Victims of Terrorism: State Support

Andy MacNae Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered state support for victims of terrorism.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. In a week when we remember the victims of the 7/7 attacks and all terror attacks, I am grateful for the opportunity to open this important debate to consider our response to what should be one of the gravest responsibilities of any Government: the duty of the state to stand with and support British victims of terror.

Terrorism is not simply an attack on individuals; it is an attack on our way of life, on our shared values and on the very idea of a free and open society. When civilians are targeted in terror attacks, they are targeted as proxies of the state. That places on our Government—indeed, on each and every one of us—a special, inescapable obligation to ensure that those citizens are recognised, supported and treated with dignity, yet historically that obligation has not been fulfilled.

Previous Governments promised change and failed to follow through, offering thoughts and prayers when the attention of the world’s media was on them while quietly ignoring and dismissing the pleas and plights of victims. I know that the Minister, as a veteran of the war on terror, will be all too aware of these issues. It is my hope that the debate is an opportunity not only for us to shine a light on the topic, but for parliamentarians of all parties to demonstrate to the Minister our strong interest in seeing this Government be the one who finally resolve this issue once and for all and substantively improve support for victims. No fluff—just change.

I commend the Minister on his recent announcement on issuing a Government tender for the establishment of a victims of terrorism support hub. May I commend Pool Reinsurance for its financial backing and support of the hub, investing millions in support for victims of terrorist attacks past, present and future? I know that we have a long way to go in improving support for victims, but this support hub, if implemented effectively, with correct oversight provided, will make a huge difference to the lives of victims of terrorism across the nation.

More generally, where have we been falling short? Before coming to the House, I, like many members of the public, was blissfully unaware of just how lacking our current support system was. We would all assume, perhaps understandably, that support for victims of terrorism is a given. After all, why would not we support those people? To think that they would go without support flies in the face of all we see reported on the news. Government pledges talk of resilience and strength and of how we will not be cowed in the face of terrorism, but as the election loomed last year I was contacted by my constituent Travis Frain, who was injured in a terrorist attack on Westminster bridge and this House in March 2017 when he was just 19 years old. Travis told me his story. I would like to share a portion of it with hon. Members now.

While in hospital immediately after the attack, Travis received fantastic support and treatment from doctors, nurses and paramedics in the emergency department, but after his eight-day stay in hospital and two operations he was discharged home and simply told to contact his GP and say that he had been involved in a terror attack. He received no family liaison officer or point of contact of any kind in the police; the Metropolitan police deemed him not injured enough to receive one.

When Travis contacted his GP, he had to wait several weeks for an appointment, by which time his stitches had been left in for far too long, causing further and unnecessary scarring. He told his GP that he needed physiotherapy and that he wanted to offload what had happened to him, sharing it with someone trained and able to cope with such a traumatic situation and details; someone other than his friends and family. He was told that there would be a long waiting list for both services. After six weeks, he received a physiotherapy appointment but was told that he could be offered only non-contact physio. He was provided with a sheet of paper with suggested exercises and told to return in a few months.

Travis had to wait nearly 13 weeks for any form of psychiatric assessment, after which he received a phone appointment. By that time, having received little or no support, he was suffering with sleep issues, struggling to get to sleep and to stay asleep as well as struggling with nightmares, night-terrors and so on. The doctors told him that they were not able to provide any one-to-one support and the only advice they could provide for his struggles with sleep was to open the bedroom window for an hour or so a day to let in fresh air and drink a cup of warm milk before bed.

Travis was forced to start using his student finance to pay for private medical treatment, serving only to push him and his family into deeper financial worry at a time when the entire country would have assumed and expected the Government would wrap around him and such people to provide them with the support they rightly deserve. Since the attack, Travis has been working with other victims to improve support for victims of future attacks, and I am pleased that he has joined us here today. His is just one story of many, and I expect we will hear others in the debate.

