Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

I hope the Minister will be able to look favourably on Amendments 69 and 75, and I would very much welcome a meeting between Committee and Report.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I rise with a degree of caution. I entirely understand the motives behind the amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, and that moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Shall we begin by trying to remember what an unduly lenient sentence is? It is one that falls outside the range of sentences that a judge, taking into consideration all the relevant factors and having regard to the sentencing guidance, could reasonably consider appropriate. In other words, the sentence must be not just lenient, but unduly lenient. One of the things the Court of Appeal must consider when it is looking at an application to review a sentence is that the offender has been put through the sentencing process, or will be put through the sentencing process, for a second time, and that it will not intervene unless the sentence is significantly below the one the judge should have passed.

Law officers often receive applications—I say this with some experience, as I was a law officer from 2010 to 2012, and in England and Wales it is the law officers who have the ability to make these applications to the Court of Appeal Criminal Division—on the basis that the person complaining about the sentence just thinks it is not adequately severe, but that is not the test. One therefore needs to not encourage an expectation—this is what may follow from the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—that, by getting a government department or the Crown Prosecution Service to write to a disappointed victim or family member, it must follow that the CPS, or whichever government department is required to do this, agrees, or that it will lead to a successful appeal before the Court of Appeal.

I remember that all sorts of people used to read newspaper articles about a particular sentence that often bore very little resemblance to the sentencing remarks or the details of the case. Sometimes, in some newspapers, you would get an editorial saying that it was a disgrace that this lenient judge has done this, that or the other, and that something must be done, and all sorts of people would then write to the law officer’s department demanding that something be done. Very often the sentence was passed in relation to an offence that did not come under the scheme, or, if it did, on proper examination it did not fall within the ambit of what the Court of Appeal was likely to disturb. So I suspect that all sorts of expectations could be built into the public mind, which could lead only to disappointment.

Secondly, there is something to be said about finality. Although one does not always have any sympathy for a criminal defendant, they are entitled to justice and finality. Having sentenced people, I assure noble Lords that sentencing can be difficult, certainly for a judge who is dealing with, shall we say—I do not mean this in a silly way—the less serious types of criminal offence that none the less come within this scheme. I always found sentencing to be the most difficult part of the judicial function. This is a generalisation, but if you are a High Court judge dealing with criminal cases, the chances are that you will probably have to decide the tariff only on life sentences. But if you are sitting in the Crown Court as a recorder or circuit judge, you may very well have to deal with all sorts of quite complicated considerations when working out the just sentence for a particular defendant based on the facts of a particular offence. It is not always easy.

In my experience of having to seek the advice of the Treasury counsel and making up my own mind about whether an application should go to the Court of Appeal, I found that, by and large, the overwhelming majority of judges passed a just and correct sentence—when I say “correct”, it is not a binary exercise—that was entirely defensible and not the sort of thing that the Court of Appeal would have disturbed. To encourage people to make applications would be a mistake when it is going to lead only to disappointment.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The amendment would not encourage the CPS, or whatever the notifying body is, to encourage the victim to appeal; it would merely be notifying them of the right. Does the noble and learned Lord accept that?

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I can see what the printed words say, but if the Crown Prosecution Service was to write to the victim saying, “Do you realise that you can apply to the law officers to have this sentence reviewed by the Court of Appeal?”, it would give an imprimatur and an indication. That is the implication, and we should resist it.

I do not want to go on too long. Anybody can write to the law officers to say, “Will you review this sentence?” It does have to be a victim, or the family or next of kin of a deceased victim. There are plenty of avenues available to the public and to victims if they wish to explore this. To come back to my first point, we need to exercise a degree of caution before opening the floodgates to lots of disappointment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to which I have added my name. I have listened carefully to what the noble and learned Lord has said, but this is not an attempt to encourage lots of challenges to unduly lenient sentences. It is, above all, an attempt to achieve a degree of parity between the way offenders and defendants are treated.

The intent of the amendment it to suggest that a government department nominated by the Secretary of State should do the informing. It would need to be a body that was viewed as genuinely neutral, but it would be perfectly possible to inform the victim of their right and make quite clear the orbit within which an appeal against an unduly lenient sentence is likely to be successful and the parameters beyond which it would be highly unlikely to be considered, so as to make very clear to the victim, from the very beginning, the possibility of their having a case that might be over the threshold as opposed to being clearly below the threshold. It is entirely possible to imagine that one could create that.

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[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 68 is in my name and those of my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and my friend the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and I thank them for their ongoing support.

This amendment revisits an issue I previously raised during the passage of the Sentencing Bill. I return to it because I feel so strongly that this anomaly in our criminal justice system is one that must be resolved and merits further and careful consideration by this Committee. It concerns children who commit offences while under the age of 18 but who, through delay in proceedings entirely outside their control, are first brought before the court only after their 18th birthday. Under the current system, they will be sentenced as adults, losing access to youth-specific disposals, including referral orders, youth rehabilitation orders and the support of youth justice services, even though their offending behaviour occurred during childhood.

As I previously said, this can only be described as a postcode lottery in sentencing outcomes. If two young people commit the exact same offence at the exact same age in similar circumstances, and one happens to live in an area where their case reaches court before their 18th birthday and the other does not, the first will get all the support from the youth court process, while the second defendant, not because of the seriousness of the offence or their maturity, will end up in the adult court. The consequences of not being part of the youth justice process and the subsequent treatment of criminal record disclosures can affect a young person well into adulthood, including their future employment prospects. The Bill provides an opportunity to look at this issue, correct an unfair anomaly and ensure consistency in sentencing.

As I have said previously, the youth justice system exists for a reason. Those of us who have worked in youth justice know how the youth court has specifically trained magistrates who emphasise welfare, education and rehabilitation and can turn young lives around and reduce reoffending. Without this support, their future could be bleak. In the passage of the Sentencing Bill, my friend the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier spoke in support of addressing this anomaly, and I am grateful once again for their support today. I was encouraged by the support of the Minister. While he stated that youth sentencing lay largely outside the scope of the Sentencing Bill, he made it clear that the Government had a great deal of sympathy with the issue. He also indicated that there may be merit in looking at this issue further, while understandably pointing to the need to consider the wider implications across the justice system. I took that as a constructive response. It is in the same spirit that I bring the matter back today.

This amendment simply seeks to ensure that, where offending behaviour took place during childhood, it is assessed and addressed through the correct lens—one that reflects age, maturity and culpability at the time of the offence, rather than being determined by administrative delay entirely outside an offender’s control. I return to this issue today because I feel so strongly that we must address this clear anomaly. I hope that the Government will be willing to take a second look at this and consider how it might be resolved. I beg to move.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to support my noble friend Lady Sater’s amendment. I have heard her express these views before, I heard her express them just now, and there is nothing more to be said. I urge this Committee to get on and agree with her.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sater, my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier and the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, for tabling Amendment 68. We agree with the principle that children who commit crimes should thus be charged as children, even if by the time of their court appearance they are above the age of 18. What matters is the mental state of the offender at the time the offence was committed, not the lottery of when he or she comes to court. The amendment seeks to ensure that there is no loophole preventing this being the case, and we therefore hope that the Government will agree with that aim.

Amendment 70 in my name concerns the collection and publication of data relating to offenders’ immigration history and status. This is a sensitive issue. Illegal immigration has long been a core political issue for voters and has become even more salient in recent years. There continues to be widespread misinformation and unfounded assertions, both in person and online. That is because empirical evidence concerning immigration has not always been readily available. People perceive changes occurring as a result of policy, but often operate under the assumption that the Government are shielding themselves from transparency. That is not the case, of course, but it must be dealt with.

Nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than with crime rates. The public feel less safe, they see the demographic change and they link the two. This is problematic. It can lead to misguided opinions about certain parts of society. There is no available data to inform opinions of what the true position is. Non-governmental studies and disjointed data releases have repeatedly justified this connection, but the lack of clarification from the Government still leaves room for the general public to be decried as fearmongering or bigoted. It is not just policy: people deserve to know the impact that government policies are having on their everyday lives, especially when they can have immediate impacts on their safety.

