Victims and Courts Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 4

What happened

On 25 March 2026, the House of Commons voted 300 to 149 to reject Lords Amendment 4 to the Victims and Courts Bill. The amendment concerned the financing of private prosecutions, specifically how costs recovered from central funds by private prosecutors could be regulated. The Commons passed the government's motion to disagree with the Lords on this point, meaning the bill returned to the upper chamber without the amendment in place.

Why it matters

The Victims and Courts Bill covers a range of reforms to the criminal justice system, including compelling offenders to attend their own sentencing hearings, restricting the parental responsibility of serious offenders, and improving the rights of victims to information and support. Lords Amendment 4 touched on the financial mechanics of private prosecutions, an area the government argued required careful and practical handling. By rejecting it, the Commons backed the government's preferred approach to regulating the rates at which private prosecutors can recover expenses from public funds, keeping the bill in the form the government designed. The vote also carried financial privilege implications, meaning the Speaker's office noted it engaged the Commons' exclusive authority over matters of public expenditure.

The politics

The vote divided almost entirely along government-versus-opposition lines. All 265 Labour MPs and 21 Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted came down on the government's side, alongside smaller numbers of independents, Greens, Plaid Cymru members, and one representative of Your Party. The 149 votes against came from Conservatives (85), Liberal Democrats (58), the Democratic Unionist Party (3), and Reform UK (2). This was one of six divisions held on the same day rejecting Lords amendments to the same bill, with the government winning all of them by similar margins. Opposition MPs and some government backbenchers expressed frustration that the Lords' amendments, which they saw as strengthening victims' rights, were being turned away, though the minister indicated the government intended to bring forward workable alternatives in due course.