My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I first bring forth the Government’s Amendment 75, which requires that Welsh Ministers be consulted on any guidance on victim support roles under Clause 15, so far as the content relates to devolved matters. Victim support roles may operate across criminal justice settings and include devolved health and local authority responsibilities. It is therefore right and entirely in line with the devolution settlement that Welsh Ministers are properly and fully consulted and that the Welsh context is properly reflected in the resulting guidance that will flow from that. I warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for his Amendments 72 and 73, which relate to this matter. It is the Government’s view that government Amendment 75 covers that ground and that it is no longer necessary for the noble Lord to press his amendment in this respect.
Amendment 61 is about consultation with providers who are under a duty to collaborate. It would create a mandatory requirement for relevant authorities to consult those providing support to child victims during the
formulation of their strategy under Clause 13. We have just heard moving contributions on children. As I said last week during the debate, the Government have been clear throughout Part 1 that the distinct needs of children should indeed be taken into account. That is reflected in particular in Clauses 13(4) and 15(5), which specifically relate to children, now defined as individuals under the age of 18. Those clauses, among other things, require the commissioners to make reasonable efforts to obtain the views of relevant victims, which will expressly include children. The guidance will underpin that duty and set out best practice for consulting child victims and those who provide services to such victims.
We have fully discussed children. I do not think I need repeat anything that I have already said. The position of children is very widely recognised. Therefore, in the Government’s view, Amendment 61 is overtaken by the provisions that already exist in the Bill and what has already been said on behalf of the Government in this respect.
I come to Amendment 79 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, which relates to support for victims with no recourse to public funds. I thank her for tabling that amendment. The code is clear that victims are entitled to access services, including support services, under the code regardless of their resident status. As has been mentioned, there is also access to funding and support through the migrant victims of domestic abuse concession. That mechanism was expanded last February to give victims who are here as the partner of a worker or student a short period of lawful status, financial stability and support while they consider their future options. That is a major extension of the concession that was first introduced in 2012.
Of course, the Government have heard the concerns raised about the need for a longer-term solution in this matter. Basically, two points arise. First, this is not that easy to address in the context of the wider immigration system and immigration policy. We cannot ignore the fact that there is a risk of creating a route that is attractive to some who seek to shortcut or abuse the immigration system, rather than the genuine victims of domestic abuse whom we all seek to support. That has to be worked through. However, if I may speak frankly, while the Government will of course continue to support this important matter, which has been raised many times in recent years, resources are not unlimited and this must now take its place in the next spending review. No doubt the Government will then come to a view as to how resources are allocated.
In the meantime, there is support under the migrant victims of domestic abuse concession. There is also the support for the migrant victim scheme, which provides wraparound support, including accommodation, subsistence and counselling to victims with no recourse to public funds. As I understand it, that has supported over 1,200 victims since April 2021. I would like to go further towards the noble Baroness and others who have supported this amendment, but I hope that what I have been able to say will at least persuade her not to press it further.
I come now to Amendments 60, 64, 66 and 67, which variously relate to guidance defining specialist community-based services for victims of domestic abuse,
sexual violence and so on, as well as the funding gap, a requirement that sufficient funding is provided annually to the relevant authorities to commission the relevant victim support services, and the establishment of cross-government “by and for” funding services. It is quite a large group, but your Lordships will have the general picture.
First, I very much thank the right reverend Prelate and others for their engagement on these amendments, along with representatives from the sector. Of course, the duty to collaborate under the Bill will need to have regard to the joint needs assessments, and the local strategies, which will be published, should include evidence of how the relevant authorities have carried out their needs assessments, as well as how those assessments have informed commissioning decisions.
I can commit that noble Lords will see in the draft guidance, shortly to be available, that it will set a clear expectation for local commissioners to share both a self-contained joint needs assessment document and joint strategies with the Ministry of Justice to enable the Government to bring together local intelligence on need. I very much hope and expect that this will provide the national framework for addressing the problems raised in this debate.
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The guidance will make clear the Government’s intention to use the insight from the joint needs assessments to inform a co-ordinated and strategic approach to national funding, so that when we come to the next spending review, we can, as is it were, properly develop a national joined-up approach to these very important matters. Indeed, the very fact of collaboration should improve the use of existing funding, reduce duplication and enable better targeted use of resources. The Government’s position is that the spending review is the appropriate route for setting these budgets. We have to build in the necessary flexibility, in terms specifically of “by and for” services, which are indeed very important—the Government recognise that.
There has been just under £6 million of funding for those services in the past two years. One of the ambitions is to build further capacity for “by and for” services to better support victims, and in addition—this is perhaps in the sense of a separate bucket—police and crime commissioners across England and Wales with annual grant funding can include specialist “by and for” services based on their own assessment of local need. In the Government's view, we do not need to provide for this specifically in legislation, but it is very much part of the general approach to ensuring better support for victims’ services through the co-ordinated strategy that one hopes will emerge from the Bill.
Of course there is an enormous range of specific domestic specialist abuse services offered. As for the guidance sought under Amendment 60, we are quite reluctant as a Government to highlight some services over others. We would not want to inhibit new services being established in the future. But the general framework under the Bill, I respectfully suggest, is a very important step forward in relation to better funding for victims’ services. In the light of those assurances and remarks, I hope that this group of amendments need not be pursued.