We say that there is a clear case to publish crime data by immigration status. Accurate and comprehensive data allows for informed debate and evidence-based policy. At present the information is scarce, it is fragmented and it leaves the public, and indeed policymakers, reliant on conjecture. If transparency and open justice are priorities, to release offender data by foreign national status and immigration history would provide clarity, support public confidence and allow all sides to address the facts without speculation.

The Minister will be aware of the time we have previously spent on the topics in Amendments 71 and 74. Amendment 71 would exempt sex offenders and domestic abusers from being eligible for early release at the one-third point of their sentence, while Amendment 74 would reaffirm the Government’s policy of favouring suspended sentences but once again seeks to exclude sexual offences and domestic abuse from the presumption. Custodial sentences should of course by judged by the extent to which they deter reoffending. We accept the Government’s belief that short custodial sentences often do not serve this end, but reoffending cannot be the sole metric by which the nature of a punishment is decided. The prison system at least prevents individuals from offending while they are incarcerated.

For sexual offences and domestic abuse, these considerations are not abstract, certainly for the victims. Victims’ lives, safety, sense of security, the opportunity to reorganise their lives and perhaps move or otherwise change their way of living, are directly affected by whether an offender is at liberty or in custody. In 2019, the first year for which comparable data is available, there were 214,000 arrests for domestic abuse and 60,000 convictions, a conviction proportion of 28%. In 2025—six years later and under this Government—there were 360,000 arrests for domestic abuse but only 41,000 convictions, a drop from 60,000 and a conviction rate of just 11%. Something must be done.

The Government have highlighted the scale and seriousness of sexual offences and domestic abuse. They have described violence against women and girls as a “national emergency”. They have committed to strategies including specialist investigative teams and enhanced training for officers, and demonstrated recognition that these crimes demand careful handling. It would be inconsistent to promote such measures while making it easier for offenders of these crimes to avoid immediate custody.

This principle also extends to early release. It becomes a moral question rather than a purely empirical one when an offender has drastically altered the life of a victim by means of their crime. I do not think it reflects who we are as a society if we say that those who commit as invasive and exploitative a crime as sexual assault or domestic abuse should not serve the full extent of their sentences.

I end by saying I hope the Liberal Democrats will support these amendments. They have made it a point of principle, as have we, that victims of domestic violence deserve targeted measures to prevent them suffering further harm. Their justice spokesman in the other place, Josh Barbarinde, tabled a Bill last year to prevent domestic abusers from being released early under the Government’s SDS40 scheme. They now have a chance to put their principle into practice, as Amendment 71 would have exactly the same effect. I hope they will be able to offer their support.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Garnier]

40: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause—
“Compensation for victims of fraud and other economic crimes(1) The Secretary of State must, within one year of the passing of this Act, lay before Parliament a review of victims of fraud, bribery and money laundering offences.(2) The purpose of the review under subsection (1) is to identify how victims of such economic crimes could be better compensated without such victims needing to pursue civil action.(3) The Secretary of State must provide for a public consultation on the review.(4) In this section “victims of economic crime” includes United Kingdom and overseas victims of complex corruption cases where the harm caused by the offending is not easily quantifiable.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause requires a review to explore how domestic and overseas victims of fraud, bribery and money laundering offences could be better compensated without the need for civil proceedings to recover their losses or compensation.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, this is not the first time I have argued that this jurisdiction does not do enough to ensure that domestic—but more importantly, overseas—victims of economic crime committed by people or organisations based here are adequately compensated for their losses.

If the last Government and the present one have been less than enthusiastic about my proposals, I have received support from, among others, Sam Tate, a partner of the London law firm, Clyde & Co, other legal practitioners who have read my speeches and articles on this subject over the years, and from Sam Hickey, a lawyer qualified in Australia and the United States, in his paper entitled Compensating the Victims of Foreign Bribery: UK Legislation, Practice and Recommended Reforms, published in February 2025 by the International Centre for Asset Recovery, which is part of the Basel Institute on Governance, at Basel University in Switzerland.

Having been the initiator politically of the deferred prosecution agreement—DPA—system in this jurisdiction, and as a vocal advocate for the extension of the failure to prevent economic crime regime, and, I should make clear, also as a barrister whose practice includes economic crime cases, I have taken a long-term interest in this aspect of our justice system. It is, regrettably, my experience from the time I was reappointed as the shadow Attorney-General in 2009, then as Solicitor-General during the early part of the coalition Government in 2010, followed by what is now 14 years on the government and opposition Back Benches, both here and in the other place, that all three parties of government—the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party—have acknowledged with warm words the problems my amendment outlines but have not done enough to make the necessary practical changes.

I do not say that the United Kingdom has done nothing, and there is a reasonable case to suggest that we have been at the forefront of efforts to get a grip on foreign corruption. Several of the DPA cases concluded here have involved admitted allegations of failure to prevent bribery overseas, leading to the imposition of serious financial penalties. But when it comes to compensating the overseas victims of these offences, we have fallen short. It is not right that Crown Court judges—and it will usually be High Court or senior Crown Court judges well able to make the necessary assessments with the right evidence who will be dealing with these cases—should feel inhibited by existing statute law and practice from assessing and awarding compensation to the victims I had in mind because the assessment is or may be thought to be complicated. These judges deal with complex points of law and evidence every day, and victims should not be required to take out separate civil proceedings that are expensive in terms of cost and time in order to get justice.

As I said in your Lordships’ House on 7 February 2024, since the introduction of DPAs in 2014, the courts had by then fined corporations more than £1.5 billion for violations of the Bribery Act, yet only 1.4% of that sum had been given to the citizens of victim countries of the indicted corruption. We are therefore open to charges of hypocrisy, because the United Kingdom has been essentially acting as the world’s policeman while keeping the fines for the Treasury.

Sam Hickey in his paper makes six recommendations on how we can improve our performance as providers of just and appropriate compensation to the victims of overseas corruption. Having overburdened the House only last Thursday evening with my thoughts on the need to reform the criminal law of joint enterprise, I will not go into such depth or detail in arguing for my amendment today. But I recommend that the Minister just takes a few minutes to read Mr Hickey’s paper and the basis for his recommendations, even though he kindly makes several references to things I have already said in your Lordships’ House. If the Minister is really short of sleep, I invite her to read my speeches and published articles on the subject—but in any event, Mr Hickey’s paper should be part of the review I am asking for via Amendment 40.

In essence, Mr Hickey and I, both jointly and severally, urge upon the Government—and I have said as much myself several times in this House and in the articles I have written—that we should no longer simply rely on legal principles relating to compensation orders in favour of identifiable human victims in this jurisdiction when deciding whether to include compensation in the terms of a DPA or when sentencing a corporate defendant following a conviction or plea of guilty by the Crown Court. There should be a rebuttable presumption in favour of including compensation in such agreements or following conviction. Where compensation is included in the terms of a DPA, it should be tailored to the facts of each case.

More specifically, the Serious Fraud Office, as the usual prosecutor in cases of this sort, should actively apply for compensation to be awarded to discrete victims who have suffered quantifiable losses. In the case of Glencore, the SFO did not, despite my prompting when I was acting for the Government of Nigeria, seek to apply for compensation. There were legislative problems that prevented the court dealing with it, but at least the judge had the decency to hear my argument before saying, “Thanks, but no thanks”. However, it does seem to me that there should be a preference for compensation to be put toward the benefit of victim communities or societies in the foreign state through, for example, infrastructure projects such as schools or medical facilities, or towards the reduction of national debt. If none of those is possible, compensation moneys should be put towards the anti-corruption initiatives of governments, NGOs or international organisations—as I have suggested in the past, a United Nations ESCO account might be a suitable destination—as a final resort to ensure that some measure of compensation is paid in every case.

