from the CPS meets. There will undoubtedly be times when the right person to meet with the victim is the prosecutor in the case—for example, when a legal concept is to be explained or when we know that a victim has a particular question about a legal aspect. On other occasions, perhaps the victim may have questions about the practicalities on the day, and in those circumstances, it might be more appropriate for the victim to meet with one of our trained paralegals who are at court on a day-to-day basis and are more involved with speaking to victims. I think it is more about what would be of genuine benefit to the to the victim on a case-by-case basis.

[Rob Butler]

Q That would be great if it could be delivered, but can I just push you on the practicalities? Will it really be about what is in the best interests of the victim, or will it actually be about whether a lawyer is available? Quite often it can be difficult even to find a lawyer to go and present the case in court, let alone one with the time to review the case or the time to have a pre-trial meeting with the victim. Will they not inevitably end up at the bottom of the pile?

Jan Lamping: No, we are absolutely committed to delivering this. The people who are presenting these cases in court would not be the people meeting with the victims, so—

[Rob Butler]

Q Well, is that right or is that wrong? Does the victim not need to have confidence in the person who is going to stand up and ask some tough questions on their behalf?

Jan Lamping: That person will meet the victim under the “Speaking to Witnesses at Court” guidance, but the person making the decisions in the case is the reviewing prosecutor. I think it is really about what the victim needs from the meeting.

[Rob Butler]

Q And you are confident that that meeting with, effectively, case progression or a reviewing lawyer is sufficient to build confidence and achieve the ultimate aim of giving a better service to the victim.

Jan Lamping: From the information that we have had so far, from the testing that we have been doing under Operation Soteria, victims and support services are telling us locally that the victims find it really useful to meet with the prosecutor.

[Rob Butler]

Q How much scope is there for the CPS to improve in other cases? We have talked about rape and serious sexual offences, where there is going to be this new pre-meeting to avoid the situation where a victim of a crime appears in court on the day that the alleged offender is being tried only to discover that the CPS lawyer has been given the case papers five minutes before. That does happen; I speak with 12 years’ experience of seeing it happen.

Jan Lamping: Prosecutors in the magistrates court will deal with lists and have received them the day before, for example.

[Rob Butler]

And sometimes it is much shorter notice than that.

Jan Lamping: That is not my own experience. I accept what you say about that from yours.

[Rob Butler]

Q How can you reassure this Committee and, indeed, Parliament and the general public that the CPS will follow through with the aims that are in the Bill to ensure that victims of crime, at whatever level, genuinely get a much better service from the CPS?

Jan Lamping: We are committed to doing that. That is why the victim transformation programme that is aligned with the Bill will help us to work towards that.

[Rob Butler]

Q Are you confident that you have the skills available and the resources to do so?

Jan Lamping: In terms of resources, obviously the Ministry of Justice accepts that we will need to have the right resources in place—for example, for the meetings. As far as skills are concerned, we will need to train our people in, for example, how to speak to vulnerable victims, and we will need to use the expertise of those around us—not necessarily within our own organisation —to help us with that.

[Rob Butler]

Thank you very much.

[Janet Daby]

Q You said that victims find it useful to meet with prosecutors. I accept that and understand why, but do you support measures to offer free legal advice to rape victims?

Jan Lamping: It is important that where victims feel that they need to have legal representation, they are able to obtain it. We would certainly engage on any proposals in that respect. We understand that issues relating to disclosure of personal information in particular cause anxiety for victims, and while we apply the law as it stands, we would engage on any proposals regarding independent legal advice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhan Baillie]

Q It would be really helpful if we could have a note on that.

Kate Davies: There have been discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care recently on that, so I think that is an important element to go back to you on.

Catherine Hinwood: I think we are going to submit written evidence on this, so we are really happy to do that.

[Rob Butler]

Q You have all spoken a lot about ICBs, but I think it is fair to say that they are still finding their feet as entities and that they are doing so with a greater or lesser degree of success in different parts of the country. I would certainly say that in my own area of Buckinghamshire, the ICB we have is far from being where we would hope or expect it to be. It has had lots and lots of challenges.

In the context of, frankly, ICBs that are struggling to fulfil their core duties, I wonder how they will really do what is needed for victims through this proposed legislation, because I do not think that they are going to see it as their No. 1 priority. I wonder how you can leverage to ensure that this important legislation and the concepts behind it are delivered on by ICBs.

