Riot Compensation Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
David Lindon Lammy (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in the debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) on bringing the Bill to the House. I have reservations that I want to put before the House, but I agree with the general consensus that the 1886 Act is in serious need of review and change. It is right and appropriate that we have arrived at that point today The starting point for any discussion on riots is understanding that the basis of our policing in this country is consent—it is a source of great pride, and countries throughout the world look at policing in this country and try to learn from it. That is the idea that our police do not routinely carry guns and do not police by force. They police alongside the general public, and the general public act as citizens alongside them in the matter of policing. When that consent breaks down in a catastrophic way, we experience riots, which we do from time to time in our communities Because we all pay our taxes, and because we supply the uniforms and the badge and contribute to the training of our police officers, we rightly and appropriately say that, when the consent breaks down, people should be compensated for their loss—obviously, in our country, the vast majority of us do not participate in that consent breaking down and would not dream of participating in a riot. The detail of what that compensation should be is described in the 1886 Act It was a devastating four days for my constituency. It was a devastating moment. In constituencies such as Tottenham, we do not want another riot in a generation. Fortunately in Britain, we do not have areas that are so crippled by social unrest that the prospect of regeneration and a future looks bleak. Parts of the United States—I think of the city of Detroit—effectively went bankrupt when industry left, people fled, populations fell and buildings lay derelict for year after year. We do not want that in any community in this country, which is why the subject of the debate is so important When catastrophic riot occurs to a community, we must do all we can to put that community back together as quickly as possible, so that we do not see business and industry flee such that economic activity can never occur in that community again. I said this at the time of the 2011 riots: the vast majority of my constituents, including the vast majority of young people, were terrified in their homes. They did not participate in the riots. Indeed, because of the nature of the 24-hour media these days, with flames going up and the same scenes being repeated over and over again, it was a red rag to criminals all over London to participate in those riots I spent a lot of time with those small business owners on Tottenham High Road. I also spent some time with small business owners in communities such as Croydon. These were the most decent people, people who get up very early in the morning and finish work very late at night and who, frankly, do not rely on the state at all other than when they are ill. They were devastated by what had happened to them in the rioting over those four days For the first time, we saw riots in parts of London—Clapham, Ealing, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), and Enfield—in which we might not previously have thought we would see them. Somehow, this was a moment in time when we needed to take stock and to ensure that the arrangements were right not only for those individuals who lost their businesses but for those who lost their homes. I pay tribute to the men and women of my constituency who, the morning after the riots, standing only in their pyjamas, holding their children, had had their homes burnt to the ground. At the time, promises were made. A riot was declared, and it is appropriate that we return to the circumstances in which a riot is declared as that is covered in the Bill. The assumption is that that decision will be made by the police The Government then said, quite rightly, tough things about those who had rioted and said to the victims, "We will compensate you. We will put you back to where you were." That was said by the Prime Minister, by the Mayor of London and by other city leaders across the country. Sometimes, when we see a terrible event, usually in a country a long way from here—an earthquake, a tsunami, a flood, a terrible and horrific natural event that disrupts lives and causes damage—we can go to a bank and contribute a little bit of money towards a relief fund. One gets the sense that the whole world combines so that people affected by the event can be brought back to normal. Why, then, did small business owners up and down the country find that three months, four months, six months, a year, two years or three years after the events of 2011 they still had not been compensated? I can think of one business in Tottenham that still has not been compensated It was a shocking example of bureaucracy out of control. The performance was patchy across different police forces, and patchy in partnership with the insurance industry. I was very critical of the insurance industry at the time, and the insensitivity of loss adjusters was extraordinary. People were weeping because of the hurdles they were being put through and how they were made to feel as though the rioting was somehow their fault. I must put these comments in the strongest terms because if I had some of those small business owners standing by my side they would expect me to say this. It was not a pretty sight. They said to me time and time again that if their business had been caught up in a tsunami in Thailand, they would have been better treated. They have said to me: "This was no fault of mine. I pay my taxes, I do not rely on the state, but my business is gone, I have had a heart attack. I can’t eat. I keep seeing flashes of the fire. Everything has been destroyed and a year later I have nothing." Time and time again those were the stories we heard across the country.