Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) number of victims who will be entitled to the Victims Payment Scheme and (b) the estimated cost in Years 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Unlike fatalities, there is no comprehensive dataset about seriously injured victims of the Troubles. In this context the ability to estimate with confidence both the number of applications to the scheme and the number of awards that will be issued is constrained. The Northern Ireland Civil Service, which now has responsibility for delivering the scheme, will need to keep this, and costs in years 1-4, under close review moving forward.