Reg. Charity No.1117509

The Matthew Fulham Foundation

Picture Of Matthew 3 weeks before his death

Lord Brennan: My Lords, it has rightly been said in the debate that a primary duty of the state is to protect its citizens against death and injury from terrorism. That duty is no less when it comes to protecting those citizens who have been killed or injured by terrorism. The Bill seeks to implement in part the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism. The preamble of that convention requires that all member states, including ours, express their profound solidarity with the victims of terrorism and their families. In Clause 17 of the Bill the Government seek to extend, in my view rightly, the prosecution of terrorist offences outside the UK and across the globe because terrorism is now a world threat. I ask the question: what do we do in this country to protect those who have been injured or killed here or abroad by terrorism? What do those of us who have spoken today, with such vigour, for liberty and security do for these people?

In none of the terrorism Bills that have come into being since 2001 is there a word about what is to be done for the victims of terrorism. Although, ironically enough, we have sought to protect the human rights of accused people in respect of forfeiture and the like, and although we give compensation to those who have suffered damage to their property because of the actions of the police during the proper investigation of terrorist

offences, for the victims there is nothing.

On 7 July, 52 people were killed inside the United Kingdom; 11 died at Sharm el-Sheikh a couple of weeks later, 33 in Bali, they were from this country, and in Turkey and in the Middle East. Many more were injured beyond the 160 odd who lost their lives. Families were disrupted and lives ruined. In other countries, those whose lives are affected either the victims who died, the survivors or the injured, get support. In the United States the scheme embraces all within that country who are killed or injured by terrorism, and all American citizens wherever they are injured. It is the same in France, in Israel and in other countries.

What about the United Kingdom? We treat the victims of terrorism, those we want to protect so specially, as victims of crime. In a code of practice for the victims of crime published in October, which I have just looked at, terrorist offences and terrorist victims get no special mention and yet we say they deserve the maximum protection. A young woman of 32 had to have a double amputation of her legs after 7 July. She has no income. Who is going to pay the rent or the mortgage? Who is going to sort out adequate prostheses for two legs? Who is going to pay for the medical treatment?

What are we to do?

It is said that as the terrorist offences happened in England the victims can apply to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, not in person but on paper but not for all they have lost, only for a capped maximum. This does not apply in the other countries I have described. They have to wait until the authority has got, if you do not mind, the police reports. An authority that is under-funded, under-staffed and which under-compensates. If they have the misfortune to be killed at Sharm el-Sheikh or in Bali, they get nothing; nothing from the Government here, or from the governments in some of those countries, such as Egypt. They get no insurance, because when they next travel abroad and look at their policy, they see that their £20 premium has an exclusion for terrorism. The people from Sharm el-Sheikh who applied got nothing. They are adrift, those we want to protect. In this debate, can we not garner the enthusiasm in favour of liberty and of security, and remember those who have actually suffered?

On 19 October in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister rightly said the

Government would consider a scheme to compensate the victims of terrorism here and abroad. I personally regard these victims as people suffering in a different order of magnitude from ordinary crime. They are the front-line casualties if we are to call this a war and they deserve the maximum consideration and all that is necessary to help them recover their lives.

We should have a "victims of terrorism support" organisation. It should be properly funded, efficient and rapid, and could be financed by insurance. The French do this with a levy of £2 per policy. When you think that 65 million foreign visits are made by the people of this country each year, and think in your mind's eye of the travel premium for each one, a couple of euros is a modest expense to protect the victims of terrorism.

We have been here before. In the Blitz and the Second World War, Churchill

told the nation that it was:

"unfair for British society to place the entire burden of the

destruction on those unlucky enough to be hit".

That goes for those unlucky enough to be killed or injured, wherever it might occur. So hereafter in our debate, either by amendment or the announcement of a new scheme by the Government, let us be seen to do something for the victims of terrorism as well as debate liberty and security.

Parliamentary Update by Lord Brenan

Extract from Lords Hansard

21st November 2005 For Information Only

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