Riot Compensation Bill
Debate between David Lammy and David Nuttall(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Nuttall
I am a bit confused—I am always confused, but I am particularly so this morning—by these amendments. Could the right hon. Gentleman briefly explain which of his three different proposals he would personally like to see enacted? It seems to me that he is proposing no cap, a cap of £10 million and a cap to be decided by a formula that is yet to be determined.
Mr Lammy
Forgive me. The hon. Gentleman was not on the Committee, but if he reads the Hansard report of its proceedings he will see that there was quite a lot of debate about this figure. The Government were unable to give much detail of how they arrived at the figure. The Minister has since written to my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, who chaired the Committee—its members were copied in—and given greater clarity on what the Government were told by the insurance industry and on the amount of figures that came under £1 million. I received that letter after tabling these amendments. However, the amendments are probing, because it would be quite wrong for a Bill of this kind to pass quietly through the House without discussion and scrutiny. I see the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) nodding in agreement, because his constituency was caught up in the riots. My amendments have been tabled in that spirit.
The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is right: there is of course a difference between removing the £1 million cap and raising it to £10 million. I suspect that not all of my amendments will be pressed to a vote. However, I emphasise amendment 7, in particular, because it facilitates scrutiny and the need to return to this figure in future, which must be right. I do not want the House to settle on £1 million and then find in 10 or 15 years that it would leave a lot of people, particularly in London and the south-east, really short if their property were damaged in a riot.
Riot Compensation Bill
Debate between David Lammy and David Nuttall(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lammy
On the very sensible point that the hon. Gentleman is making, is he worried, as I am, that the Government will recognise that £1 million is inadequate only after another riot? It is very unlikely that the Government would return to the limit between riots, because there would be no reason to do so.
Mr Nuttall
That is my concern. We need an assurance from the Minister that someone will look at the limit every few years because, as the right hon. Gentleman says, there is a danger that the legislation will be dusted down and looked at only after the event, as happened after the 2011 riots, when everybody realises that it is woefully out of date. A proactive approach is therefore needed.
Where I perhaps part company with the right hon. Gentleman is on whether the riot claims bureau should be a permanent body. Was he suggesting it should be?
Mr Nuttall
No, he was not suggesting that. I would not have agreed with that. I do not think we could set up such a body and have it permanently in operation.
Mr Nuttall
That is the point I am making. Thinking back to the Toxteth riots in the early ’80s, they are mercifully infrequent.
In urban areas that are seen as most at risk, it would make sense to have a stand-alone leaflet available that could be distributed in the event of a riot, so that business owners and affected individuals could be given information simply and straightforwardly in the immediate aftermath to put their minds at ease. They would then know what they needed to do and that they needed to do it within 42 days, or whatever the limit was. They would be aware straight away of the need to take action. In this day and age, there could also be a permanent website after the Bill reaches the statute book, as I hope it will, that can be found easily by somebody who does a search on the internet.