In any event, we should legislate for a rebuttable presumption in favour of real compensation. We should, as I have suggested before, consider a variety of methods for calculating the amount of compensation, including a victim’s losses, the value of the bribe, a percentage of the fines and penalties, or the gross profit of the briber. If there are no discrete victims with quantifiable losses, we should look to whichever measure of compensation is the greatest.

We should devise a formal procedure that victims, states and NGOs could use to request compensation. We need to clarify the concepts underlying compensatory practices, including the kinds of remedies available, the harm that might lead to compensation and the victims who might receive it. We also need, as I have said on several occasions before, to incentivise corporations to pay compensation by, for example, subtracting the compensation from the penalty. I accept that it could be said of my argument that repetition never made a bad point better. But I gently suggest that successive government failures to listen to a reasonable argument, year after year, is not evidence of its successful refutation but of a wilful or negligent refusal to see what is in front of them: that is to say, injustice piled on injustice, and corrupt companies being given license to bribe with impunity and to act without concern for their victims because it is happening out of sight and overseas. Amendment 40 is, if I may say so, a moderate amendment in its ambitions—perhaps too moderate—but it is certainly worthy of the Government’s consideration, and I urge them to do so. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 46 in this group. In the Commons, it was tabled by Sarah Champion MP, who has long argued for supporting victims effectively and has a particular interest in the function of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. The amendment asks the Secretary of State to amend the criminal injuries compensation scheme to widen eligibility for compensation to all victims of child sex abuse, including online-facilitated sexual abuse, to ensure applicants with unspent convictions are not automatically excluded where offences are linked to the circumstances of their sexual abuse, and to increase the time limit for applications for compensation from victims of child sexual abuse to seven years. I will not give any more detail of that.

The reason for this is that, until the 2012 scheme, a crime was generally considered violent if it involved physical injury, the threat of immediate violence or a non-consensual sexual assault. Those were the ones the compensation scheme could look at. In practice, this means that many cases of online child sexual abuse are excluded, even where the abuse involves sustained coercion, blackmail or domination and the child experiences profound and lasting harm.

We know that victims often face significant barriers in accessing compensation for this reason. There is a problem with the strict time limits that the CICA imposes, because that means that many traumatised victims, who may be navigating complex criminal justice processes and/or are unaware of their eligibility, often struggle to apply in time. The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse report on accountability and reparations recommended extending the time limit for child sexual abuse cases and giving claims officers greater discretion, but these proposals were sadly rejected by the previous Government.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by apologising to noble Lords who had other amendments in the group for not addressing their arguments, but I do not think they needed my assistance. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandhurst and to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for their support for my Amendment 40. As has been pointed out, my amendment asks for a review. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Marks, that we need to be imaginative and inventive—those were not his precise words, but I think that is the thrust of what he was saying. I suggest that doing nothing, doing a little slowly or patting ourselves on the back for what we might have done in the past are no longer acceptable.

I know that the Minister is sincere in her response. I am also aware of her professional experience, both in private practice and at the Crime Prosecution Service, and I look forward with gratitude to our meeting. I am aware of the terms of the 2002 Act to which she referred, but it does not meet the problem I have identified, as I know from my own professional experience. Furthermore, the provisions of FiSMA are untested, or insufficiently tested in my view, and I am not sure that reliance on that statute answers the problem we have been discussing. The review that the Minister spoke about is not due to report until 2027. Everything is always tomorrow, the week after, the month after or the year after; nothing is ever grabbed now and answered. This is my experience, having spoken about these questions for many years in the past, so I ask the House to forgive me if I come across as cynical.

That said, I look forward to having a positive discussion with the Minister during the Recess.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

After.

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[Lord Garnier (Con)]

After? There we are: a week after, a week after, a week after. The great god Delay is the one we all worship—for goodness’ sake. I thank the Minister for the meeting, but I think we spoke about this meeting before Christmas at Second Reading and it has slipped and slipped. I feel like an ice skater who is running out of bad jokes. I thank her for her forbearance. I know she is relatively new to her post and will not have had the joy of having to deal with my repetitive strain injury over the last several years. Anyhow, let us try to make some positive advances, produce some practical answers and not just push this thing further down the road, because there are victims out there whose lives have been ruined by corrupt criminal behaviour. I appreciate our Treasury should be in special measures, but it has been sucking in all this money in London, whereas people in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere are suffering. Having got that off my chest, again, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 40 withdrawn.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kempsell (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 417, from the noble Lord, Lord Banner, to which I have attached my name. I think there is very little I can add to the technical, financial and legal arguments in support that have already been made from all sides of the Committee. I will simply confine myself to a diagonal point on the effectiveness of the UK sanctions regime, which is funded by taxpayers’ money. A huge amount of work and official time goes into ensuring that it is effectively implemented, but the funds and the proceeds remain largely in the UK. It would be a better return on the intention of that public time and effort if those funds ultimately reached victims. That is what the public expect when they support a sanctions regime.

I attach to that the recent debate over the effectiveness of sanctions in general. Surely the measures in these amendments would increase public confidence in the overall sanctions policy of the Government, if the public are able to see that victims themselves are truly the beneficiaries of funds sequestered by their use. I consider the current position to be a rationing of justice and, as Sophocles said, there is no justice if it is rationed.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Banner for introducing this series of amendments and congratulate those who supported him. This is an important public policy question that can, from time to time, raise its ugly head—although it is then ignored. I hope that, as my noble friend has so attractively argued for his amendments just now, we will gain some momentum.

I turn to a related but not exactly identical subject: compensation for overseas victims of crimes committed by British defendants. I raised that question during Second Reading of the Victims and Courts Bill on 16 December, just before Christmas. The Minister there, who is in her place—I think it is the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, who will kindly respond to this group, and I am, as always, grateful to him for bearing that burden—recognised that the question of compensation for overseas victims was a matter of some importance that she would think about. Indeed, she suggested that she might like to meet me to discuss it further. I am open to that invitation, as I am sure would be my noble friend Lord Banner.

My noble friend has opened up a discussion about a lacuna in our law, in that we fail adequately to compensate victims. The victims could be those who have suffered at the hands of the Russians or of those that we, the European Union or the United States have sanctioned. I say in parenthesis that part of my practice at the Bar involves sanctions law, so anything that legislates to increase the size of my practice is to be welcomed. More to the point, it seems to me that we have two parallel streams, which demonstrate that the way we treat victims is insufficient and inadequate.

I thank my noble friend for bringing this to the attention of the Committee and the Government more directly. I trust that, when the Minister comes to respond, he will do so positively. If he is unable to do so, I invite my noble friend to reintroduce his amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill when it comes back to us in Committee at some as yet unannounced date.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Banner and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their amendments in this group, and all noble Lords who spoke.

Amendments 417 and 419, tabled by my noble friend Lord Banner, would provide courts with the power to make public interest compensation orders during the sentencing of certain offences. He made a typically eloquent and compelling case for these amendments. He has consistently and powerfully campaigned, especially on Ukraine and the proceeds of sanctions, and I pay tribute to him for that.

Public interest compensation orders would grant the courts the ability to compel offenders to pay money to approved international or public interest bodies that support victims of serious human rights violations, such as torture or aggression. The courts would have to consider relevant factors, such as the broader human rights impact of the crime and the need to prioritise direct victims where relevant.

The amendment also lists relevant eligible recipient organisations with powers for the Secretary of State to update them, creating a structured mechanism for using the proceeds of sanctions-related crime in reparative funding for victims in the wider public interest. The amendment proposes a reasonable and practical process through which courts could divert illegally obtained funds to support victims, and I hope that the Government consider it very carefully. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Amendment 418 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, similarly proposes a mechanism through which the courts could direct a portion of confiscated proceeds for public interest or social purposes. It is very similar in nature to Amendment 417; it differs slightly in that it specifically requires the courts to consider whether the crime in question

“involved serious human rights violations, mass atrocity crimes, or grand corruption”.

