Pensions for Severely Disabled Victims (Northern Ireland)

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his principled and precise words. He has recognised that if the institutions are restored, the amendments will fall. If the institutions are restored, however, the issue will not go away. The principle still needs to run through whatever proposals emerge, be they in Belfast for Northern Ireland-based victims or in Great Britain for Great Britain-based victims. Will the Minister commit himself to ensuring that, come what may, the principle he has outlined—that we will support victims but not victim makers—will hold true?

[John Penrose]

Let me take the hon. Gentleman back to the point made by the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who pointed out that there were four criteria under the Act that would apply and which we would need to work through to deliver the central principle that I—and, now, the hon. Gentleman as well—have enunciated. Those four criteria include not just the question of how, when or where the injury was sustained—for example, the question whether we should be including people who were injured in the Canary Wharf bombings in London—but residence or nationality. Both those issues are clearly factors, and they are in the Bill, so, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, they will not go away. They must be addressed, and they will be addressed as we work through the detailed process between now and the end of May.