Victims and Prisoners Bill

My Lords, I shall be brief. My name is on this amendment, and indeed, I spoke to similar amendments in Committee. It was a great pleasure to do so, but I regarded myself, as I said at the time, as a substitute for my noble friend Lady Royall, who indeed has the most tireless record of championing this cause and taking every opportunity to remedy the problem. We are presented with an opportunity here. Guidance is not working. That is the problem. We have to put these modest amendments into the Bill because we know that guidance is not working. It is not good enough, and it means that it is a postcode lottery as to whether action is taken in the way that is necessary, and it makes a hit and miss system for whether or not women’s lives are saved. That is not good enough. It is time. We need to put both these amendments in the Bill. We owe it to the victims of stalking to ensure that the police everywhere will see stalking for what it is: often a stepping stone to something worse. It is time we did that.