Related to that is Amendment 70 on guidance for multiyear contract terms. Of course the Government have recognised the importance of multiyear funding. I can quite understand the position of the right reverend Prelate in particular that multiyear funding should become the norm. In many ways, the Government encourage that. The Victims’ Service Commissioning Framework should reiterate it as an expectation. The statutory guidance under the duty to collaborate should refer to that point.
Again, one is essentially juggling the various resources. One cannot account for unforeseen events. It is not always possible to provide things on a multiyear framework, but that is undoubtedly desirable. Grant agreements with police and crime commissioners include a requirement to commit to multiyear funding for the providers of local services they commission where possible. The Government themselves have committed over £150 million to the victims budget on a multiyear basis across the current spending review period, totalling £460 million over three years. The next spending review period should see those approaches continue. The Government’s view is that these existing mechanisms outside the legislation to ensure consistency of funding for victims’ services should and do suffice. There is a government commitment to multiyear funding to wherever we can make that possible. On that basis, I urge the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords who support the amendment not to pursue it.
I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for Amendment 65, which requires evidence of how the relevant authorities have fulfilled their obligation under the duty in Clause 13. On this point, the Government will strongly recommend in guidance that duty holders will include evidence in their strategies. On that basis, I suggest respectfully that the inclusion of this requirement in the Bill is not necessary.
Amendments 62 and 71 would place a duty on local commissioners to have regard to guidance on support roles, particularly the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Polak and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin—we revert again to children, and rightly so. I can only repeat what I have just said: children are already very much in focus under the Bill, and we do not think it appropriate to go any further than we have. I think and hope I have said enough today, and on the previous occasion, to emphasise the importance that the Government place on proper victim services for supporting children.
On Amendment 59, which is the stalking amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Russell, rightly referred to the steps announced this week by the Government to improve the approach to stalking through the lower standard of proof required for stalking protection orders. Stalking is already covered by the duty to support victims and is almost certain to be a criminal offence in many cases under the Protection from Harassment Act or other Acts. The Government have been listening to concerns in this respect and will make sure that the draft statutory guidance highlights that support for victim services should be needs-led rather than crime-focused, if noble Lords understand what I mean—that is, what the victims have been suffering is the important thing to focus on. I am very
much persuaded that the guidance should highlight the particular problems of stalking, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed. If I may put it like this, it is coming up the agenda, and I hope that sufficiently covers the matters that are addressed in Amendment 59.
That takes me to the duty to co-operate with the Victims’ Commissioner in Amendment 57. This is not in any way a reflection on present company, as it were, but the Government are not yet persuaded that we need more powers for the Victims’ Commissioner. The points can be summarised shortly. This particular commissioner’s function is much wider than that of other commissioners; it covers all crime across a very wide area. It has been a very successful office that has existed now for 14 years—it is not a new office—so it is not entirely clear why these extra powers would be needed. I have indeed had a conversation with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, and if I took away something from that it was that statutory guidance powers do not actually help that much, to tell the truth; you still have the problems.
In this case, the role of the Victims’ Commissioner has already been substantially strengthened. The commissioner may now make recommendations to any authority, as in Clause 18, and that authority has a duty to respond. I suggest that that is in effect a duty to collaborate. The commissioner has the power to be consulted by the four inspectorates mentioned in Clauses 19 to 22. People can go direct to the parliamentary ombudsman. The commissioner’s functions include keeping the code under review, being a member of the ministerial task force and being consulted on non-compliance notifications and on the annual report, and Ministers will be required to consult the Victims’ Commissioner when issuing or amending the code. That is a large package of measures, and I therefore suggest that Amendment 57 is not required.
Lastly, I turn to the first amendment—an occasion where the last should be first, but the first is not last, as it were—which is the question of the transcripts. If I may say so, this is a question not of principle but of ways and means. In answer specifically to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I can accept on behalf of the Government that a proportionate right to have access to what is said in the trial—certainly as regards sentencing remarks—is a proposition that we could accept. The issue is how we give context to that, whether it is through listening to the remarks in court, obtaining a transcript, listening to the audio, or perhaps listening remotely in another room or somewhere else where the proceedings are being transported remotely.
There are two aspects to the problem, really. In my letter of 27 March I think I set out all the arguments; I will not repeat them now. I gave details of the one-year pilot that the Government have committed to run and subject to the results of that we shall see what the next steps are, but it is important to complete the pilot before we take a decision. It is worth mentioning that there are roughly 46,000 convictions per annum in the Crown Court; that is quite a lot of transcripts even if you are limiting yourself to sentencing remarks, so it is a question of cost. However, it is very important that we keep a focus on this point, finish the pilot first and ensure that victims are supported at every stage.
Finally, I echo the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Meston—which was also made to me in Edinburgh two weeks ago by senior members of the Scottish judiciary—that in some cases involving sexual offences you have to be very careful about the dissemination of transcripts. That is another aspect to a not entirely straightforward question. I think I have replied to the points raised.