Victims and Witnesses Strategy

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

That was the problem when the scheme was first set up—I remember wrestling with it 20 years ago. At that point, we had slipped into a situation in which a compensation claim was assessed as though it was a personal injuries claim in a civil court, which meant that every case took ages to litigate, lots of lawyers would turn up to make representations on the basis of large numbers of medical reports, and the costs soared. Everybody accepted that this was completely unsustainable. The compensation scheme for criminal injuries is not meant to be full compensation; it is meant to be a contribution towards covering the financial consequences of the injury. As I said earlier, it would be nice if the taxpayer could pay everybody full compensation as if it were a civil award, but frankly that was never practicable from the moment it started, and it certainly is not affordable now.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

May I return to the question of delays? Certainly for victims of serious crime—either threats of violence or violence itself—delays in the investigation and delays by the Crown Prosecution Service and in the court process simply add to the menace that victims suffer. The Secretary of State has made some suggestions on how to proceed, but will he assure us that this matter will be a key consideration when drawing conclusions from the consultation? Of all the matters I have dealt with, perhaps the most harrowing involve those who live in fear, suffering a sentence while those awaiting trial are free on the outside.

[Mr Clarke]

Most of the delays that I have been talking about are delays in payment of criminal injuries compensation, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is just as important that we do something about delays in the criminal justice system. We must improve the efficiencies of the court, avoid wasting as much time as is wasted currently, and so on. Together with the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), we are working on ways of improving the efficiencies of the court so that the more straightforward cases can be dealt with more promptly and those that are contested are handled more efficiently, to everybody’s advantage, including in terms of court costs, police costs, and everything else. Our system does not have as many delays as some of the worst in western Europe, but if someone is staying in custody for too long before they can get a trial, it is bad for justice. However, I agree that the biggest complaint we usually get from laymen in criminal cases that have gone slightly wrong is that it has taken too long to get to court and that there have been several abortive appearances that wasted their time before the case finally got dealt with.