But like Amendment 417, it raises very important issues as well as a broader question: if we are to make public compensation orders, what crimes should they apply to? I look forward to the Minister’s thoughts on that matter too.

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[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Ponsonby and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. I have been arguing for some years in the House of Commons that the DBS scheme has, frankly, run out of control. I can quote from June 2020, when I said to the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson that it was

“a major obstacle to people turning their lives around. It is inefficient, unfair and, frankly, discriminatory. The Lammy report dealt with this in some depth nearly two years ago, so we do not need any more … inquiries. We need action”.

Reference has been made to the impact in different parts of the country. In smaller police forces, not only are cases often not taken to court but cautions are not issued, and instead people are very informally told to mend their ways. In cities, it can often be very different, and this also still lies on the record. The then Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his reply to me:

“Any MP will have had very hard cases caused by the DBS system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/6/20; col. 1309.]


I think there is a general recognition at the political level that this is a problem. I have to say from all my experience that there is deep inertial resistance inside the Civil Service to changing this, and I urge Ministers vigorously to overcome it, particularly given the report done by David Lammy, who was commissioned by the then Conservative Government to look into this area.

We also saw similar problems with the first elections for police and crime commissioners. Unwisely, a requirement was put in that someone should have no criminal conviction. We had a candidate who had to stand down as he had been convicted for possessing an offensive weapon when he was 13. We had another candidate who had committed a minor offence 22 years previously. These are people with long records of public service, and in no way should that have been held against them.

Whatever steps we take should also relate to proportionality and relevance. When I was a Transport Minister, there were proposals to introduce DBS checks at airports—I fully understood that—but if somebody had a conviction for an assault outside a nightclub in Southall on a Saturday night, I was not really worried if he was throwing my bags around in the luggage section. I would have been concerned if he had had a conviction for theft or for dealing in stolen goods. That also needs to be taken into account and be put right.

As a constituency Member of Parliament, I also had a woman who had been given a suspended sentence for an assault, age 18, in an argument with another girl over a partner. In her 40s, this was still preventing her. This does not just affect young people; it blights people right the way through their lives—and not just their lives but their children’s lives, as they are not able to provide support for them and have all the frustration of not developing their skills of life. It does not let people move on but also deprives the workforce of talent.

We are told sometimes that DBS checks and the ongoing system are fine, and that employers will look at them and take proportional action. They do not. Once a DBS check comes back with anything on the record, the fact is that people automatically get dropped. What is even more outrageous is that those same employers then go bleating to government, saying, “We can’t get workers here”, and so we have to bring them in from abroad. That was one factor that led to the huge surge of care workers being brought into this country in recent years—a considerable amount of exploitation and fraud accompanied it, by the way. At the same time, people were being kept off work, on benefits, not able to provide for themselves or their families.

My plea to the Committee is to support change and give people hope that they can turn their lives around, to take the opportunity to reinstate what I would argue were the principles of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act when it was first brought forward, and to make some progress. We may need to make further changes in the future, but these amendments provide a very good start.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad that I waited for the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, to contribute to the debate, as I agree with just about everything that he has said. Noble Lords may say that that is not terribly difficult, given that I have co-signed the amendments that he has signed. I share his view that —I am paraphrasing what he said and will probably get it wrong—reviews can sometimes go nowhere. Having listened to him and to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, I am much attracted to our amendment.

Equally, having heard the noble Lord, Lord Marks, introducing his amendment, and having studied it a little more closely, I am attracted by his idea that the review should look into what I think we all admit is a quite complicated area, in public policy terms, of discussion. I am attracted to the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Marks. If this amendment is accepted by the Government, we would have a report within a year of the Bill’s enactment—we could be talking about, say, June 2027, by the time the review has taken place and the Government have reported. Further, subsection (2) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 420 begins by saying:

“The report must consider at least”,


and then identifies three broad subject areas. It would be able to take on board the points that the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Spellar, have so far outlined.

A combination of these four separate proposals need to grip the Government’s attention, so that we can come back with a coherent, thought-through and workable set of policies that recognise the need for these two public interests to be borne in mind; that is to say, the protection of the public and employers and so forth, set against the need to allow youngsters who may have made some terrible mistakes to get on and live their lives.

I will finish with an anecdote. I used to make a habit of visiting prisons and so forth, when I was shadow Minister of Prisons—before the ark was set afloat. The adult male prison population was once largely aged between 21 and 30. It was an unscientific approach but I noticed that, since around the first decade of this century, the average age of the adult male prison population has risen, largely because of the conviction of historic sex offenders. People have been convicted in, say, the 2010s, in their 60s or 70s, for offences committed when they were youngsters, so the average age of the prison population has to some extent risen. It is a generalisation, and something that the review could look into, but, by and large, people grow out of criminal behaviour. Once they have found a partner and somewhere to live, and got a job—as long as they have not been ruined by Rehabilitation of Offenders Act antipathy—they will get on, earn a living and live their lives. The stupidity of their teenage years falls away behind them, and it should be allowed to stay there.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am the only person in this House who was President of the Family Division. I did the final part of the Bland case, to allow him to die. I very much prefer the idea that we should have a court-based decision, for the reasons that have already been given. I am rising only to answer some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge.

First, judges try extremely difficult and emotional cases. I really do not think it is necessary for this House to consider the emotional impact of those cases because that is our job. If it is our job, we do it, and then we hope that we can cope with it. I tried endless life and death cases; I have to tell your Lordships that deciding that a baby should die was even worse than deciding that an adult should die, but it has to be done.

Secondly, I come to the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that not only the 20 Family Division judges should make these decisions but deputy High Court judges and the designated family judges; indeed, there are other judges in the family centres who are equally good. When I was President of the Family Division, I ticketed those family judges who were suited to try adoption cases. I see no problem in the President of the Family Division deciding on those judges and the KCs who are Section 9 deputy High Court judges to work out who would be suitable to try these cases. That would increase the number of judges available from 20 to all the part-time and other judges around the country. That is not the best solution—the best solution is the 20 judges—but the reality is that it would be necessary.

Finally, if Parliament passes this legislation and tells the Family Division and the other family judges that it is their job to deal with somebody who is likely to die within six months—although we all know how inaccurate that six-month figure can be—the judges will do it. They will then have to give priority to life and death cases, which they do anyway, even if it means that other important cases are kept waiting. Therefore, the delays in all the other cases have to give way to the requirement of Parliament that judges try the cases.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I am diffidently following the noble and learned Baroness, with her experience both as a legislator and as a very senior judge. I am very pleased she intervened when she did, because her contribution has been most helpful, There is always a difficulty for someone like me, who is not a family law practitioner, to draw a distinction between the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile—I broadly support what he advanced—and the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in his construction of the Bill as it stands. There is merit in both, but as a House, we have to try to produce a practical solution. Irrespective of whether one supports the principle behind the Bill, if it goes through, it might as well go through in a way that works.

Putting to one side for the moment the very sensible arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, one of the advantages of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, is that we will be producing answers through a court of record, and it will create a form of precedent. I do not know, and maybe the noble and learned Baroness will tell me differently, but I have a suspicion that to start with there will be a rush of factually different types of case under this application system. At least one or two of the lead cases will be grouped and go to the Court of Appeal, where perhaps the president, with two other highly experienced Lord Justices of Appeal, will set out a legal rubric for judges of first instance to deal with. If the noble Lord, Lord Meston, has a moment, it would be interesting to hear what he has to say as an experienced family law circuit judge.

