Parliament makes the laws that govern how police investigate, how courts process cases, and what rights victims have. When a bill touches stalking, domestic abuse, digital evidence or victim services, VNS submits evidence, tracks its progress, and documents whether the protections it promises survive intact.
Last updated 30 August 2026
Live · Home Office and Ministry of Justice · announced 30 July 2026
An end-to-end review of the police accountability system is under way
The review is chaired by Dame Lynne Owens and Jason Beer KC. It will examine the timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness of the systems for holding police to account in England and Wales, and the interaction between those systems and the criminal, civil and coronial justice systems. The chairs report to the Home Secretary and Lord Chancellor within six months.
No route for public or complainant evidence has been published. The terms of reference state that the methodology, including how feedback from victims, complainants, the wider public, officers and system leaders will be gathered, is still to be agreed.
The review must make findings and recommendations against six guiding principles:
A whole-system examination of the police accountability system, establishing whether it is fit for purpose.
What barriers affect timeliness, and how those could be addressed to minimise avoidable delays for victims, families and officers.
Whether the oversight and accountability powers available to the IOPC, local professional standards departments and local policing bodies are adequate.
Whether there is sufficient openness and clarity within the system to maintain public trust and confidence, and that of complainants and officers and staff affected.
Whether and how the relationship between the police accountability system and other components of the justice system, including criminal, coronial and civil, could be improved.
Whether relevant learning can be taken from the accountability system in other equivalent professions or jurisdictions.
Victim Not Suspect submitted written evidence to the review on 1 August 2026, sent to the Home Office pending publication of a formal route for evidence.
Courts and Tribunals Bill
Repeals the presumption of parental involvement in private family law, strengthens special measures for vulnerable witnesses, restricts victim bad-character evidence, and contains contested provisions removing the right to elect Crown Court trial for either-way offences. VNS has made two written submissions focused on the wrongful-conviction risk for misidentified victims in digitally-evidenced cases, both accepted, published, and cited in the Justice Committee's final report.
10 June 2026 · Justice Committee report published
MPs warn of "unrealistic" demands on magistrates' courts and a "shocking" lack of judicial diversity
The Justice Committee's report on the Courts and Tribunals Bill was published on 10 June 2026. Chair Andy Slaughter MP set out the headline finding above. The Committee received over 130 written submissions and heard from Ministers, Sir Brian Leveson, the Bar, the wider legal profession and the CPS across multiple evidence sessions. VNS is explicitly thanked in the report for its contribution "with such a short turnaround", making this the first official Parliamentary report to cite VNS's evidence on misidentified victims and digital-evidence failures.
Rebecca Paul MP cites VNS evidence on the floor of the Public Bill Committee
During the Ninth Sitting of the Courts and Tribunals Bill Public Bill Committee (clause 8 debate, sexual behaviour evidence), Rebecca Paul MP (Reigate, Con) flagged the VNS submission directly to the Minister for Courts and Legal Services, Sarah Sackman: "Lastly, I want to flag that in its evidence, Victim Not Suspect notes a need to address verification and/or the reliability of digital evidence, which it believes is relevant to the admissibility test and has not been addressed in the Bill. It would be useful to hear the Minister's view on that matter too." She then quoted CTB0087 verbatim: "Without forensic verification, including IP address data, account ownership confirmation from platforms such as Meta, and metadata examination, there is no reliable basis for assessing authorship." She added that it "could become important in certain cases" and that there "may be scope to improve and tighten that up in the Bill during its further progress", putting the VNS digital-verification argument on the parliamentary record.
VNS written evidence sent to Justice Committee, received 13:25:26 (ref YAG640344)
17 Mar 2026
Justice Committee formally confirmed acceptance and publication of the VNS submission on the Committee's website (separate from the oral evidence session held the same week)
8 Apr 2026
VNS written evidence (ref CTB0087) sent to Public Bill Committee proposing three amendments, published at committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/163698
10 Apr 2026
Scrutiny Unit acknowledged the PBC submission (CTB0087)
23 Apr 2026
Rebecca Paul MP cited VNS evidence and quoted CTB0087 in the PBC Ninth Sitting (see card above)
14 May 2026
Bill reintroduced at Report Stage (new 2026-27 session)
10 Jun 2026
Justice Committee final report published, citing VNS evidence (see card above)
Current
Report Stage, Commons; no further sittings scheduled (see live feed below)
PBC submission: three proposed amendments
Amendment A (Clause 1): preserve the right of Crown Court election, or exclude from the new Bench Division framework, any case where the prosecution relies primarily or substantially on digital evidence that has not been independently verified by a qualified forensic examiner prior to charge.
Amendment B (New Clause, Digital Evidence Standards): introduce a pre-charge verification requirement for cases reliant on screenshot or social media evidence, including mandatory platform data requests and disclosure of examination scope to the defence at first hearing.
Amendment C (Clause 11): require that digital evidence underpinning any prior conviction relied upon to demonstrate propensity under Clause 11 has been subject to independent forensic examination.
