Perhaps the Minister can drink a bit more water at this point, though that is not the sole reason for my intervention.
I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification, but my own clarification is that no one suggested, at any point, that Clause 5 is an ouster of judicial review. Last time, I was trying to make it clear that, in Clause 5, the code does not give any right to civil proceedings, and so no individual can sue on the code. In the creative scheme that we devised, we were not
suggesting that individuals should be able to sue either. We certainly agree with not wanting more litigation for people who have already had a terrible time with litigation and probably have no civil legal aid anyway.
The point was that the Victims’ Commissioner should be more than a toothless tiger. Whether or not it is through force of personality, as with the current commissioner, future commissioners should have something in their back pocket for recalcitrant public authorities which, year after year, do not respect the victims’ code. Even in the scheme that we developed, litigation should not be the first resort for a Victims’ Commissioner either today or in future. They should have to jump through hoops first—the issue of private notices followed up by the issue of public notices. Only in extremis should the Victims’ Commissioner alone—in relation not even to particular a criminal case but to systemic failure—be able, as a last resort, to sue on the code. I understand the Minister’s position, but I hope he will at least take the opportunity to reflect on what noble Lords have suggested before the next stage.