From the Court of Appeal, a case or a group of cases will go to the Supreme Court. I suspect that will all happen reasonably quickly within the early part of the life of the enacted Bill. Once we have done that, the system will settle. Senior circuit judges, Family Division judges, will be able to deal with these cases—difficult, hideous or contentious as some of them may well be—with the permission of Parliament, of course, but with the guidance of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. That is a system to be preferred, because the panel system in the Bill, which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, described, does not necessarily provide that legal authority, albeit that there could be a judge on the panel. It will not have the imprimatur of the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court in its assessment of what has happened—I may be wrong about that.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

To pick up on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, has just said, he is absolutely right. In the Bland case, that was exactly what happened. This was a permanent vegetative state. No one had ever had that case come before the courts. A High Court judge dealt with it; I was in the Court of Appeal, where we approved it. The Supreme Court—then the Judicial Committee—approved it. I then tried the first case. Then, it was understood by other judges how it should be dealt with. So, the noble and learned Lord is absolutely right.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for her approbation of what I just said.

My final point concerns what happens if there is a lack of High Court judges in the Family Division. We are told there are 20, and there are 40 circuit judges who specialise in family work. It may well be that when the noble and learned Baroness was in the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court, a commercial judge from the Queen’s Bench Division was appointed as the President of the Family Division. There are plenty of very bright and capable judges in the other divisions who, if required, could apply themselves to these sorts of cases. So, we are not going to be short of personnel; what we are short of is a decision of this House to agree with the position of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, or something like that. It may well be that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, will come up with a way of dealing with the gap between him and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as one of these 10 thematic discussions, so we get a workable, just and publicly respected system which, if we are to have a Bill, allows the public to feel confident that it will work properly.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

It is completely unreasonable to carry on as we are. As the noble and learned Lord said, we hope that at the 11th hour we will hear a reasonable and statesmanlike reply from the Minister.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, set out with great clarity the cogency of his proposed new clause. I entirely support it and, if he wishes to test the opinion of the House, I shall join him.

Many of the amendments in the group we are dealing with are concerned with providing a mechanism through the Parole Board. My amendment proposes another new clause that would not use the Parole Board but rather a panel of existing or former judges. The protection to deal with the risk that people seem to be fearful of is provided through that route rather than through a Parole Board decision.

I will come to explain the detail of my proposed new clause, but I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, who is not in his place, for their support for this new clause. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said a moment ago, it is uncontroversial that nobody of any humanity or sentience thinks that this IPP regime was a good idea or should be allowed to continue—and continue to cause harm. When the Minister winds up, will he admit or accept, on behalf of the Government, that the IPP regime as currently administered is causing real harm to people in prison and on licence outside prison, who are in danger for reasons wholly unconnected with the original offence that gave them the IPP in the first place? Will he accept that it is doing our reputation as a place of fairness and justice real harm? There is not an angle from which you could come at this problem without feeling dirty and appalled by the way in which it is being continued.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and I looked at 60 sets of case papers dealing with IPP offenders who had all been recalled. A large proportion of them had been recalled for relatively trivial reasons. A large proportion had been recalled for reasons that had nothing whatever to do with the index offence for which they had been originally sentenced. They had returned to prison, and some of them had been released again after a period and then re-recalled, thus extending the ludicrous, Kafkaesque nature of this type of sentence. As Lord Brown said all those years ago, it is a stain on our justice system. It is uncontroversial that where we are now is a disgraceful state of affairs, and it ought to be dealt with.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, cited in general terms some of the information provided to us by UNGRIPP, of which I am a patron. It is an interest group of families of IPP prisoners seeking to reform this regime. As the noble and learned Lord said, 946 people have never been released from their IPP sentence. Of that 946, 940 are in prison over their tariff limit, and 689 are incarcerated between 10 and 20 years beyond their tariff. These are numbers, but they describe real people and real families who are affected by this disgraceful state of affairs.

Just to underline the point about real harm, I note that 1,476 people are currently back in prison on IPP recall. Some 70% of those were recalled for an administrative reason—they failed to turn up for an appointment or they were drunk—but that had nothing whatever to do with the original offence, as I have said any number of times, nor had they committed an additional offence. One thing I learned from the study I did with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, was that, if you are going to recall somebody by virtue of another form of misconduct and it amounts to a criminal offence, they should be prosecuted. They should not just be pulled off the street administratively; they should be charged, tried and sentenced or acquitted on the evidence. There should not be this sneaky little business of just pulling them off the street in an East German or Soviet way.

But that is enough of the figures; let me go back to my new clause. Where I differ from the method advanced by the noble and learned Lord and my noble friend Lord Hailsham is that our new clause would require a panel established by the Secretary of State

“to reconsider the cases of every person subject to a sentence of imprisonment for public protection … and in custody within six months of the date”

on which the Bill is enacted. The panel would consist of 12 judges or former judges under the age of retirement who have sat in the Crown Court, and they would be nominated to serve on the panel by the Lord Chancellor. But while I think that proposed new subsection (6E) is the magic subsection in the noble and learned Lord’s new clause, my proposed subsection (3) is the one that I invite your Lordships to concentrate on, because it introduces a degree of thinking about what is proportionate into the question that has to be discovered.

Subsection (3) reads:

“As soon as practicable after the establishment of the panel, a member of that panel—


so, it will be one judge at a time, not all 12 sitting in a group—

“must reconsider each case and determine whether, having regard to … (a) the nature of the person’s offending”.

Let me say in parenthesis that there will be some people serving an IPP sentence who may have been held to be dangerous because they have committed, for example, a double rape or a vicious, violent assault. But there are some people on IPPs who have done no more—I say “no more” in inverted commas—than commit a street robbery and stolen, with violence or with the threat of violence, somebody’s mobile telephone. They may have done it several times. Yes, that is very bad behaviour, but some of these people, having been given a 12-month or 18-month tariff, are still languishing in prison 20 years later. Is that what we call justice in this country?

Let us bring some sense of proportionality back to the assessment of the offender. Look at the period spent in custody; look at the risk to the public. Of course, we all worry about what risk is and how to assess it, but we have to make an attempt to assess the best, or the least worst, way of mitigating that risk. We either do it through the Parole Board, or we do it, it seems to me, through this judicial panel, but it has to be done. We cannot just sit on our hands and say, “It’s all too difficult”. If it is 10 years too late, if it is five years too late, if it is five weeks too late, if it is five days too late, if it is five minutes too late, it is too late, and we must do something right now.

The judge on the panel would have regard to

“the arrangements that can be made for supervision, rehabilitation and support in the community”.

Many of these people have become catastrophically institutionalised as a consequence of being imprisoned all this time. Just imagine that you have been bunged inside for robbing a person of their telephone—a relatively minor offence in the great canon of criminal affairs—and there you are, 20 years later, possibly having been recalled because you failed to turn up to an appointment at a parole or a probation office, asking yourself, “What on earth is the point? I will either take my own life or I will live in this place till the day I die of natural causes”. Let the panel, let the judge, look at what can be done with regard to supervision, rehabilitation and support outside prison.

If noble Lords are worried about that, the panel judge does not have the final decision, because his or her decision is susceptible to judicial review, and if the Secretary of State does not like it, he can refuse to accept the recommendation. And the Secretary of State’s decision is susceptible to judicial review.

There are different ways of dealing with risk, but whatever way you go at it, you have got to do it. Really, one must stop dallying around and saying, “It’s all too difficult and the Daily Wotsit won’t like it if somebody gets out”. We are bigger and better than that, and we should do something about it.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support what my noble friend has said, and, indeed, to support the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester’s amendment. I come, as it were, from a prison background, in the sense that I was Prisons Minister, God help me, 40 years ago. Also, until relatively recently—by which I mean 10 years ago—I was on the monitoring board of one of our local prisons. I agree entirely with my noble friend, and indeed with the right reverend Prelate, about the importance of out-of-cell purposeful activity. I agree too with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, that far too often the prison workshops are not functional. That is a very great misfortune.

