Watch this talk on YouTube: Recording Link 154

There can be few people as qualified to answer this question as British barrister and politician Dame Vera Baird. Or as empathetic. This is someone who was Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales 2019-2022. Someone who represented striking miners back in the day. Someone who, during that strike, was regularly seen outside a supermarket in Jesmond with a wheelbarrow collecting food for miners’ families.

The aim of the Leveson Review is to ensure cases are dealt with proportionately, and efficiently, given the pressures on the Crown Courts.

The aim of the Sentencing Bill is to ensure that prisons never run out of space again. And that punishment is delivered in such a way as to effectively reduce crime.

It’ll be interesting to hear what Dame Vera makes of it all, given her focus on putting victims first.