Contributions
2,124 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Seventh sitting)Amendment 53 would place in the victims code a requirement to inform victims of their right to access pre-trial therapy, and require the CPS to annually review the implementation…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)I thank the shadow Minister for tabling amendments 11 and 12, which would place a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult the Victims’ Commissioner when preparing and…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)I will speak to clause 11 stand part, and in my concluding remarks address the speech that the hon. Member for Rotherham will make when she speaks to her new clauses. Our approach…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)The hon. Lady slightly pre-empts my answer. If that information is centrally held, I will endeavour to get it and write to her with it. I am also pleased that the College of…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)Amendments 27 and 28 are minor technical amendments that have been tabled to better meet our intention to prevent the victims code from interfering with independent prosecutorial…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)Without testing the patience of the Committee, I have a few more points I intend to make before concluding. I hope that some of what I say may well reassure the hon. Lady. If it…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for tabling the new clauses, and I hope that she will allow me to address them all together. Although they each address different…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Eighth sitting)The hon. Lady knows me well; she may have had a sense of the direction I was heading in and be seeking to gently see me off from it midway. I will return to her point in a second.…29 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)I was about to come to that point, so the hon. Lady’s intervention is prescient. All of the speeches that we have heard have acknowledged that the behaviour that is being referred…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)I turn first to amendment 38, which seeks to include victim compensation as an additional victims code principle, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham for her…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point. I will just round off my point, then address her point specifically. Right 1 of the code is clear that victims who, for example, have…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)As ever, I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her speech setting out the rationale for amendment 45. She seeks to give victims the opportunity to make their voices heard during…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)First, we do not need to do this in the Bill—the points that the hon. Lady makes are essentially two sides of the same coin. I will turn to this in more detail, but we are seeking…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work that he and the all-party parliamentary group that he chairs do on this important issue. I am grateful to him for giving us an…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)I cannot say no to the right hon. Lady.27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one of the reasons, but not the only reason—I suspect we may touch on this when we come to amendment 49—why our approach is to place a…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)I will turn to non-compliance and why we believe that the approach that we have set out in the clause is the right one. I suspect that Opposition Members may take a different…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)Amendment 49 would amend the first principle of the victims code, which says that victims should be provided with information to help them to understand the criminal justice…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Fifth sitting)I fear the shadow Minister misunderstood what I was saying; I was referring to police and CPS lawyers, who will be able to find ways to prosecute some of these cases, I would…27 Jun 2023HANSARDVictims and Prisoners Bill (Sixth sitting)Notwithstanding any legislative reason or primary legislation that might limit our scope, I am quite happy to look at it in the context of the code. We have published a pre-draft…27 Jun 2023