Lord Gove (Con)

My Lords, I speak in the gap to acknowledge that the Bill has many virtues; I cannot enumerate them better than the Minister and my noble friend Lord Sandhurst have done. We have heard many valuable contributions in this debate, and I cannot begin to respond to them as elegantly as my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie will. I cannot bring the front-line experience of dealing with violence against women and girls as effectively as my noble friend Lady Maclean has done to this debate. But I can bring one thing: an appreciation, from my time in the Ministry of Justice, that the single most important thing for victims is not the advocacy of the Victims’ Commissioner, welcome as that is, or the support of victims’ services, valuable as that is; it is effective, speedy justice, with high-quality prosecutions of those who deserve to face the highest sanctions for their criminal acts. We know that the area where the justice system most poorly serves our citizens is rape and serious sexual offences, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. We know, from the most recent report by the inspectorate looking at the work of the Crown Prosecution Service that early contact with victims made by the CPS is still tragically far from the level that the CPS and victims would like to see. We know also that the CPS faces constraints in the quality of people whom it can employ, and above all, the criminal Bar—those experts who deal most effectively and most sensitively with these cases—is facing a drought, with a quarter of people at the criminal Bar having departed and a further quarter potentially likely to depart. That is why I am concerned that in the Bill the CPS is given the power to increase the number of those working as prosecutors by potentially diluting the quality threshold and bringing in, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, pointed out, those who have other qualifications. That change may be justified on the basis of diversity. I want to see changes justified on the basis of efficiency. What are the Government doing to ensure that we can reverse the flight from the criminal Bar and that we can continue to make it an area where our very best lawyers see their careers developing? When there are vital questions of guilt or innocence, or horrific crimes such as those my noble friend Lady Maclean mentioned, nothing is more important than ensuring that we have the best possible prosecutors as well as the accused having the best possible defence. There is no question but that the criminal Bar provides it. Whether or not there are gifted solicitor advocates and CILEX-trained individuals have skills, no one is as well equipped as those who are either called to the English and Welsh Bar or who are advocates in Scotland. Unless and until we can have that guarantee, I fear that we once again have another measure to dilute quality and cut costs, with justice, unfortunately, being the victim.