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Mr. Bayley: I am grateful to hear my hon. Friend's commitment that he will speed up the process in this case. I would also be grateful if he would ask the solicitors how long the court has been waiting for representations from the murderer's solicitors and consider the more general point of whether that is longer than is necessary to ensure a fair opportunity.
Mr. Michael: Certainly I will be happy to consider that when I study the circumstances. I was pointing out that there has been a gap in our being kept informed. We have found out why it happened and will try to use that knowledge to learn lessons and ensure that it does not happen again.
On mentally disordered offenders, the arrangements for the probation service to keep victims and their families informed of post-sentence developments do not apply to victims of offenders who are sent to hospital. That does not apply in this case, so I will leave that matter to one side, but I have flagged it up as another area of concern.
Victims of crime and their families do not merely need timely information about their case and to have their views taken into account; they also deserve appropriate support to help meet their practical and emotional needs, whether or not their case goes to court. My hon. Friend tells me that Victim Support was helpful to the family in this case, although I must stress that it is no substitute for sensitive support and help from every part of the criminal justice system.
The Home Office provides substantial funding to Victim Support nationally, which provides practical help and emotional support to victims of all types of crime. Our grant this year is £11.7 million, which will support the work of about 365 local schemes and branches nationwide. The grant also supports the work of the Crown court witness service, which has been established at all 77 Crown court centres in England and Wales to help victims, witnesses and their families cope with the stress of a court appearance.
Victim Support is working closely with another organisation, Support After Murder and Manslaughter--known as SAMM--to which my hon. Friend referred, to improve and develop services to the families of murder victims. The network of self-help groups throughout the country puts bereaved families in touch with each other and allows them to share their anguish and their anger, to talk to someone who has been in the same situation and to gain strength from knowing that they are not alone in their grief. As my hon. Friend said, Mrs. Windass is a member of its executive committee and is using her experience to help others. That sort of mutual support and understanding is perhaps as helpful as anything else in enabling families to come to terms with what has happened and I pay tribute to those like her who turn their tragedy and misery into a springboard for helping others.
Through our grant to Victim Support, the Home Office has provided funds to help run the SAMM office located at Victim Support's national office in London. I am sure that the association between the two organisations will enable Victim Support and SAMM to develop and improve further the services that they offer to families bereaved by violence.
We are also committed to ensuring that the courts become much more sensitive to the needs and interests of victims and witnesses through better facilities, information, support services and separate prosecution and defence waiting facilities wherever possible. Some progress has already been made. The court users charter explains the standards of service that victims and witnesses can expect from the Court Service. The victims charter sets out clearly 27 standards of service that victims should be able to expect from all the criminal justice agencies, including the courts, and explains which agency provides each service and how victims can complain if they do not get the level of service promised. Shortly, we plan to issue a revised version of the Home Office "Witness in Court" leaflet, which explains to victims and witnesses what happens at court.
All those changes will help, but central to the needs of victims and families is their wish to see justice done. People such as Mrs. Windass know from their experiences the deep truth in the saying that justice delayed is justice denied. No one can have a monopoly on the feelings or needs of families of murder victims; every situation is different, each family will respond differently to the devastating tragedy, but all of us have the same goal--to try to meet the needs of those families in the best way possible, whatever they are.
The Government accept that the current situation is not perfect and that improvements can be made. We will work with the criminal justice agencies, Victim Support, SAMM and other support groups to improve the service that victims and their families get from the criminal
justice system. We will speed up justice, as our manifesto commitments made clear. We will start with youth justice, halving the time that it takes to get young offenders to court and establishing a fast-track system for the persistent young offenders who cause so much chaos and devastation in communities throughout the land. We must tackle violence in our society, bearing in mind the fact that the number of violent crimes increased by more than 11 per cent. last year alone and is 166 per cent. higher than it was in 1979. We must nip things in the bud when things start to go wrong. We must improve consistency and progression in sentencing, to tackle the scandal exposed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary when we were in opposition.
That is the background against which I can assure my hon. Friend that we will take action on the issues and concerns that he has raised in this short debate today. I am sure that he will be interested to know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, when speaking to the Police Federation at its annual conference today, will also be setting out a vision of the future and ways in which we intend to tackle and improve the operation of the criminal justice system, in the interests of victims, the communities that have been damaged by crime and those who have felt the scourge of violent crime in recent years.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising a series of extremely important issues and I look forward to dealing with them in practical terms in the coming months.
It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
1. Mr. Ainger:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what further assistance her Department plans to provide in the Great Lakes region of Africa; and if she will make a statement. [310]
The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short):
I should explain that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), is at a meeting of the Caribbean development bank, so I am here on my own today.
Since 1993, the United Kingdom has committed £178 million--bilaterally and through the European Union--to help the people of the Great Lakes region to survive. The population desperately need peace and security to rebuild their lives. We hope to work constructively with Mr. Kabila's new Administration, with other Governments in the region and with international partners to try to secure stability and sustained economic and social development in the region.
Mr. Ainger:
I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. May I be the first formally to congratulate her on her richly deserved appointment? Does my right hon. Friend welcome, as I do, the establishment of a new Government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? What plans does she have to assist that Government to establish democracy and rebuild the economy? What plans does she have to assist the Government of Rwanda to ensure that there are speedy and fair trials of those accused of genocide?
Clare Short:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous remarks.
The fall of the Mobutu regime in the Congo--as it now is again--is a fantastically important opportunity for Africa and for the long-suffering people of Zaire. An Administration in Kinshasa committed to respect for human rights and national consensus in transition to representative and elected government will be an enormously important step forward for the region.
Tomorrow I shall discuss with Vice-President Kagame of Rwanda the way in which we can work together to secure that aim, and next week I shall meet ex-President Nyerere. We all want to work with the new Government, and if they will respect human rights, we will work together with the whole international community to bring economic and social development to that very important part of Africa.
21 May 1997 : Column 691Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.
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