Speeches by Kohler.

“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The Supreme Court judgment lays bare the consequences of the previous Government’s catastrophic approach to legacy, which drew a wholly unjustifiable moral equivalence between terrorists and those who serve the Crown. That scheme was declared unlawful a…”

“That is right, sorry. Does the safer streets delivery board still exist? We received a parliamentary answer in March saying it has ceased to meet since November.”

“Yes, good. Thank you.”

“Working to standardise?”

“Thank you. Now, on to governance, there is a VAWG board, a safer streets mission board, a safer streets delivery board and a VAWG strategic advisory board. I am resisting the temptation to ask whether you are bored, but how do they all work together?”

“Where is the safer streets delivery board?”

“Do we have a timeframe for that?”

“Are you confident at the moment that looks like it is working as far as you can tell?”

“Thank you for visiting us. I am going to ask you about governance. Before I do, I want to ask a really basic question: where are we on a definition of VAWG? I know there is one in the strategy, but where are we in accepting that across the sector, in police forces? All the evidence we have heard in the past is that the…”

“Ms Carr, you talk about the police as if it is one body. The evidence we heard was that different police forces have different definitions. Have they sorted that out?”

“I will indeed. Thank you. My last question is that there is some doubt over the funding and a lack of clarity over whether it is new funding or existing funding. Are you clear about the funding you have for VAWG?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I will speak on new clause 6, new clause 25 and, in particular, new clause 2 tabled by the hon. Member for Warrington North. Her proposal represents the genuine structural reform that victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse have long been promised and too …”

“While I concede that the black hole might not have been foreseeable, the fact that there was a backlog in the courts was clearly foreseeable. The idea that the Government came into power and then suddenly realised there was a backlog is implausible. We are two years into this Government. The change that was promised is…”

“The VAWG board?”

“That is the mission board, isn’t it?”

“I know what you did. I have it all here. I am not doubting you did. I just said that they felt left out. What have you done to try to build some more confidence in what—”

“Is the Minister talking about extending one trial over more hours? Surely the solution is having two trials in parallel. I do not know whether the Minister has ever been on a jury; I have been on a jury three times. It is very difficult for jury members, particularly non-lawyers, to listen to evidence for more than fou…”

“That was going to be my question, actually, so excellent. These 14 Departments are all coming along?”

“You will be aware of the letter sent to you and Alex by the Chairs of the Home Affairs, Women and Equalities and Justice Committees about stakeholders feeling they were left out of the process. What have you done since the strategy was published to address the feeling that some of them felt left out?”

“Has the safer streets mission board stopped working? That is what I meant, sorry; I think it stopped in November.”