Riot Compensation Bill — House of Commons, 2015-12-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Rupa Asha Huq (Labour, Centre-left): Sorry, I am not into zombie movies. It was Mr Melville’s example. They found cars burning and other such things one does not expect to see in Ealing. Bang & Olufsen closed early, as a precautionary measure, but even so, the glass was shattered and the footage attracted many millions of views on YouTube. Ravi found his store in flames. The London fire brigade was in attendance for 24 hours. It was not just the shop; there were flats above as well The Bill attempts to redress some of the imbalances in the current legislation and revamp the compensation provisions, as the hon. Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) described. The existing legislation is on the aged side, if that is not too much of an understatement. Very few statutes—very few anything—dating from 1886 continue completely unaltered today. It was a time when Queen Victoria was on the throne, and I think both Lord Salisbury and Gladstone had turns at being Prime Minister that year. A house dating from 1886 would at the very least have needed a bit of updating: a lick of paint, central heating and other mod cons. Riots in the UK are, thankfully, relatively rare, but the legal framework needs to be brought into the 21st century, as the hon. Member for Dudley South said A lot of people called the riots of four years ago the social media, high-tech riots. Some commentators even likened them to the contemporaneous Arab spring, which I think is going a bit far—the riots in Tunisia and those countries had a different cause. To pursue the parallel, if we were updating an 1886 house in line with what the legislation needs, we would need several coats of paint, not just a lick of paint, and total rewiring and heating, with a new boiler and radiators. The cumulative effect is that it becomes too much of a job to stick with the existing structure, so we do need new legislation. It makes perfect sense, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing the Bill to the House today, because we need to bring that Victorian legislation kicking and screaming into the present day. Ealing council’s riot scrutiny panel report from 2012 stated that over 1,000 999 calls were made on 8 August 2011, many of which went unanswered. The report states that there was damage to 100 shops and businesses and that "one supermarket burnt down"—Ealing Green Local, which I referred to. It took 18 months to reopen. It now has half its original footprint and has been rebranded as a SPAR. When the riots happened, I was cowering indoors watching Twitter, but I remember going the next day and seeing an Edwardian turret from the roof structure of that building being lifted away by crane. It was quite surreal Ravi outlined what happened in the aftermath and told me what he would like to see in future riot compensation legislation. He said that the insurers had paid out, but that the process was painfully slow. He reckoned that his claim was accelerated somewhat because he knew someone on the inside. That should not be so: we should be a nation above corruption in those things. He pointed out—the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) also made this point—that consequential loss should be covered as well. Ravi said that, at present, compensation covers only fixtures and fittings, whereas he would like loss of earnings to be included Ravi’s other point was that the role of the council was relatively limited. Ealing’s report said: "Feedback on the Council was very positive—the payment of £1,200 was delivered promptly, and the named officer had been in frequent contact with advice and support." That is what the council said.