Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 26 May 2022 to Question 5346 on Roads: Accidents, if he will publish further details on the schemes available to provide compensation and support to victims and families of road crash fatalities.

The Fatal Accidents Act 1976 provides for an award of bereavement damages to certain family members which could be applied for in relation to road traffic accident fatalities. The size of the award is set by legislation and is currently £15,120.

Victims and bereaved families may be eligible to apply to the Government-funded Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (the Scheme), which exists to compensate for serious physical or mental injury attributable to being a direct victim of a crime of violence. Bereavement and other payments are also available to qualifying relatives in fatal cases. As the Scheme is publicly funded, strict eligibility criteria apply. For the purposes of eligibility, an incident involving a vehicle will amount to a crime of violence only where the vehicle was used with intent to cause injury to a person.