My Lords, this is quite a large group and I will speak briefly on the amendments I have my name to or on which I have something to say.
The first amendment in the group, from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is on free transcripts. What I would ask the Government—I think the answer will be yes—is whether they agree in principle that this is and should be a right of victims: a proportionate right, without exorbitant costs and without needing pages and pages of transcripts. Do they agree that it is a fundamental right for victims to have the essence of what is said in a trial that involves them or their perpetrator, to understand the deliberations and the verdict that the judge and jury have come to, in a form and manner that is helpful to them and that they can use? In the same way that prisoners or perpetrators who have been found guilty go to appeal, the right that they have to access transcripts—quite rightly—is completely disproportionate when compared with the current right of victims to get almost any proceedings from the trials that concern them.
I think we are looking and hoping for an acceptance by the Government that the principle is right, understandable and correct; we are trying to find a practical way of achieving a form for that right to be exercised in a proportionate way for victims. While the RASSO model is a good start, it is clearly quite limited in extent. I will listen very carefully to what the Minister says in reply, and, of course, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will come to her own conclusions about what she decides to do.
Amendment 57, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, is about the duty to collaborate. The Minister may recall that, last week, we spoke about the fact that, if there is not a duty to collaborate, certain agencies will take it upon themselves to interpret statutory guidance in a way that is convenient to them, rather than in a way that is aligned to the requirements of the relevant commissioner.
In particular, I mention the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Nicole Jacobs. I was able to catch up with Nicole yesterday afternoon—I suspect it was not very long after she ran into the Minister—and we had a discussion. The content of the discussion was that,
even if you have statutory guidance that says one should be collaborating, the fact is that some agencies will take that on board in the spirit it is intended and will collaborate, while others will say that they understand in theory that it is very important and should be done but will decide that they have other things that are more important, or that they do not have the time, money or resources to respond. That makes the role of a commissioner extraordinarily difficult.
Data is king. Knowing what is going on is fundamental to interpreting what is and is not working. If you do not have systematic, reliable data from every part of the country, it is very difficult to do one’s job and give sensible advice to the Government. It is hard, frankly, to look victims in the face and say, “We are doing everything we can for you”. Despite the fact that statutory guidance is written down, some agencies are deciding for themselves whether or not to comply. This is clearly unsatisfactory.
I asked the Domestic Abuse Commissioner what she would change, with the benefit of hindsight, about the way in which this was encapsulated in the Domestic Abuse Act and the guidance. She said that it is ultimately about accountability in so many areas; it is about who is ultimately responsible and who will be held to account if something which should be happening is not. At the moment, that is quite unclear. Having 43 different police forces, with police and crime commissioners on top, makes it rather difficult. The commissioner’s instinct was that perhaps one should hold police and crime commissioners’ feet to the fire and make them primarily responsible for ensuring that all the agencies in their jurisdiction take the statutory guidance seriously and comply. If they did not comply, some very awkward questions should then be asked of the police and crime commissioner to find out why.
Another thing that would be helpful is something that we have started to do in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. We have a table which lists each department and ranks them by the egregiousness and inadequacies of their Explanatory Memoranda and the idiocy of their impact assessments. We are hoping that this will concentrate minds because, once again, data is king. It is extraordinarily important that one is able to measure what is going on.
I will listen carefully to what the Minister says on this and to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. From the well-intended evidence about what we hoped and thought was going to happen in the Domestic Abuse Act, we have a chance to learn from what we thought was going to work well and which is not working so well and to try to do it better this time.