There are just two points I will make—a proviso and a question. The proviso, in a sense, is self-evident: if a condition is going to be imposed, it can operate only if the purposeful activity is actually provided within the Prison Service. Although that may be implicit in my noble friend’s amendment, it is not explicit. If the Government, in due time, come forward with an appropriate amendment, I hope that the provision is made explicit.

There is a different question, which I would like guidance on, perhaps from the Minister. I suppose it really reveals my own ignorance. If there is a condition that a prisoner is compliant with the requirement for purposeful activity, what is the consequence of non-compliance? My noble friend has addressed that, at least in theory, by her proposed new subsection (2)(b) in Amendment 66, because she contemplates, very sensibly, a report which might lead to the provision denying a prisoner early release for non-compliance, but if there is no consequential legislation to that effect, are there any existing statutory or other binding provisions which would penalise a prisoner who is deliberately not complying with purposeful activity that is made available? There should be, but if there is not any such requirement which can be enforced then my noble friend’s aspirations may prove to be ineffective.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hailsham’s second point illustrates his first point: if there is no purposeful activity available, how can one enforce the denial of an early release by virtue of a person’s failure to comply with a purposeful activity?

I want, briefly, to go back to the late and much lamented Lord Ramsbotham. In his book about prisons, which I know the Minister will have read many times, he said that the three things that will reduce repeat offending are that a prisoner, on release, should have a place to live, should be able to return to a loving relationship and should have a job. I took that very much on board when I wrote a paper nearly 20 years ago entitled Prisons with a Purpose. I wrote it when I was the shadow Prisons Minister, in the days when my noble friend Lord Cameron was the leader of the Opposition.

I visited about 75 prisons, young offender institutions and secure training units during that time. One of the things that struck me was that there were some wonderful examples of purposeful activity going on in a number of prisons but, as my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe has pointed out, it very much depended on the leadership of the prison. If you had an inadequate governor, you had an inadequate regime within the prison, particularly within the education and training sections of that prison.

I have made a few visits to a number of detention centres and I remember being taken with great pride by the governor on duty to a workshop in a great big shed in a West Midlands category C prison. I will not name it, because things may well have changed by now. In the workshop were adult men aged between 21 and goodness knows what, and they were making hairnets. I have absolutely no doubt that there is a market somewhere for hairnets. But I equally had no doubt then, and have no doubt now, that the prisoners in those workshops, having been released, would never go to work in a hairnet factory. So, it was just time filling.

I went to another prison in Wales, where I saw male adult prisoners sorting blue plastic bits from green plastic bits and putting the blue ones in one tray and the green ones in the other tray. They were apparently parts of some electrical connection system. Again, these are the sorts of activities that would achieve nothing in so far as Lord Ramsbotham’s provisos were to be complied with.

I went to an open prison in the south of England where, far from the prison, prisoners and prison officers taking advantage of the farmland and market garden within their premises, now long closed of course, I found men playing cards behind the wheelbarrow sheds—and who else was in the card game but a couple of prison officers? Again, this is just time filling.

The problem is further exacerbated by prisoner churn. If you are sentenced in, say, Canterbury Crown Court and are sent to Canterbury prison that evening, within a few days or weeks you will be transferred to Maidstone prison to allow others to come in. Maidstone prison will be receiving prisoners from Maidstone Crown Court. The Canterbury prisoners who have been moved to Maidstone will be required to move to Lewes, then from Lewes to Southampton, and from Southampton to Winchester. So there is, metaphorically speaking, a jumbo jet of prisoners moving around the prison estate. How can they do any sensible activity? How can they go on any sensible course if, having barely started it, they are then moved to another prison?

I am happy to advertise on behalf of Timpson. I have seen a number of its workshops in operation in prisons up and down this country, and I have been served in shops by graduates of the Timpson in-house system in prisons. There, people are learning a real job that can translate from inside prison to the high street. They can go out and earn a living, pay their rent and taxes, and look after their dependants. That is the sort of work we need to see done, and more of it, in prisons.

That is why I wholly applaud Amendments 65 and 67, tabled by my noble friend Lord Hailsham: they hit the nail on the head. If we do not have real, genuinely purposeful, activity in prisons, the whole thing is a sham, and you will get repeat offenders coming in and out like a revolving door, and the prison population will simply grow and grow.

So, whether we vote on this or not, it is absolutely essential that the Government get a grip on the way in which training and education are dealt with in our prisons. I know of course that the Minister knows this personally—he has known this for 30 years—but lots of people in government do not, and lots of people at the Treasury do not, either. They do not seem to realise that by reinforcing failure—junk in, junk out—all you are doing is wasting the public’s taxes and not producing one ounce of public safety.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. We sat together as youth magistrates for many years at the old Hammersmith youth court. She has fully set out what must be an anomaly. I have not heard any explanation in defence of the current situation. She gave the example of two offenders who have committed the same offence at the same time but, because of some geographical issue, were sentenced at different times on either side of their 18th birthday, with different outcomes. They would not have had access to referral orders or youth rehabilitation orders, which are, in our experience, better at rehabilitating young people.

There would also be the problem with the DBS checks. If somebody was subsequently to get or apply for a job, they would get different results in the DBS check depending on whether they were sentenced before or after their 18th birthday. This is an anomaly. I look forward to what my noble friend can say, because this is part of a wider look at how youth DBS records are kept. Nevertheless, this example is a true anomaly. I hope that the Government can be as sympathetic as possible to this amendment.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, in the spirit of friendship, I acknowledge the charming but highly persuasive way in which my noble friend advanced her amendment, which I am only too pleased to support, and recognise the support of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who is also my friend. I will embarrass him further by saying that he is my very distant kinsman, which will completely ruin his credibility for anything further in his parliamentary life; it is a cross that he will have to bear.

The noble Lord and my noble friend bring to the Chamber years of experience as sitting and sentencing magistrates. Very often in England and Wales, it is magistrates who deal with youth offenders. We should listen to what they have to say and to their experience. I very much to support all that they have said. I urge the Government to pay close attention to what has been said and come forward with proposals of their own, if they do not accept what my noble friend advanced in her amendment, so that we can get rid of this injustice, which is, as the noble Lord said, a most extraordinary anomaly.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 93 and 94. Amendment 93 is concerned with the impact of changes in the law on sentences that are currently being served under the law that was in force preceding the change. In other words, offenders were sentenced under a law that has been altered. The amendment calls for reports to be provided every three years, with a view to such changes in the law leaving defendants suffering from injustice.

Amendment 94 concerns the direct effect of such changes in the law on sentences that are currently being served or that have been imposed. Proposed new subsection (1)(a) in Amendment 94 concerns cases where the offence itself for which the sentence was imposed has been abolished, and proposed new subsection (1)(b) in Amendment 94 concerns a case where the sentence has been materially altered.

The amendment would enable a person serving a sentence for an offence that had been abolished, or where the sentence had been altered, to seek a review of the case of the sentence that is currently being served. On such a review, the sentence originally imposed could be quashed, or there could be a resentencing.

In practice, of course, Amendment 94 would come into play only where either the offence had been abolished or the available sentence had been reduced, because one cannot imagine an offender seeking a change of sentence where the available sentence had been increased.

Underlying both amendments is a concern that changes in the law would have the effect that an offender’s sentence would not have been imposed or would have been less severe had the law at the time of sentencing been the reformed law rather than the law under which the offender was sentenced, and that such changes should take effect to the benefit of the offender who would not be at such risk now.

I would suggest that it is a matter of simple justice that changes in the law which would have resulted in an offender serving a sentence less severe, or not being convicted of any offence, should have the benefit of the change in the law that pertained at the time of sentencing, so that a review would be appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I am obliged to the noble Lord. It is intended that the court should have regard only to the two elements that are referred to therein.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, before the Minister gets to his feet, can I rather impertinently squeeze in a request that probably has little to do with Amendment 68? I am doing it now, so there we are.

