Riot Compensation Bill

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Mike Wood

Friday 4th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood]

I fully agree. In the region we both know best, the west midlands, there were the Handsworth riots in 1985, which I have already mentioned, and of course the riots in the same part of Birmingham in 1981 and 1991. Such localised riots have a huge impact on the local community, and cause huge cost to businesses and individuals directly affected.

We need to act now to build a new compensation system that works. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) said, that system needs to be fair to the people and businesses affected by riots and fair to the taxpayers who, ultimately, will always foot the bill.

In the wake of the 2011 riots, work was conducted by the independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel, which looked at both the root causes of the disturbances and the prevention of future riots. Other studies were conducted specifically to examine the response of the police. Although the Government have done a lot of valuable work on the causes and the immediate responses to the riots, now that we have had time to reflect on and learn from those terrible events, it is right and necessary to ensure that the current legislation is updated to make it fit for the 21st century and to enable the victims of riots to be adequately compensated.

Recognising criticisms of the limitations of the 1886 Act, the Home Office undertook an internal review, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary then commissioned a full, independent review of the legislation. The reviewer, Neil Kinghan, spent months collecting evidence from riot victims, the police, insurers, loss adjusters and many others before publishing his conclusions. He made recommendations concerning a number of areas of the existing framework. Many of those recommendations are brought forward in the Bill.

Neil Kinghan accepted that there remains a need for legislation that provides for riot compensation to victims, but that the existing legislation is simply not good enough. Fiddling around the edges of the legislation would not be enough to make it work for the 21st century. We need to repeal the 1886 Act and replace it with new legislation that reflects the world as it is now, rather than the world as it was in the 1880s. The Bill seeks to make that change by updating the legislation and modernising the compensation system, making it fit for purpose in today’s world.

This is not the first time that changes to the Riot (Damages) Act have been considered. Under the last Labour Government, there was a public consultation on full repeal of the Act, but in the end, no changes were made. I do not believe that simply repealing the 1886 Act is the answer. While there is a superficial attraction in removing the strict liability that police forces have for damage to property suffered during a riot, there is general acceptance that there are principled and practical reasons for its retention.

Neil Kinghan’s review agreed that the first duty of the police is to maintain law and order. When that law and order breaks down, resulting in a riot, it is right for the police to be held to account and to pay appropriate compensation. On a practical level, strict liability provides simplicity for the victims of riots and a clear framework for the police. Requiring victims to demonstrate negligence or other direct fault would not be equitable in the circumstances. It would require evidence that is often extremely difficult to collect in the immediate aftermath of a riot and would inevitably lead to increased conflict between local police forces and the communities that are hit by rioting.

The 2011 riots underlined the importance of maintaining this historic protection for the public, as it provided a number of people with a vital means of support when they needed it most. It is right that people are provided with the financial means to repair, renew and recover so that they have the confidence to return to their roles at the heart of our communities.

The independent review found near consensus in favour of retaining the police’s strict liability—a finding backed by the report of the London Assembly’s budget and performance committee on the aftermath of the riots. It is right that we protect communities from such shattering losses by doing what we can to help them back on their feet. However, what cannot be right are the lengthy bureaucratic delays suffered by those who need our help, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate referred, and the idea that the country has a bottomless purse to draw from to pay for damage caused by criminals.

The Bill makes much-needed changes to address those concerns, while still supporting households and businesses affected by rioting. Although, as I have said, I accept the arguments for retaining the principle of police liability for riot damages, I do not accept that we can continue with limitless liability. Whether through police budgets or central Government, the public purse cannot be expected to pick up costs that are the reasonable responsibility of private insurance.

The Bill proposes to end the unlimited compensation afforded through the 1886 Act. Instead, it will set a cash cap, set at the appropriate level of £1 million, on each individual claim. The Government determined in their early review that if such a cap were in place in 2011, 99% of the claims made after the riots would have been compensated in full, but the limit would have saved the public purse tens of millions of pounds in compensation for the very largest claims.

As prudent homeowners, most people hold some form of insurance for their property. The same is true of most business owners. In the most recent cases, more than 80% of the compensation has been paid as reimbursement to insurance companies. Despite that, measures to cap compensation have been supported in principle by their largest representative body, the Association of British Insurers.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Clearly, property values will differ throughout the country, and many members of the public do not read the fine print in insurance documentation. What is to stop insurance companies excluding riot from their cover? If that does happen, what will happen to those who suffer losses greater than the ones mentioned in my hon. Friend’s Bill?

[Mike Wood]

Of course we recognise the difference in property values around the country, but we have to accept that basic responsibility for buildings insurance, and indeed contents insurance, needs to be with private insurers. I would certainly hope that we can work together with the insurance industry to make sure that there is a fair response so that the premiums that most people believe they are paying to cover them for damage, however it is caused, really do cover them.

These new provisions are not just about saving money; they are also about improving and modernising the claims process. The short timescales in the old Act for submitting and evidencing a claim were not feasible for many potential claimants. The original 14-day period was extended to 42 days under the Government’s emergency amendment for the 2011 riots. Those riots demonstrated that the period was not long enough in certain cases. Many homes and places of business were inaccessible because they were designated crime scenes. In a number of claims, full details could not be provided because of a dependency on external processes as seemingly unrelated as planning permission.

The Bill will allow regulations to be made to extend those periods. Initially, a claimant need only lodge notice of a claim 42 days after the incident. By lodging notice of a claim, they will then have another 90 days to gather the evidence to substantiate the quantity and nature of the losses. That means that riot victims can focus on their most immediate needs in the shortest term and worry about paperwork further down the line when they are in a better position to deal with it.

Regulations to the Bill will change the way that compensation is calculated from the old-for-old replacement payments system, based on the current value of property, as depreciated, to a new-for-old system to allow people in the majority of circumstances to replace their property in full. That will considerably ease the decision-making process.