Catherine Hinwood: ICBs now have a duty to set out in their joint forward plans how they are going to support victims of abuse, and it is specifically set out that they must talk about victims of domestic abuse and sexual abuse. We are starting to work with ICBs to help them. We issued guidance on what they might want to do to be able to fulfil that duty and how they might approach it, but we are starting to work with them in the coming months to assist them in how they are approaching that. I agree that they would be at different levels of maturity, but it is certainly something that we within NHS England have had to focus on in assisting them with and will over the next year, as they grapple with a number of different responsibilities. You are absolutely right: this focus that they have on victims of abuse is a new one. It is a different one and it did not come with any funding—it did not come with any ringfenced funding—so we are helping them to think about how they might be able to mature in this space.

Kate Davies: One of the things at the moment is the maturity of the NHS, with the recovery from covid and everything else. I remember being in a forum during covid and looking at the issues of serious violence, victims and survivors. There are victims and survivors walking through the door of every GP, hospital trust and, perhaps, accident and emergency department. We have too much evidence or representation of people coming in years after they have actually been a victim— this may be related to childhood sexual abuse or to domestic abuse.

It is fundamental that someone in an NHS service has the opportunity to feel safe enough and supported enough to be part of their needs and requirements. They might come in for something else—for example, we have just done some work on cervical screening. I have to say that we are talking about superb interventions through lived experience. How do we get every woman who has cervical screening as part of their requirement also to have the opportunity to say, whether they know this or not, what needs they have or what support they need? This is about, “How can we support you? Have you ever been a victim of rape, sexual assault or domestic abuse?” It is those opportunities that we should be supporting.

I have been with the NHS quite a long time, so I am not saying this because I am sitting in front of the Committee, but there are massive amounts of evidence that people want to do more in this space, because that is part of so many people’s experiences, either personally or professionally; this could be as a clinician, with someone in front of them as a patient. This is a great opportunity to talk about the duty to collaborate, but it is also a great opportunity, as you say, when you have maturity of ICBs at this early stage, to make it a priority.

Lastly, as people are aware, I sat in front of a number of Committees to do with armed forces, as I am the senior commissioner for armed forces. I had exactly the same conversation about that maturity. Four or five years later, we had the armed forces covenant and a really important requirement around armed forces’ mental health and trauma, whereby we have commissioning and supporting a dedicated pathway. That is really why we have been commissioning more mental health enhanced services for sexual abuse recently, through the long term plan. It is a really good opportunity to build on this and build on that good practice, as well as to say where it is not working—we have to be honest about that, too.

[Rob Butler]

Q Councillor Bell, perhaps you could say something specifically on the fact that in different areas there is a greater or lesser representation of local authorities on those ICB boards and that that can be controversial

Cllr Bell: Yes, it can. Let me just to come back to add a little more detail. At a local level, we are talking about ICBs and we are quite heavily focused on them. They will be feeding into your health and wellbeing boards on your local authorities. Your community safety partnership should be feeding into your health and wellbeing boards, and there should be a joint commissioning approach to local services running through that process as well. When we talk about not duplicating, we need to look at them; we need to look at what is already in existence and how we can deliver that duty to collaborate without creating additional layers of bureaucracy that may not actually do anything other than exacerbate the pressure on capacity. If we do not have to reinvent the wheel, let us not do so—let us look at what is there already.

Local representation in the ICBs is a funny picture at the moment, because different places are operating in different ways. Let me talk from my experience. Our clinical commissioning group was integrated into our local authority a number of years ago, so we had an integrated health and social care model already. Our director of adult health and social care was also our director at the CCG, and is now the head of our ICB. It works quite well and quite seamlessly. Our cabinet member sits within that structure as well.

[Rob Butler]

Q Do you think that that is a better model to achieve the aims of this legislation, to give a better service to victims of crime?

Cllr Bell: I do not want to overstretch. From my experience, it works well in our authority. I am certainly not a health specialist. Those are the people you should speak to, given their knowledge. In my experience, at our level, it has worked extremely well.

[The Chair]

If there are no other questions, I thank the witnesses for coming along this afternoon and giving evidence, and I apologise for the intervention of democracy. We will now move on to the next panel.

Examination of Witnesses

Gabrielle Shaw, Rachel Almeida and Duncan Craig gave evidence.