A few years ago, I, along with other people, conducted a review into the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. One of the problems we found is that many prisoners who were dissatisfied with the way their conviction had been arrived at, and the way in which the Court of Appeal had subsequently dealt with it, found it almost impossible to get hold of a transcript of the sentencing remarks. Following the questioning of my noble and learned friend by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, it looks as though such a convicted prisoner would not be able to make use of this amendment to get hold of the sentencing remarks my noble and learned friend is partly complaining about. Can the Government please bear in mind—not tonight obviously—that this is a real practical difficulty for people in prison who feel, for good reason, that they have been improperly convicted and wish to have the CCRC consider their case? It is much more difficult for the CCRC, and certainly for the dissatisfied defendant, to advance their cause if they cannot get hold, either because it is difficult or because it is expensive, of the sentencing remarks.

Victims and Courts Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, in her place, and I wish her a very speedy recovery. I also congratulate her on her precision and the brevity of her remarks. I wish I was going to be as brief as she has been.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

So do we.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

So does my noble and learned friend; that is a free drink that he is not going to get.

Unusually for a modern criminal justice Bill, which was ably introduced by the Minister, this is, relatively speaking, a remarkably short one. It has only 18 clauses. It is rather spoiled, however, as there are 53 pages of schedules. I dream of the day when any Government decides to stop producing criminal justice Bills of voluminous length, but there we are.

I understand the political and moral basis for the provisions about defendants who refuse to appear in court to be sentenced. I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Meston, on that. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Sandhurst’s scepticism about whether they will work in practice. We will see how those arguments develop in Committee.

I do, however, welcome the proposals with regard to the ULS scheme. I had to operate it myself as a law officer when the Minister was at the Crown Prosecution Service. I think it is fair to say that we suffered together in that struggle. There will be more to say in Committee about the NDA provisions, which amend the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024.

This afternoon, I want to address a point about overseas victims not mentioned in the Bill. I spoke about this on 7 February 2024, on the fourth day in Committee on the then Victims and Prisoners Bill. I make no apology for doing so again, and I will table the same amendment to this Bill that I tabled to that Bill. In introducing these remarks, I refer to my interest as a barrister whose practice includes corporate crime cases.

Multinational companies have been fined more than £1.5 billion over the past 10 years or so after investigations by the Serious Fraud Office into corruption abroad. But only 1.4% of those fines—about £20 million—has been used to compensate victim countries or communities abroad. In my view, this needs to change.

Much of this corruption occurs in African countries that are already suffering terrible economic hardship, food and energy crises, and inflation. They are in dire need of economic support to repair the damage caused by corruption.

United Kingdom Governments have been vocal in their support for compensating foreign state victims of corruption. But the action actually taken to compensate foreign states tells a different story and leaves us open to charges of hypocrisy. Most corruption cases brought before the English courts involve foreign jurisdictions. We step in as the world’s policeman, investigating and prosecuting crimes that take place in other countries, but keep all the fines for ourselves. This is important because corruption causes insidious damage to the poor —and the not so poor—particularly in emerging markets. The United Nations says that it

“impedes international trade and investment; undermines sustainable development; threatens democracy and deprives citizens of vital public resources”.

The African Union estimated in 2015 that 25% of the continent’s gross domestic product was lost to corruption. Every company convicted of overseas corruption in this jurisdiction should be ordered to compensate the communities it has harmed. That would be both just and effective. Compensation should come through investment in programmes targeted at decreasing corruption and benefiting local communities; for example, by building and resourcing more schools and hospitals.

At first glance, English law encourages compensation. It is required to take precedence over all other financial sanctions—so far, so good. But, as with many noble ambitions, problems lurk in the detail. Compensation is ordered in criminal cases only where the loss is straightforward to assess, even though the trial judge is usually of High Court or senior Crown Court level and will deal with complex issues every day.

For example, in 2022, in a case in which I appeared for a victim state, Glencore pleaded guilty to widespread corruption in the oil markets of several African states. Although it was ordered to pay £281 million, not a single penny has gone back to the communities where the corruption happened, largely because it was held that the compensation would be too complicated to quantify. The Airbus deferred prosecution agreement tells a similar story. The company was required to pay €991 million to the United Kingdom in fines, but compensation to the numerous Asian countries where the corruption took place formed no part of the agreement.

The process for compensating overseas state victims—and particularly overseas state victims—needs simplification so that real money can be returned to them. An answer perhaps lies in incentivising the corporations that commit the crimes to pay compensation voluntarily on the understanding that it would not increase the total amount, including penalties and costs, that they would have to pay. The company could be given further incentive by receiving a discount on the fine it would still be required to pay to the United Kingdom Treasury, or an increase in the fine if it refuses or fails to make redress.

The required changes are, I suggest, straightforward and would cost the taxpayer nothing. It could create a standard measure of compensation, which would ensure consistency and transparency, as well as avoiding the difficulty of calculating a specific amount of loss or damage in each case. The compensation figure could equal whichever is the higher of the profit made by the company from its corrupt conduct or the amount of the bribes it paid to obtain the profits. This already happens when companies are sentenced, save that all the money goes to the Treasury. The defendant company would pay nothing more, but at least some of the money would benefit the victim state or the communities harmed within it.

Of course, it would be naive to think that compensation paid to a foreign state could never lead to further corruption. That is clearly a risk. To address this, defendant companies would be encouraged or required to enter into an agreement with the relevant state, which would include obligations to comply with United Nations guidance on the treatment of compensation funds and to identify projects for which the funds would be used, possibly with the involvement of a local non-governmental organisation.

To encourage states to enter into these types of agreements, corporations would be permitted to donate the compensation funds, for example, to the World Bank or International Monetary Fund for projects in the region instead, or to pay down a country’s debt, if an agreement cannot otherwise be reached.

The benefit of this approach is that, unlike at present, where there is no disadvantage in doing nothing, it puts the onus on the defendant companies to take restorative action—something that will appeal to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. It also addresses the difficulties in quantifying losses by creating a simple approach that gives companies early sight of the amount that they will have to pay.

The Bill is, I am sure, full of wonderful provisions, but it does lack this wonderful diamond which needs to be added to the ring around the Minister’s finger— I do not know how far I can go with that one. But let us do this. We can then hold our heads high and enhance our national reputation in the fight against international corruption. This is not a matter of party politics. It is a matter of simple justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

That is very rare. If you appeal out of time, you have pretty much had it. You need to have a really good reason to do so. I now turn to—

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My noble friend is very gracious, but I fear there is a new trend which is not the practice of your Lordships’ House: to have an extended back and forth at Second Reading. I know this may be the practice of another place not far from here but, with all due respect to noble Lords and to my noble friend with her good humour and fortitude, I am not sure that that is something that we should innovate this evening.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

I was only going to support the Minister. One of the differences between an appeal by a defendant in a criminal matter and the unduly lenient sentencing system is that anybody can write to the law officers to complain that a sentence is unduly lenient. Many of the people that the Minister and I may have dealt with in the past wrote in having read an article in a newspaper saying that a particular defendant had been given what they thought was a lenient sentence. Nobody does that to appeal a criminal sentence as a defendant.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord.

Turning to what is not in the Bill, I of course recall that the Crime and Policing Bill—the Ministry of Justice has some of the clauses in relation to that—has been extensively criticised for being too long. This Bill is now being criticised for being too short—so there is a slight sense of being criticised whichever way we do it.

I will deal with some of the matters that were raised in relation to this. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked whether we intend to bring in the sections in the Victims and Prisoners Act dealing with definitions. I hope that I may write to her in relation to that, because some parts have been implemented and some others are planned to be implemented. I do not want to give her an answer that might turn out not to be entirely accurate.

