Victims of Overseas Terrorism Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The spirit of our nation includes a sense of wanting to help those in need and wanting to right an injustice. In both those characteristics of our national spirit, we are failing the victims of terrorism abroad. For them, there is no system of assistance, compensation or, in simple terms, justice. Wherever the grieving spouse of a victim or an injured person might be, they are in a country abroad, suffering mentally and physically, culturally adrift and often without the means, either financial or organisational, to remedy their predicament. In the second war, when London was subject to savage attack during the Blitz, the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, said that it was, "““unfair for British society to place the entire burden of the destruction on those unlucky enough to be hit””." It is equally unfair not to compensate and assist those who are killed or injured by terrorism abroad when we give that assistance and compensation if it occurs here. Let me explain the facts. We have, over the past seven or eight years, enacted with great force and parliamentary vigour many statutes against terrorism, on the fundamental premise that it is our duty as a Parliament, as a Government and as a nation to protect our citizens against terrorism. We provide protection for those citizens here, after the July bombings in 2005, under the criminal injuries compensation scheme. If they happen to be injured in a European country, each country is now obliged to provide compensation to any citizen of the European Union injured or killed by terrorism in their own territory. There is no such system beyond the United Kingdom and Europe. Some 10 million or more British holidaymakers travel to countries outside Europe and the United States each year. Some of those were in Bali in October 2002, when 200 people were killed, 27 of them British. Some of those were in Turkey in 2005, when one was killed and half a dozen injured, Again in 2005, at Sharm el-Sheikh, 11 were killed and many more were injured. Those people were targeted because they were innocent, because they were tourists, because they were in a club, hotel or public space with no protection whatever; and they were so targeted to intimidate and create terror. Many countries have refused to accept that kind of threat. The United States, Australia, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Israel compensate their citizens for the effects of injury or death from terrorism wherever it occurs, each such country considering it its national duty so to act. Present today to listen to this debate are members of the families afflicted in those incidents that I have just described. They come to listen, in the expectation of parliamentary solutions to an injustice. Those people—our people—injured abroad live here in their ordinary lives, pay their taxes here and act as citizens here, and we should not abandon them when they are injured by coincidence other than being here. At what cost? Doing the best that one can in an unpredictable state of affairs, having regard to what has happened and what might happen, it is thought that £3 million a year would present an adequate fund to meet the needs of such people. It almost embarrasses me to have to justify the expenditure of such a sum in such a noble cause. This state of affairs is a need that we must meet. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office seeks to do it through consular assistance and advice, but not beyond that. We have just agreed to pay £1 million in conjunction with the British Red Cross as an emergency fund, and by that very agreement we have thereby acknowledged the need, which is long term and not just short term. Also, in insurance we do not meet the need. The House of Commons Treasury Committee, in its fourth report of this Session in February, on page 20, paragraph 2, said: "““We are especially concerned that there is insufficient awareness of exclusions in areas such as terrorist acts … and in particular by evidence that around ten million United Kingdom holidaymakers in 2006 would not have been covered for medical expenses in the event of terrorist incidents””." When people in this country pay for their holiday insurance, they mostly have no idea at all that there is an exclusion for terrorism. When the bomb explodes and their lives are split asunder, there is no insurance. The British Insurance Brokers’ Association has recently published a survey showing, from the results that it has been able to find involving 75 per cent of the market, that 78 per cent of policies have a terrorism exclusion clause, some of which will have a write-back provision for medical expenses—but that is an enormous proportion of the market. Some15 per cent have no exclusion for terrorism and the existence of that 15 per cent illustrates that the risk can be insured, economically and on the open market. That state of affairs identified by the Treasury Committee and the British Insurance Brokers’ Association means that the insurance market should be the basic source for this kind of advice and assistance. The Bill seeks to use insurance to achieve that objective. Clause 2 puts on a statutory footing that which is now a convention—namely, that our consular officials everywhere in the world should have a statutory duty to advise and assist our citizens in cases of terrorist attack and that the Secretary of State should consult and publish the arrangements reached after such consultation. Secondly, regarding insurance, many of your Lordships will remember the IRA attacks in the City of London in the early 1990s. That led to the creation of an insurance system backed by the state, because the risk was thought to be enormous. The result of that arrangement between the Government and the insurance industry was enacted in the Reinsurance (Acts of Terrorism) Act 1993, whereby the Government became the reinsurer. That system, called Pool Re, now holds reserves of £1.664 billion; and through a retrocession agreement, the Government have been paid from that fund, since it was established, over £200 million. I await with interest anyone who suggests that £3 million is a figure that requires some special attention in the light of numbers such as that. This Bill seeks to create a mirror of that which we thought was necessary to protect property as being the minimum we need to protect people. Clause 3 repeats, almost word for word, the property protection provisions of the 1993 Act and allows the Government to assimilate this scheme into that. It is neat, tidy, economical, practical and there is no reason why it cannot be done. The fallback position under the Bill is a scheme similar to that for criminal injuries in this country. It is a fallback scheme; it should not be necessary—but the Bill makes provision for it, in case it becomes so, if arrangements with insurers not bear fruit. The scope of the Bill is directed at British people who are ordinarily resident in this country, but I realise that there is a problem, as many noble Lords have indicated to me—a person engaged in charitable work overseas can be just as much at risk as a transient visitor. The Bill allows the Secretary of State to introduce a wider range of protection than is presently envisaged in Clause 1. What is the conclusion? I have been sent correspondence by Members of your Lordships' House from across the political parties and the Cross Benches, and from every political party in the Commons. Nobody—I stress, nobody—has suggested that there is anything wrong with this idea. No doubt, that is why in October 2005 the Prime Minister said that the Government would consider a scheme of this kind. This was pursued by Tessa Jowell in her ministerial role. She has been very helpful and co-operative with those who have been involved in seeking to implement these changes. She says that the £1 million that the Government have given is not a compensation scheme—it is temporary relief. In a recent letter, she stated: "““I recognise that this is not a compensation scheme and that there is a disparity between the state UK compensation scheme offered to those killed or injured at home, and the financial assistance offered to those affected abroad””." She promised that the Government would consider the issue and, I hope, might act. I emphasise that this Bill does not make any primary call on public funds. It says to the Government, ““Do for your people that which you did for your property owners””. It does, however, create substantive provisions that allow negotiation and consultation to take place, followed, we hope, by the implementation of a different insurance market covering this risk. One of our parliamentarians, Toby Ellwood, the Conservative Member for Bournemouth East, lost his brother in the Bali incident. He is quoted as saying that terrorism has no borders and neither should our support for the victims of terrorism. It is unbecoming of our country that this state of affairs exists. We should act before it shames us. I commend the Bill to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Brennan.)