Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government has taken as a result of recommendations and conclusions made in the reports by the Victims' Commissioner, entitled A Review of Complaints and Resolutions for Victims of Crime and A Review of Children's Entitlement in the Victims Code, published in January 2015 and February 2017 respectively.

The Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses regularly reviews the operation of the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime (Victims’ Code).

Subsequent to publication of the Commissioner’s review concerning complaints and resolutions, the government issued a revised version of the Victims’ Code in October 2015. The revised Victims’ Code includes both an entitlement for victims to make a complaint, as well as a number of duties on service providers regarding complaints.

We have considered Baroness Newlove’s review of children’s entitlements in the Victims’ Code and note the findings with interest. It is important to state that they are based on a very small sample of victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system. The national roll out of pre-trial cross examination (s.28) to vulnerable witnesses, which includes all children and aims to help them give their best evidence, continues, and will be extended to a further six Crown Court Centres this autumn.