Riots Communities and Victims Panel

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am not, fortunately, responsible for the remarks of Mr Jeremy Clarkson and do not have to answer for him, but I think the noble Baroness can imagine what I think about his remarks.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that in looking at the operation of the 1886 Act, consideration will be given not only to extending the time limit for a claim, which I think is a few weeks, but to the whole ethos of the Act: that is, the question of claiming against police authorities and the fact that the Act goes back a century and a quarter to a period when policing was much more formative in its development than it is nowadays?

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord is right to draw attention, as I did earlier, to the age of the Act. It is possibly coming up to its sell-by or use-by date, which is one of the reasons why we want to review it. The recommendation in the report was that the submission of claims should be extended to 90 days. The Government had already extended it from 14 to 28 days. Extending it to 90 days is a very interesting suggestion and will be looked at as part of a wider review of the whole Act.