Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Howe of Aberavon

Wednesday 25th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

My Lords, I rise to make perhaps a selfish contribution and not to invite the House one way or the other on the issue that has just been raised with some vigour. I speak because of an egocentric pleasure in the existence of the scheme and in the fact that it exists at all. It takes my mind back almost exactly half a century to the annual conference of the Conservative Party at Brighton in 1961. At that conference at that time, on behalf of the Aberavon Conservative Association, modest though that organisation was, I tabled an amendment for consideration challenging hanging and flogging and urging instead a liberal motion calling for a prison-building programme, strengthened probation services, longer sentences and, crucially, the establishment of a scheme to compensate the victims of violent crime.

To my surprise, some weeks later when we were on our Norman holiday near Coutances, a telegram came inviting me to ring up the then deputy chairman of the party, Sir Toby Low, or Lord Aldington, as he is better known to us. I wondered what on earth he wanted. He asked me whether I would be willing to move my motion as an amendment to the usual hanging and flogging motion. I was flattered to be involved with such a question. But he added, “The people here would be much happier if you dropped the last bit about compensation for violence”. The Treasury was worried about the cost, the Home Office about the principle and so forth.

It was a tough choice to throw at a thus far unsuccessful candidate, but I responded by saying, “Certainly not. If I am going to have to take this on, you must not take the sugar off my pill”. Sir Toby Low agreed to consider my point. A few days later came a reply that disappointed me. “Reluctantly”, he said, the authorities had nevertheless agreed to give me a chance. When the debate came it was one of the high points of the conference. Tempers ran high. Our reforming amendment was carried by a large majority and a few months later I was invited by Henry Brooke, the then Home Secretary, to join a committee that he set up to consider detailed proposals for compensation. Within two years, a suitable scheme was established without having any resort to legislation. It was one of the first in the world and has served us well, as the House recognises, for many years.

For me, it was an early lesson in the importance of sticking to one's guns and may be one reason why I have remained such a tiresome creature ever since then. But I commend the subject of the debate. I am tempted to say a little word of sympathy about some of the criticisms, but not so as to offend my noble friend Lord McNally. I am sure that he will deal with them in his reply in a suitably positive way.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will have listened with great respect and interest to the intervention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. The incident that he has retailed from 50 years ago shows what a very humanitarian politician he has been during 50 years of extremely distinguished public life.

My noble friend the Leader of the Opposition and my namesake, my noble friend Lord Davies of Coity, spoke powerfully on this subject and I agree with them. There would be no point in repeating what they just said. But I rise to ask the Minister a question. Can he tell the House what is the average time taken to process applications under the criminal injuries compensation scheme? My noble friend gave us some rather different figures, but if the noble Lord’s figures are correct and annual disbursements are of the order of roughly £200 million and the total liabilities of the scheme are about £500 million, it implies that rather a long time is taken to process each individual claim.

If my noble friend’s figures represent reality, the situation may be slightly better, but it is important for the House to know exactly the effectiveness of the bureaucracy handling this important scheme and therefore what sort of time is taken.

Will the noble Lord also tell us the cost at the present time of administering claims? Perhaps he could break down the average cost of the claim so that we can see how much of taxpayers’ money that goes into the scheme is used for the benefit of victims and how much goes to the administration of the bureaucracy involved.

European Union Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Stamford and Lord Howe of Aberavon

Wednesday 25th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I am most grateful for that flattering comment from my noble friend Lord Radice.

That is exactly the burden of my remarks this morning. In adapting, as any institution needs to do, to the challenges of the future, we should not exclude doing so by decisions within the existing structures and rules, or the need, where necessary, to evolve those rules. That is a false and damaging distinction to enshrine in our law.

[Lord Howe of Aberavon]

My Lords, I notice that my name is attached to one of the amendments on the Marshalled List. I rise with rather a heavy heart to say anything at all. The kind of discussion that is now taking place—I rebuke nobody for it—and which has been launched by the Bill and beforehand, casts a shadow over an enterprise which deserves to have been given more wholehearted support from a much earlier stage.

I am on record in my own disreputable memoirs as having written a letter in 1948 commending the prospect of Britain taking part in the original negotiations on the formation of the European Community. I reproached the Attlee Government for not having then undertaken the initiative commended by Winston Churchill. It is sad that we did not join at the beginning. We were proud at the time, and entitled to be, of our survival and success in the war. However, at some points we have allowed that pride to be transformed into conceit and have staggered and stumbled in quite a less attractive way in joining this enterprise.

It was entirely right, when we had considered it carefully, to conclude as we did after the 1972 Act that the British people should be entitled to express their view on the major, fundamental change involved in the transfer and sharing of sovereignty, an enterprise that was already under way and working quite well. In that spirit, we were able in successive Governments to play a reasonable part in carrying forward an important and worthwhile policy. I was content and proud, for example, when, under the leadership of my noble friend Lady Thatcher, we circulated a document around the Community entitled Europe—the Future, which visualised steady progress in enhancing the influence of Britain and Europe on the world stage as it was developing.

I have become less and less happy with the to-ing and fro-ing, which has been illustrated as a reductio ad absurdum in this debate. I find my name attached to a thing called a “sunset clause”, which is also a “sunrise and re-set clause”, and does not do justice to the enterprise on which we were embarked and to which we are still committed. The Bill is a response to anxiety among the British people and a tendency to think that we can resolve that lack of understanding if we have an immense clutch of referenda ad infinitum. It would be far better if we were to recommit ourselves to the original enterprise rather than find ourselves engaged in this kind of discussion on this kind of issue.

There is a great course still to be put under way. I grieve at the fact that the Bill purports to give the British people an opportunity that they ought not really to have because it becomes so complex that it is absurd. They were entitled to have that question put to them, as was done in 1975; it was the major step. It is on that foundation that I would prefer us to be going forward now rather than allowing it to get into this morass of multiple referenda.

I do not support my own amendment. I apologise for the fact that it is there because I have joined the rattling to and fro in a context which does not deserve it. I hope that the amendment is not put and that the Bill does not pass, but I am not going to challenge it single-handed at this stage. However, I think that I am entitled to express my dismay in the light of what could have been achieved and sustained, and what can be achieved and sustained if we commit ourselves more wholeheartedly to the European Union, about which Winston Churchill spoke with favour and where successive Prime Ministers have led us forward—even my noble friend Lady Thatcher. We worked together for 15 years, trying to enhance the power of the United Kingdom in the European Union. Our political marriage, which lasted for 15 years, concluded in a divorce, about which the less said the better. However, I reaffirm the legitimacy of that which we did together in those years, and the legitimacy of the objective to which we should be directing ourselves.

The sooner we allow this Bill to spread itself into the morass of discontinuity and die a death, rather than have a sunset clause fluctuating one way or the other, the better. We should let it die of senility because we have had enough of it. That is what I should like to see happen.