Pam Cox

The Victims and Courts Bill is part of the Government’s wider reforms of our justice system that will, in the round, better protect victims and improve their access to justice, as well as that of defendants. I really welcome its measures to improve communications with victims, to reform non-disclosure agreements, to ensure that defendants appear at sentencing hearings and to restrict the parental rights of child sex offenders. Today, I will focus my remarks on Lords amendments 4 and 7, which are on the financing of private prosecutions. The Bill amends the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985 to provide a new power for the Lord Chancellor to prescribe the rates at which prosecutors acting in private prosecutions can recover expenses properly incurred by them from central funds. This proposal draws on a related recommendation of the Justice Committee, on which I serve. The rates would not be set by the Lord Chancellor, but would instead be consulted on and implemented through secondary legislation, so it is very important that the Government, through the Lord Chancellor, have the power to control the rates that can be claimed and paid. Lords amendment 4 seeks to leave out clause 12, thereby preventing that power from being accorded to the Lord Chancellor. In my view, the Lord Chancellor needs that power. After all, ours is a public justice system, albeit one that has long accommodated private prosecutions. The current arrangements contribute to inequity in our justice system, which this Bill seeks to address more broadly. In recent decades, we have seen some landmark private prosecutions, such as the case brought by the parents of Stephen Lawrence, the cases brought by the RSPCA and other charities, and the cases brought by the Cyclists’ Defence Fund and others. Although we might argue that, in a properly functioning justice system, we would no longer need private prosecutions, we clearly do need them, and if we do still need them, we need to be able to exert proper control over the resources expended on them.