Stalking Legislation Review (Wright KC)
Richard Wright KC's independent review of stalking law concluded and was submitted to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Safeguarding and VAWG on 1 April 2026. The Government response to Part 1 was due by 20 May 2026 and has not been published.
New Victims' Code (MoJ consultation)
VNS submitted on 8 April 2026 (ref ANON-V7KZ-BF5J-S) arguing that the draft Code fails an entire category of victim: those wrongly identified as suspects and prosecuted for crimes committed against them. No other organisation made this argument in these terms.
Victims and Courts Act 2026
Royal Assent 29 April 2026. Offenders must attend sentencing or face sanctions; NDAs cannot silence victims; the Unduly Lenient Sentence window is extended to 6 months; the Victims' Commissioner's powers are strengthened. A Lords amendment to remove the common law presumption of computer reliability was withdrawn on a Government commitment to ask the Lord Chancellor to write to the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee on new safeguards for digital evidence.
Crime and Policing Act 2026
Royal Assent 29 April 2026 after 532 Lords amendments. Statutory Right to Know for stalking victims; strengthened Stalking Protection Orders; a 48-hour takedown duty for non-consensual intimate images under the Online Safety Act; spiking made a standalone offence; sex added as a hate crime characteristic.
Hillsborough Law (Public Office (Accountability) Bill)
Would place a statutory duty of candour on public authorities and officials including police, with criminal offences for misleading the public. Cleared Committee stage across November and December 2025. Carried over into the new session by motion on 27 April 2026 and reintroduced on 14 May 2026. The Commons passed the Bill on 14 July 2026 after the Government tabled late amendments on security and intelligence information. First Reading in the Lords, 16 July 2026.
Fisher Review: Disclosure in the Digital Age
Part 1 (45 recommendations) published March 2025. Part 2 (fraud focus) submitted to the Home Secretary in January 2026. Government responses to both parts are overdue.
PCC Abolition and the Accountability Gap
PCCs will be abolished in 2028. The January 2026 white paper sets out two replacement structures (mayoral authorities and Policing and Crime Boards) but the abolition bill has not been tabled, member selection, pay, background requirements and independence safeguards are unspecified, the Welsh replacement is unconfirmed, and no framework has been published for how PCC-commissioned stalking and DA services transfer.
Sources
Courts and Tribunals Bill: progress on parliament.uk
MoJ Victims' Code consultation on GOV.UK
Crime and Policing Act 2026, Lords Library briefing
Fisher Review: full report on GOV.UK
Live feed · UK Parliament Bills API
What's currently moving through Parliament
13 bills · fetched 12 Sep 2026
Pulled live from bills-api.parliament.uk, filtered to terms relevant to VNS's work: stalking, harassment, domestic abuse, digital evidence, disclosure, victims, criminal justice, coercive control. Editorially pinned bills appear first.
A Bill to Make provision in relation to criminal courts in England and Wales; to make provision about the leadership of tribunals; to amend section 1 of the Children Act 1989 to remove the presumption relating to the involvement of parents in the life of a child; and for connected purposes.
Ministry of Justice · 5 Feb 2026 → 30 Apr 2026 · updated 5 Feb 2026
Updates the statutory code governing how victims of crime are treated throughout the criminal justice process, including evidence standards and victim notification rights.
Post-legislative scrutiny examining whether Clare's Law, coercive control provisions, and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner's powers are being implemented as Parliament intended.
Wider VNS submission to the Justice Committee on digital evidence verification, disclosure failings, and victim treatment in stalking and harassment cases, the foundational analysis later condensed into clause-specific amendments for the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
VNS submitted written evidence on digital evidence examination timescales and victim participation rights in adjournment applications.
Search · Hansard (Commons & Lords debates)
Hansard search
Searches what's been said on the record in Parliament. Hansard debates can include explicit descriptions of stalking, domestic abuse, sexual offences and other harm, read at your own pace.
Type a search term or tap a preset above to search Hansard.
Search · Open Calls for Evidence (committees)
Calls for evidence
Select and joint committee inquiries currently accepting written submissions. Different from the bills tracker above, these are standalone inquiries, not bill-committee scrutiny windows.
Inquiry pages can include detailed evidence on stalking, domestic abuse, sexual offences and child protection. Read at your own pace.
Committee inquiry titles rarely use survivor-facing language. An empty result usually means no inquiry with this term in its title is currently open, not that the topic is being ignored. Try broader terms like “police” or “justice”, clear the filter to browse every open call, or see the full list at committees.parliament.uk.
Enter a keyword, pick a preset, or tick “closing within 14 days” to search open inquiries.
Search · MoJ & Home Office open consultations (GOV.UK)
Open consultations
Every open consultation published by the Ministry of Justice or Home Office that the public can still respond to.
Consultation papers can include explicit detail on offences, sentencing and policing practice. Read at your own pace.
Enter a keyword or pick a preset to search open MoJ & Home Office consultations.