On the question of homicide abroad, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we are conscious of this being an issue. As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, we are working on a code to give assistance to families abroad. The question of whether the victims’ code is going to apply is difficult, because many of the provisions in the victims’ code deal only with cases that can be prosecuted in this country and therefore would not apply. Again, it is a matter that we are considering and reflecting on and we will be very happy to engage with her and other noble Lords in relation to that.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, raised the question of compensation for economic crimes abroad, such as corruption. I entirely agree with him about the importance of not forgetting about the effect of these cases on other countries. In the circumstances, it might be best for me to suggest that we meet to discuss it, because it is an important matter to which I would like to give some serious thought.

Transcripts were raised by many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. Transparency is really important to the Government. That is one of the reasons we are now going to make the magistrates’ court a court of record: there will be recordings of all proceedings in order to shine a light on what is happening. If you are recording something, obviously your intention is that at some point it may need to be turned into a transcript. I am old enough to remember the days of the shorthand writer in court. The transcript used to be phenomenally expensive, because you had somebody sitting there typing it out and then it had to be ordered and checked. We are hopeful that artificial intelligence is going to help by bringing down the cost of transcripts: we are all familiar with dictating to our computers these days, so the costs may be in checking rather than actually transcribing.

In the meantime, as far as the victims of rape and serious sexual offences are concerned, the transcripts of those sentencing remarks are free to victims in those cases. We conducted a pilot and, following that, those transcripts will be available free of charge to victims.

The noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, raised the question of victim personal statements, and said that there are anxieties about censorship. This is a tricky one, because as the noble Lord will know, sometimes victims misunderstand the purpose of a victim personal statement and do not quite understand why they cannot include a number of things in it. Again, this is important to us. No victim should feel that their words have been censored. They should be able to say what they want to say—we are going to think about that one.

I turn finally to the issue of backlog and delay. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti raised the question of a rumour about what is to happen to the proposals in the review conducted by Sir Brian Leveson. I think that it could be seen from the expression on my face that it was the first time I had heard of that rumour. Our intention is that proper consideration be given to the important matter of how we deal with the backlog and delay. Speaking for myself, I want to persuade people and take them with us where we can do so. These matters are to be discussed, and I hope that people will listen to each other. Nobody thinks that the status quo is acceptable; the question is how we deal with it. The Government are proposing a package of measures, one aspect of which, as noble Lords know, is the suggestion of slightly moving the line, as other Governments have in the past. I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I do not engage in this and debate it today. I am absolutely confident that there will be other opportunities to do so.

This Bill will help strengthen our justice system. It used to be, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, that victims were treated as mere witnesses and had very little by way of rights. That is no longer the case. This Bill continues the journey of putting them where they should be, at the heart of the justice system. I beg to move.

Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I absolutely accept much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has said about the awful nature of historic child abuse and the reasons why there is often a delay before bringing forward complaints, but it is important that we do not conflate civil proceedings and criminal proceedings. The earlier group was to do with people claiming damages, where the defendant is not usually the perpetrator. There may be reasons why we have reached a stage where there cannot be a fair trial. I will leave that aside for the moment.

This amendment is concerned with criminal offences. There is not a limitation period for criminal offences generally, subject to the prosecution deciding that so much time has elapsed that it is not appropriate to bring forward a claim. The noble Baroness has experience of occasionally making those decisions in very old cases. The Minister is pointing at me and is going to give a longer and more authoritative answer than I will attempt to do now. I make the point in general terms.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. While I entirely understand the motivation behind the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I am not entirely sure that it is necessary. As the noble Lord said, there is no limitation for the bringing of this particular Section 9 offence.

I do not wish to get into my anecdotage, but I remember that, as a law officer, one very often had to deal with historic offences whereby a mature person, in their 50s, 60s or 70s, was being indicted or prosecuted for an offence they committed many years ago against a minor. Had the problem existed that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, envisages through her amendment, that would have been a matter we would have had to consider. As the Minister will no doubt tell us from her experience as someone who worked at a senior level in the Crown Prosecution Service, you have to consider whether there is an adequacy of evidence and whether it is in the public interest to bring that person to trial. The age of the offence might be considered by the prosecutor, but there is no time bar, as I understand it. While I may well be corrected for being out of date and ignorant, I certainly do not think that there is a need for this amendment, although it is well motivated.

I have a suspicion that I have got this entirely wrong and that the Minister is going to tell me that it would have been better if I had kept to my place, but there we are. There are plenty of things that we could do with the Bill—make it shorter, for example—but I am not sure that this amendment is one that we need to add to it.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in strong support of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I do not know whether it is necessary. I declare an interest as a victim. My concern about the historic sex offences is the prison population. We have large numbers of historic sex offenders in prison. It creates great problems for the Prison Service. However, a custodial sentence is the only sensible disposal. We need to work out what to do with historic sex offenders within the prison system.

Accidental Prison Releases

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The Ministry of Justice has a programme called Enable, around how we develop the skills of our fantastic staff. In the short term, we have introduced new checklists that are more robust than ever and asked for duty governor sign-off on releases. We are investing more money in training for our staff. That is not just for staff who are joining the service; it is important that we invest in the staff who have been with us for some time. The offender management unit does complex work. I have spoken to governors who have been in the service for many years. When they look at the release checks that the offender management units must do, they cannot believe how much more complex it has become over the last few years.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister works extremely hard and is very knowledgeable about this subject. He and I have been cantering around this track for more than two decades. When I was last in opposition, in the 2000s, I was shadow Prisons Minister and visited 75 of the prisons, young offender institutions and so forth in England and Wales. Even though there was a Labour Government, nobody ever said that it was the Labour Government’s fault that people escaped. Can we have a little less of it being said that it is the last Government’s fault? In the 2000s, there were people escaping, there were high levels of suicide and high levels of violence against prison officers, and there was sewage flowing from the top floors of prisons into the lower floors. The whole estate was in a shambles and the staff in a state of low morale. Let us solve this problem together. The Minister and I know that this can be done. I ask him not to fall into the trap of reading out the Whip’s notes.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord and I know each other very well. I hope he knows that I have my own view on this, because, like him, I visit lots of prisons all the time. It is clear that our prisons need investment and that we need to build new prisons. Only last week I went to a new prison which will be opening in 2028. These are modern, highly efficient prisons that are there not just to keep the public safe but to rehabilitate people. The problem that we are trying to fix is a long-term problem. It is not just about buildings; it is about people and how we support our staff to deliver an amazing service in rehabilitating people so that when they leave prison they do not come back.

Trials: Timeliness

Lord Garnier Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this important issue. Palestine Action has conducted an escalating campaign involving alleged criminal damage to Britain’s national security infrastructure, intimidation and violence. This Government unreservedly condemn any crimes of this kind. That said, as the noble Lord will understand, it would be wrong for me to comment on individual cases that are awaiting trial. In relation to when trials take place, in the same way that no Government can tell the Crown Prosecution Service which cases to prosecute, this Government do not tell courts which cases to prioritise when listing trials. These are decisions for independent judges to make, free from political pressure.

[Lord Garnier (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will remember from her time as a Crown Court judge that the time between a case first coming before a Crown Court and being listed for trial has got longer and longer. Now, perhaps in her old court, trials are being listed for 2028 and 2029. This is unacceptable for victims, for witnesses and even for the defendant. It requires some will and leadership to crack this. What are the Government intending to do about it? The 1,250 extra days promised to the system by the Lord Chancellor just the other day could be taken up by her old court alone in one year. Please let us have some action.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I could not agree more with the basic premise of the noble and learned Lord’s question. It is simply unacceptable, and behind every one of those statistics are human beings waiting for justice. Our immediate reactions are that we intend to fund a record high of 111,250 sitting days in the Crown Court, to free up an additional 2,000 days in the Crown Court by extending the sentencing powers of the magistrates’ courts from six to 12 months, and to make some capital investment. But it is obvious to everybody that simply making efficiencies and putting financial help into the system will not deal with the problem. The backlog is now twice what it was before Covid, which is why the Government asked Sir Brian Leveson to look at fundamental reforms of how the system works. We are considering those and will respond in due course.