Lord Hughes of Woodside
Main Page: Lord Hughes of Woodside (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Hughes of Woodside's debates with the Home Office
(13 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, the Government have been monitoring the situation. My honourable friend the Minister for Policing has met representatives from the West Midlands police force, the Greater London Authority, the Met and the Greater Manchester police force. He has met the insurance companies, Kit Malthouse and a vast number of people. We are doing these things as quickly as possible. We extended the deadline by which people could make claims by 42 days. We have the whole subject under review, as I made clear in response to another question, and we will respond to those reviews in due course.
My Lords, the Minister has been asked for figures three times. He keeps saying that the situation is under review and is being monitored. It is not monitoring that is required—it is action. Will he do something about it?
My Lords, I totally reject that. I have made it clear that we estimate that there have been something of the order of 5,000 claims. We estimate that those claims total some £200 million to £250 million. That does not mean that all those claims are valid. Before we pay out public money, we want to make sure that they are valid and we will do that properly. We want to make sure that the uninsured are paid first and then deal with those who were insured, making sure that the insurance companies are repaid. That is why we are talking to the ABI.