Before I move on, Travis said something that stuck with me: survivors of terror can be an incredibly powerful voice in the prevention of future attacks, but only if we afford them the support and assistance they deserve. By investing in their support, we are not only investing in their recovery, but in a more secure and safer Britain. With that in mind, I hope the Minister will join me in thanking organisations such as Resilience in Unity, which is based in my constituency, for their incredible work to incorporate the voices of those with lived experience of terrorism in the prevention of radicalisation. Their work is undoubtedly having a significant effect on our national security space, and only serves to provide further justification of why it is so important that we improve support for victims of terror.

As the Minister will be aware, after a campaign by the charity Survivors Against Terror during the 2019 election, both major parties committed to implement Martyn’s law to improve security of venues and crowded places. It has been wonderful to see that it has now received Royal Assent, but parties also promised to consult on a survivors’ charter—a comprehensive guarantee of rights and entitlements for survivors. The charter was not designed as an aspiration, but as a clear blueprint for justice and dignity. Six years on, however, there has been sadly limited progress to respond to the charter. I want to set out the eight key tenets of the charter in full here, because every one of them is essential, and they will do well to frame the debate today.

The first tenet is guaranteed proactive personal support. As so many survivors have testified, it is not enough to offer passive signposting or vague advice. Proactive support means dedicated caseworkers, continuity of care and outreach that ensures no one slips through the cracks. The Government should maintain a dedicated database of people affected by terrorism to ensure proactively they are receiving the support they deserve and need. Victims should not be—as was the case with several of my constituents including Travis and survivors of the Sousse attacks in Tunisia and the Manchester Arena attacks—simply discharged from hospital after an attack and left to their own devices without any point of contact in the police, continuity of support from the NHS, or any form of assistance with their physical or psychological recovery.

The second is guaranteed access to rapid psychological triage and services. There is a good report by Survivors Against Terror, which I recommend. It reveals the scandal of survivors left to waste away for years on waiting lists for trauma counselling, in total distress and often forced to pay privately for therapy just to stay alive. One Manchester Arena survivor described being

“in an appalling state of psychological distress”,

unable to leave home. We are a first-world country and we can and should do better.

The third is guaranteed immediate financial assistance. Terror attacks destroy not only lives but livelihoods. Families can lose their main breadwinner overnight. Others face sudden costs of travel, funerals or accommodation. Immediate financial assistance must be available without bureaucratic delays.

The fourth is guaranteed state compensation funds. Hon. Members will likely be aware of concerns that the Ministry of Justice’s criminal injuries compensation scheme is thought to be not fit for purpose, and survivors of terrorism are faced with a system so unresponsive that nearly three quarters of them are reported to have felt that the process was neither fair nor sympathetic. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority demands thousands of pages of paperwork from victims, forcing them to retraumatise themselves continuously for miserly small amounts of compensation. It has, in many cases, demanded repayments years later, reduced awards for irrelevant reasons, and retraumatised survivors with invasive evidence requests that require them to provide grisly evidence of their injuries. Like those young girls in the Manchester Arena attack, who had been peppered with fractures and shrapnel wounds across their bodies, they are forced to list their top five injuries, which will then be calculated in decreasing order of compensation awarded. Are we so inhumane that we treat our fellow citizens with such disdain for what is often a very small amount of money? It is particularly disappointing, therefore, that the Ministry of Justice recently confirmed that it is shelving the long-awaited review of the compensation authority. The Minister might want to comment on that.

The fifth is guaranteed legal support. Survivors and bereaved families often face complex legal challenges: coroners’ inquests, criminal trials, civil claims and compensation appeals. Too often, they are left to navigate that alone. The charter rightly calls for guaranteed legal support to guide survivors through this ordeal.

The sixth is guaranteed recognition. Recognition is more than a symbolic gesture. A recent report showed that 97% of survivors support the establishment of a national day of remembrance and tribute to survivors of terrorism. That would bring us in line with our international partners in France, Spain, Germany, Canada and the United States, which already observe such a day and recognise its importance. Other nations have even created national honours to mark the sacrifice of victims. Given that we have recently implemented initiatives such as the Elizabeth Emblem for first responders killed in the line of duty, I think the UK could consider following suit.

