Contribution
It is a true privilege to deliver the closing speech on Second Reading of the Victims and Courts Bill. I would like to start by paying tribute to the families of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, Jan Mustafa, Zara Aleena and Sabina Nessa, most of whom have been in the Gallery and whom I have had the privilege of getting to know over the past few months. As today’s debate has shown, the House agrees that justice is not optional. Criminals should never be allowed to hide away from it. I am grateful to all of the families for their tireless campaigning to bring forward measures on sentencing hearings. The changes are an important step forward for victims and a testament to their courage.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) for her very powerful words today. They were not just her words but the words of Cheryl Korbel, whose words will stay with me forever and whose words should have been heard by her daughter’s killer. This Bill is a legacy for Olivia and for all those who have been failed by the justice system.
As the Lord Chancellor has already outlined, this Bill has victims’ experience at its core. As the Victims Minister, it is an honour to meet victims and survivors every single day in this role. This Bill has been created with them at its heart. I echo the tribute from the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) to the Justice for Victims campaigners, who I have also had the privilege of meeting. Becky and Glenn Youens, Susan and Jeremy Everard, Katie Brett—whose story we have also powerfully heard from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan)—Paula Hudgell and Ayse Hussein, who is with us today, have all helped to change the law, and we owe them all a huge debt of thanks for that.
This Bill will make the justice system more efficient—it is a system, and it all needs to work for it to operate effectively—so that victims can begin to move on with their lives faster. I sincerely thank Members from all parties for the thoughtful, powerful, sometimes emotional, but mostly constructive way in which they have contributed to the debate today. Support and justice for victims should never be political. I stand here willing to work with anyone of any stripe and of any colour to make sure that we bring forward the strongest package available for victims.
The issues and the inheritance of our justice system have long been discussed in this place. It is well known to Members what a state our justice system was in when we came into office just 10 months ago, but this Government have begun to rebuild its foundations. This Bill will be just the beginning, not the end of our reform programme for victims. We have the independent review of our criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson. That will lead to a more effective and efficient criminal courts system, improving timeliness for victims, witnesses and defendants without jeopardising the requirement for a fair trial for all involved. We await the imminent outcome of David Gauke’s review into sentencing, which will address a number of the issues that Members have raised today.
Turning to some of the issues raised, I will respond first to my friend, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. I am proud to work with him for victims in this place. He has always been constructive and is always seeking to do what is right. Although I cannot give him the commitment today, I am meeting him tomorrow morning, and we will hopefully have imminent news for him on a lot of the work we have been doing together. I also thank his fellow Liberal Democrat, the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for all her work on court transcripts and specifically the pilot for sentencing remarks transcripts in cases of rape and serious sexual offences. Having spoken to victims and survivors, I know how vital that is for them. The pilot is due to end next week and we will soon be publishing our response and how we intend to take that forward. I look forward to speaking with her further on that soon.
Many Members spoke about the parental responsibility measures. I stress that the Government have heard the strength of feeling on this issue. Our focus must be on automatically restricting parental responsibility for offenders who have committed serious child sexual abuse offences—the most heinous crimes in society. We are taking that step today in this Bill for those who have committed these offences against a child for whom they personally hold parental responsibility, because we need to protect those in direct harm. I stress and echo the words of the Secretary of State that this is a novel and untested change in the law. The response from perpetrators is unpredictable, so we have chosen to focus first on cases of highest harm, because we do not want unintended consequences and we need to prioritise all vulnerable children who are going through the family courts. However, this is the beginning, as we have said, and we look forward to working constructively across the House on this measure.