Member

The last Conservative Government initiated the piloting of access to the remarks for victims of murder, rape and other sexual offences. I am not aware of anything in the pilot that would make an argument against the measures we have proposed. Lords amendment 7 addresses that problem directly by placing in the Bill a clear duty on the court to provide sentencing remarks within 14 days, free of charge, and to publish them. The Minister said that that would apply to all remarks, but that is not what the amendment says. It refers to remarks on request, and that is short of where we should be in the end, which is to aim for all court transcripts of proceedings to be made available more generally. However, we have sought to be modest with the aim of garnering wider support.