Schedule 4 - Investigations by Parliamentary Commissioner
Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Mr Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I was waiting for the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome to concur with the hon. Lady, but he has decided not to on this occasion.
I shall do my best to respond to the points raised by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. There are several routes by which a mentally disordered offender may go from court through a period of custody and care and back into the community. Sometimes they will go to prison, sometimes to secure mental hospitals, and sometimes it will be a combination of the two. We want a standard form to apply.
The hon. Lady mentioned consultation with victims. I hasten to add that consultation is not the equivalent of a veto, but it is intended that the probation service—the service responsible for carrying out that work—should listen carefully to victims' legitimate concerns. As with serious offenders leaving prison, offenders leaving secure mental hospital may have conditions attached to their release—to reside in a certain place, for example. The power of consultation is designed simply to ensure that the views and legitimate concerns about when and where people might live are fully considered so that the probation service and other authorities have all the information to hand when setting such conditions.
I can confirm that our proposals are compatible with human rights legislation. We have made that clear throughout the Bill, and the point applies here too. We have discussed in other forums the issue of the
probation service. It does fantastic work under huge pressure—pressure that has been relieved to some degree by the additional £16 million that I was able to announce a few weeks ago. From the conversations that I have had on a local level and elsewhere, it seems to have been well received.
On cross-border issues, the probation board will, if it is appropriate, let the victim know that the offender has moved out of the jurisdiction. The case would then be dealt with under the rules of the receiving jurisdiction. Clearly, there will be a duty to communicate that information, but the offender would be dealt with under the regulations that pertain to where they reside.
I hope that I have been able to respond to at least most of the issues that the hon. Lady mentioned.