Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing legislation to allow victims of crime to express impact statements to convicted people directly.

As set out in the Victims’ Code, victims and survivors have the right to make a Victim Personal Statement (VPS) to explain in their own words how a crime has affected them. The judge or magistrate will decide whether and what sections of a personal statement should be read aloud at the sentencing hearing. The judge or magistrate will always take the victim’s preference into account when making their decision, unless there is good reason not to do so. The entitlement to make a VPS at the sentencing hearing is enabled by a Criminal Practice Direction; this provides guidance to judges and specifies that the court will take the VPS into account when determining sentence, as well as additional procedure surrounding the VPS.

Where the statement is read out and the offender is at the sentencing hearing they will hear the statement directly. We recognise that for some victims and survivors it may be distressing where the offender is not at the hearing and the Government is committed to legislating to require offenders to attend their sentencing hearings, so that criminals hear first-hand the impacts of their crime and victims, survivors and bereaved family members of deceased victims see criminals face the consequences of their actions. This measure will be included in the Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill, which the Government intends to introduce in the first parliamentary session.