King's Speech 2023 - Victims and Prisoners Bill (carried over)

• For too long victims have felt the criminal justice system doesn’t work for them - that their voice isn’t heard, that too much emphasis is placed on the criminal rather than the victim, and that there is too little direct accountability to victims and families.
• The Victims and Prisoners Bill will change that, by introducing long-term reforms to the victim experience, providing immediate and victim-centred support in the event of disasters or major incident, and reforming the parole system to rebuild public confidence.
• This Bill sits alongside the Government’s long-term plan to reform sentencing and the use of prison, in order to lock up dangerous offenders for longer than ever before, including by ensuring life means life for the worst murders and that rapists to serve every day of their prison sentence.

What does the Bill do?

• Supporting victims by restoring trust, punishing offenders who commit heinous crimes, and ensuring the public always have confidence in the criminal justice system are essential.
• The Victims and Prisoners Bill will improve the experience of the criminal justice system for victims and restore confidence by:
• Supporting victims of crime to address the long-term challenge of victim confidence in the criminal justice system by transforming their experience from the moment a crime happens. The Bill will:
• • place the key principles of the Victims’ Code in law and place a duty on criminal justice agencies to review their compliance with the Code, which will feed into a national structure for transparency and oversight.
  • improve join up and provision of victim support services by introducing a joint statutory duty on Police and Crime Commissioners, health and local authorities in England to work together when commissioning support services for victims of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and other serious violence.
  • require the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance about Independent Sexual Violence Advisors and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors to increase awareness of the functions of these roles and encourage greater consistency across the sector.
  • place duties on the police to ensure that any requests for third-party material from victims (such as counselling notes) must be necessary and proportionate.

Introducing an Independent Public Advocate (IPA) which will work on behalf of victims of major incidents like the Hillsborough disaster, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the Grenfell Tower fire.

• the Advocate will advocate for victims and support them to access services, helping them navigate the processes that follow a major incident or public disaster, and provide support for victims and their families.
• the Advocate will be an important conduit between victims and public authorities by giving victims a voice when they need it most and creating an avenue for accountability that is quicker and more effective than traditional inquiries. The Advocate will focus on what victims need, not what others might assume that they need, and will work with public authorities to address concerns.
• noting the points made at Committee stage in the House of Commons, we are exploring ways to strengthen the model for the Advocate, including for a permanent, lead Independent Public Advocate that can be rapidly deployed in the event of a major incident.
• Reforming the parole system to ensure that Ministers have greater oversight of the release of the most dangerous offenders, including murderers, rapists and terrorists. The Bill will:

• strengthen the application of the release test and allow for greater ministerial oversight of the parole system, which will help protect the public, keep the streets safe and increase confidence in the system.
• clarify the statutory release test so minimising risk and protecting the public are the sole considerations when deciding whether to release a prisoner.
• create a new “top-tier” of offenders convicted of the most serious offences (murder, rape, the most serious terrorism offences, or causing or allowing the death of a child) whose release may be subject to personal intervention by ministers so that there is a second check, on behalf of the public, on whether the prisoner is safe to release.

• Ensuring prisoners who have been convicted of the most serious offences and are serving whole life orders cannot marry or form civil partnerships in prison. The Bill will:
• • stop prisoners who have committed the most severe crimes and are subject to Whole Life Orders from being able to marry or form a civil partnership in prison in England and Wales, subject to a necessary legal exemption in exceptional circumstances.

• Implementing Jade’s Law. The Government will bring forward an amendment to the Bill to:
• • create an automatic suspension of parental responsibility from a person who is convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter of the other person with whom they share parental responsibility. Known as “Jade’s Law”, it follows the murder of Jade Ward, who was murdered by her former partner in 2021.

Territorial extent and application

• The majority of the measures in the Bill will extend and apply to England and Wales.

Key facts

• The Government is quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024-25, up from £41 million in 2009-10. Multi-year funding – a minimum of £460 million over three years – will allow victim support services, and those commissioning them, to build resilience into services, ensuring consistency in the support that victims receive.

• This funding includes £21 million ringfenced per annum to Police and Crime Commissioners specifically for domestic abuse and sexual violence services, including non-recent and recent victims of child sexual abuse.

• The increased funding will also allow us to fund more than 1,000 Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors by 2024-25 – a 43 per cent increase over this spending review period (2022-23 to 2024-25 inclusive).

• As many as three in five victims currently do not feel able to report the crimes that they suffer, and approximately a third withdraw at the police investigation stage.

• Many victims do not get the entitlements that they should and are currently unaware of their entitlements:
• • just 23 per cent of victims and 22 per cent of the general public were aware of the Code in 2019-20;
  • only 45 per cent of victims felt that the police and other criminal justice agencies kept them informed about their case; and
  • only 18 per cent of victims who reported to the police recalled being offered the opportunity to make a Victim Personal Statement.

• Research shows that support from Independent Sexual Violence Advisors and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors make victims 50 per cent more likely to stay engaged in the system, but responses to the consultation highlighted concerns about a lack of consistency and awareness of these roles.

• Duncan Craig OBE, Chief Executive Officer at Survivors has said: “I am really pleased with the Bill. I remember speaking to Minister Argar, and I believe that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create something.”

• Karen Robinson, mother of Jade Ward has said: "The fact that Jade's death is going to help families in the future, she'll be proud.”