On Wednesday 9th February, Peter Kyle the MP for Hove carried out the first reading of a Bill which is called Victims of Crime and Anti-social Behaviour, Etc (Rights, Entitlements and Related Matters) and which can be found here. It is clearly a very important Bill and it is one that most credible and responsive MPs would support. However at the end of his speech, it was stated that “Peter Kyle accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed” and yet when I checked Hansard and They Work for You I could not find any reference of this on the 10th February which was the last day of the House of Commons before their February break. It is clearly a Labour Bill as another few words at the end of his speech included “Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Peter Kyle, Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Mr David Lammy, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Rachel Reeves, Valerie Vaz, Mr Nicholas Brown, Jess Phillips, Holly Lynch, Wes Streeting and Yvette Cooper present the Bill.”

Let us hope that by the time the Bill gets further forward that there will be support from other MPs from other Parties. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if some of the Sussex MPs such as Caroline Lucas and Peter Bottomley would endorse this. Perhaps also Sally-Ann Hart and Tim Loughton and possibly Caroline Ansell, Nusrat Ghani and Andrew Griffith? Anyway here is the text at the beginning of what Peter had to say.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the duties and responsibilities of the Victims’ Commissioner and about the Victims’ Code;
to make provision about the rights of victims of persistent anti-social behaviour;
to require local police forces to prepare victims’ services plans and take steps in connection with victim representative bodies;
to establish a duty to report suspected child exploitation by those working in regulated activities;
to establish a right of appeal by victims against a decision to cease a criminal investigation;
to make provision for reviews of open or reopened homicide cases;
to make provision about court procedures relating to vulnerable victims and witnesses; and for connected purposes.

Thank you for starting this off Peter, let us hope it goes the full distance.