Baroness Hamwee (LD)

My Lords, I will focus on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. We seem to have done a bit of mini-regrouping within the group, but I checked with my noble friend Lady Brinton and I think she will wind up the group while introducing her own amendments at the same time. At the last stage the Minister resisted the proposal for more victim navigators on the basis that the service is already provided, but victim navigators are quite distinct in what they do from the Salvation Army and their subcontractors funded by the Home Office. As I said, I supported the amendment in Committee but I did express a reservation about the ambitious six-month period within which they could be rolled out. Victim navigators are collocated with police in the forces where they work—the term “embedded” with the police seems to be used quite often. I was a member of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee, and the comments on victim navigators in our report were under the heading “Evidence gathering”. That describes quite a lot of what they do. I will try not to repeat what other noble Lords have said, but the link between support of the victims and the criminal justice system is their job, filling a very specific gap with access to details of cases but with the independence to build trust. They are of great value to the police—and we know how difficult it is to get convictions in this area.