For far too long, victims' rights have been discussed only in the context of sentencing. Sentencing is very important, but the debate obscures something much more fundamental: most victims have so little faith in our criminal justice system that they do not access it at all.

Rights compliance helps effective outcomes, it does not hinder them. That should come as no surprise because the 'human rights' in the Human Rights Act are the rights adopted in the aftermath of the horrors of the second world war, and are designed to protect all of us from oppression.

I think most people accept that it is necessary to have some surveillance in a democratic society. I think most people accept that it's important to have limits and clear safeguards on that.

Labour's priorities are clear: jobs and the economy must come first; not party interests or ideological fantasies.

I always say, it's better to be asked why you're leaving, rather than when you're leaving.

Britain outside the E.U. would be less able to respond with the speed and strength we need to tackle complex and growing cross-border threats to all our communities.

You don't win elections by telling people what you're against. We're very good at listing things we don't much like about what the Tories are doing. But you win elections by telling them what you're for, what you're going to change, what's going to be better.

If you lose your job because there has been an influx of labour from another country, that is a legitimate cause for concern.

Strip away the factual misinformation repeatedly peddled about the Human Rights Act and almost everyone acknowledges that it works well in practice. Police up and down the country have found the Human Rights Act a much clearer and firmer basis for practical policing than the common law ever was.

Human rights only have meaning if they are universal.

You can't meet Labour's tests by failing to provide answers.

For some people, work is the only safe haven from abuse. So all employers in businesses big and small, whether in the public or private sector, should be encouraged to create safe spaces at work where staff suffering domestic abuse can talk to an appropriately qualified person who can provide advice and offer support.

In a democracy there will always be a tension between security and privacy.

There is a world of difference between not disclosing fine detail and relying on broad and generalised assertions. The first may be understandable; the second is not acceptable.

The nature of the final Brexit deal really matters. It is, as I have said before, the battle of our times.

Just when we need a strong government, what do we see? Division. Chaos. And failure. No credible plan for Brexit, no solution to prevent a hard border in Ireland and no majority in Parliament for the Chequers proposals.

I would reject wholeheartedly any notion of a Labour Party that is not committed to returning to power at the first opportunity. Of course that needs to be principled power. But standing on the sidelines looking for the purest ideology is a dereliction of the duty for any Labour member.

In my view, airstrikes without an effective ground force are unlikely to make any meaningful contribution to defeating Isis.

No border controls anywhere in the world are able to prevent determined criminals from crossing borders.

In the U.K., we have always had international ambitions and international responsibilities. These obviously predate the E.U.; we have been trading and doing business in Europe for centuries.

For many progressives, 2016 will go down as a year of electoral shocks and profound disappointment. In the U.S., France and many other parts of Europe, the right enters 2017 with newfound confidence while the left recoils in fear of the future, unsure how to get back on the front foot.

The key to understanding the impact of the Human Rights Act in the U.K. is to appreciate that civil liberties and human rights are not two sides of the same coin.

A no deal Brexit would be a complete failure by the government to negotiate for Britain.

Ensuring we have the best possible Brexit deal will take time, effort and huge diplomatic skill.

Significant cuts to funding for the police, for the Crown Prosecution Service, for probation etc, have put the long-term viability of our criminal justice system in doubt.

The Max Clifford case shows that when the police and prosecutors quietly hold their nerve they can succeed, whatever the public profile or popularity of the accused.

Access to our civil courts has been severely restricted by the combination of: the removal of legal aid from some cases based on their type, not their merit; a high financial threshold for the receipt of legal aid in other cases; and a failure to deliver a safety net for vulnerable individuals by the exceptional funding arrangements.

In the aftermath of the second world war, nations came together to say 'never again.' They established the United Nations and agreed a simple set of universal standards of decency for mankind to cling to: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Full access to the single market is what businesses and trade unions want.

The framework for everything I've done has been human rights. That is about protecting the vulnerable and giving people access to courts where they wouldn't otherwise have access to courts.

I don't subscribe to the view that people who are better off don't want to live in a more equal society.

I believe Britain's response to Brexit must be based on core progressive values: internationalism, cooperation, social justice and the rule of law.

Britain needs a good Brexit deal to safeguard jobs, security and trade and to build a new partnership with the E.U. Achieving this will be fiendishly difficult.

The pursuit of an extreme Brexit cannot come at the cost of peace in Northern Ireland.

When I was the director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, I had staff working at the Eurojust HQ in The Hague 24/7.

Theresa May's decision to call an unnecessary general election after Article 50 was triggered was deeply irresponsible.

We cannot allow Brexit to be driven by narrow and divisive Tory ideology.

In the absence of a written constitution, we still rely far too heavily in the U.K. on unwritten and unenforceable 'constitutional conventions.'

Labour's approach is not about what is politically right, it is about what is right for the country.

From my experience both as DPP and previously as a human rights lawyer, I know that human rights and effective protection from terrorism are not incompatible. On the contrary, they go hand in hand.

The Chilcot report is damning. It exposes a litany of failures over a long period, including reliance on flawed intelligence assessments, lack of planning and insufficient foresight of obvious consequences. But the report also exposes a chilling lack of rigour and a political culture of deference.

Our five-year-old son thinks I ought to work in the local bookshop, and I can see the appeal of that.

My background is not typical of a lawyer or a DPP. My dad was a toolmaker before he retired, so he worked in a factory all his life.

I am well aware of different views across my own party and across parliament on pretty well all Brexit issues.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have not been responsible. Instead they have vied in an arms race towards a more and more extreme form of Brexit. Deeper red lines, even more ludicrous promises, but absolutely no coherent or workable plan for the country.

So if you want a really effective criminal justice strategy, you don't build bigger prisons, you invest money in young kids - and you accept that it's going to take years to work through, but it's a more effective strategy.

It will be increasingly difficult to keep Scotland as a part of the U.K. I hope that doesn't happen, but everyone knows David Cameron has put that at risk.

It's really important we make the case that this is not the country of Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. That intolerance and hatred and division is not representative of our country.

If immigration is simply seen as a numbers game, nobody will ever win that debate. The question should be: what is it we want to achieve? What do we expect of those who are arriving? What is the basic deal?

From a victim's point of view, our justice system is hardly fit for purpose. No doubt individual failings by police and prosecutors provide part of the explanation.