Victims and Courts Bill Report Stage: New Clause 7
165Ayes
323Noes
Defeated · majority 158 · Government won161 did not vote
649 Members · Aye 165 · No 323 · DNV 161 · grey dots in centre are abstentions
Analysis
Commons
Commons
Parliament voted on 27 October 2025 on New Clause 7 to the Victims and Courts Bill, a Liberal Democrat proposal to extend eligibility for the Victim Contact Scheme to a wider group of victims. The scheme gives victims the right to receive information about an offender's release from custody. The amendment was defeated by 323 votes to 165 (Division 326). The Victim Contact Scheme provides a formal channel through which victims can be notified about parole hearings and release decisions. New Clause 7 sought to broaden who qualifies for that scheme beyond the categories the government had already included in the Bill. The government opposed the extension, arguing that the Bill's own reforms to the scheme, including coverage for victims of stalking, harassment, coercive control and driving offences, already represented a significant and sufficient expansion. A new helpline route for domestic abuse and other victims to request release information was also part of the government's package. The vote divided sharply along party lines. Labour and Labour-Co-operative MPs voted unanimously against, providing the bulk of the 323 Noes. Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Reform UK, the Greens, the Democratic Unionist Party and most independents all voted Aye, giving the opposition 165 votes. No Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs were recorded voting No.
Voting Aye meant
Support extending the Victim Contact Scheme to cover more categories of victims, giving them greater rights to information about offender release
Voting No meant
Oppose this particular extension, accepting the government's own broader reforms to the Victim Contact Scheme already included in the Bill as sufficient
Each row is one party. The stacked bar gives the within-party split of Aye / No / Absent; the columns on the right give the raw counts. The whip column shows the published party position — “Free vote” means the whip was formally removed for this division.
Party
Whip
Aye / No / Abs
Aye
No
Abs
Labour Party
Whipped No
0
283
78
Conservative and Unionist Party
Whipped Aye
81
0
35
Liberal Democrats
Whipped Aye
62
0
9
Labour and Co-operative Party
Whipped No
0
36
6
Independent
—
7
2
4
Scottish National Party
—
0
0
9
Reform UK
Whipped Aye
4
0
4
Sinn Féin
—
0
0
7
Democratic Unionist Party
Whipped Aye
3
0
2
Green Party of England and Wales
Whipped Aye
3
0
1
Plaid Cymru
Whipped Aye
4
0
0
Social Democratic and Labour Party
—
0
0
2
Your Party
—
1
0
1
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
—
0
0
1
Restore Britain
—
0
0
1
Speaker
—
0
0
1
Traditional Unionist Voice
—
0
1
0
Ulster Unionist Party
—
1
0
0
Source · Hansard · UK Parliament Votes API · whip status from announced positions; “free vote” indicates the whip was formally removed
Bill delivers real, tangible victim protection measures including restricting parental responsibility for rapists, voiding NDAs that silence victims, and improving court processes; opposes widening some provisions (e.g. removing sentencing threshold) to avoid overwhelming family courts and to test the approach carefully before expansion.Labour · Voted no · Read full speech (9,106 words) →
Welcomes the Bill's victim-centred approach but identifies gaps: victim contact scheme should extend to offenders serving less than 12 months, all victims need free court transcripts, government should make statements on victim reviews within two weeks, and local authorities must prepare victim support strategies to prevent postcode lotteries.Liberal Democrat · Voted aye · Read full speech (1,628 words) →
New clause 2 should require courts to identify children affected by parental imprisonment at sentencing; existing statutory guidance is non-binding and children remain unsupported; 190,000 children affected annually but no clear timeline for government delivery on manifesto commitment.Labour · Voted no · Read full speech (1,891 words) →
New clause 12 essential to end anomaly where families of murder victims killed abroad receive no structured statutory support while domestic victims do; bereaved families navigate foreign legal systems alone and deserve same baseline victim code protections as domestic cases.Labour · Voted aye · Read full speech (1,449 words) →
Government new clause 14 corrects historic injustice by preventing rapists from exercising parental responsibility over children conceived through rape; law change validates survivor testimony and uses law to protect women and children.Labour · Voted no · Read full speech (134 words) →
Amendment on parental responsibility corrects injustice where children are protected from convicted sex offenders but their own children are not; government taking steps to protect both children and parents from vile sex offenders.Labour · Voted no · Read full speech (122 words) →
Victim impact statements currently too restrictive; Violet-Grace Youens' parents felt silenced by court limitations on what could be said; victim statements are important for victims to be heard and acknowledged.Labour · Voted no · Read full speech (82 words) →
Bill's domestic abuse support welcome but incomplete without concrete measures improving court capacity; victims arriving for trial only to have case pulled due to lack of capacity demonstrates systemic failure that legislation alone cannot fix.Liberal Democrat · Voted aye · Read full speech (137 words) →
Sources
Division dataUK Parliament Votes API
DebateHansard · Commons
Stance analysisAI analysis · Claude 4.x
LicenceOpen Parliament Licence v3.0