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Rights and Protection of Victims

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for giving a very moving speech. I address the Chamber as chairman of the all-party group on retail and business crime, and, by virtue of that, as someone concerned about victims of crime, both at home and abroad. Although there are some parts of our criminal justice system that can clearly be improved on, I understand from the organisation Victim Support—we heard this point earlier, too—that we generally enjoy a better standard of treatment for victims of crime than is the case across Europe. It does not take a huge stretch of the imagination to realise that victims of crime are at their most vulnerable when they are abroad. Perhaps they do not speak the language, and they would probably have little idea of where to go, what to do, or even what processes are in place to assist them in the event of crime. Moreover, many unscrupulous criminals specifically target foreign nationals—tourists in particular—for those very reasons. In this instance, I feel that EU support would benefit the British abroad, so I call on the Government to support the draft directive in question, which deals with a minimum standard of treatment for victims of crime across Europe. Indeed, it has been carefully argued by the charity Victim Support that the directive would benefit the British at home also. I would not usually back EU interference—the EU meddles in so much that it should not meddle in, plus it is a ridiculous, wasteful organisation and unnecessarily bureaucratic—but in this instance it has actually come up with something that should be addressed for the common European good. With regard to offenders' release dates, the directive would certainly increase the rights of victims in the UK. At present, a victim has the right to know only when an offender has been released from custody in the case of sexual or violent crime where an offender has been sentenced to more than 12 months in custody. The directive would extend that right to all victims.