The seventh is guaranteed memorialisation. This calls for a commitment to support a permanent national memorial for all British victims of terrorism here and overseas. Survivors and bereaved families deserve a place where their loss and resilience can be honoured publicly and permanently and for the wider public to become better educated on the threat of terrorism. We have only to look at places like the US, where the 9/11 and Oklahoma City national memorial museums fulfil that exact purpose, ensuring that the next generation does not forget.

Eighth, and finally, is guaranteed comprehensive, long-term support. Trauma does not fade on a timetable, as many of us who have experienced loss know too well. For those with additional or different needs, such as children or adolescents or those from underrepresented communities, long-term support must be guaranteed, resourced and proactively offered so that no one is left isolated after the initial months have passed and the conversation has moved on.

Taking all that together, I believe that we must act now to put right years of neglect. I hope that today’s debate will mark the beginning of a renewed movement in this House towards the betterment of support for victims of terrorism—both those who are already dealing with the impacts and those who will be affected by future attacks.

Survivors have waited years for action. They waited through repeated reviews into compensation, mental health and memorialisation, many of which remain unpublished or unimplemented. I am glad that, just months into his term, my hon. Friend the security Minister published in part a long-awaited Home Office review into support for victims of terrorism, especially as it sat on the previous security Minister’s desk for two years after it was completed. However, more clarity is required on the 63 recommendations identified; it is not enough to publish just two.

As I move towards my conclusion, I note that in almost all the seats in the Public Gallery sits a victim of terrorism—I welcome you and thank you for being here. It should be clear to all of us that there is no Member of this House who does not have at least one constituent directly impacted by these issues. There is one clear and shared message from their many testimonies: the current system is not working. It does not recognise the unique nature of terrorism as the deliberate attempt to destroy public morale. It does not recognise that citizens have been targeted precisely because they are British. It does not recognise the dignity that survivors are entitled to as a matter of right.

I call the Minister to respond to three key requests. The first is to publish in full all, or as many as possible, of the 63 recommendations identified in the Home Office review of support for victims and set out a road map for implementing them with an explanation of why the Government feel that any need to remain unpublished, for instance for security reasons. The second is to update us on the Government’s statutory consultation on the establishment of a national day for victims of terrorism, which concluded last month, and provide a timeline for when it will finally be implemented. The third is to share his understanding of how long it will take to set up the survivors hub that the Government have promised to implement and how long it will be before its services are up and running and available to victims. I am sure the sense of urgency will be not lost on the Minister, for another attack could happen at any time.

We must be clear that this is about not charity or pity, but justice: justice for those who, through no fault of their own, became participants on the frontline of a battle to protect our democracy and way of life. This debate is about more than policy; it is about who we are as a country. When terrorism strikes, it strikes at our shared values and our shared humanity. In standing by the survivors, we reaffirm our common purpose. If we fail to act, we are complicit in a further betrayal, and we will have allowed those who set out to divide and terrorise us to succeed by abandoning the very people that they harmed.

Let us commit today that no British victim of terrorism will ever again be left to feel that their country has abandoned them. Let us be the Parliament that finally acts to improve support for victims of terrorism—that proves to every survivor of terrorism that this country stands strong and unbowed in the face of terror.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy MacNae]

I thank the Minister for his response and every colleague present for their brilliant contributions to the debate. I was just reflecting on how many Members present have been personally touched by incidents of terror. For so many of us, it is removed by just one or two persons. This is a personal matter for so many Members of this House, and it was enormously reassuring to hear the cross-party and consensual nature of the debate—the recognition that the subject is something I think we all feel a great imperative to address. I hope that our guests in the Gallery will feel reassured that this is a Parliament that, across the Benches, is absolutely committed to delivering true change in this area.

Through the all-party group, which we formed recently and of which colleagues present are members, we have an opportunity to support the Minister in all the work being done to deliver on those commitments now and in the coming years. I thank everyone, and you, Mrs Harris. I hope that the debate has given everyone a great sense of reassurance.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered state support for victims of terrorism.