I am grateful for that indication. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) on the Opposition Front Bench also has the kind of constituency where I am sure she would recognise that, in our multicultural London, many businesses are run by people who speak English as a second language and who, in times of riots, are a long way from the state. That is because they do not rely on the state very much at all. Even notifying their intention to make a claim is not something that they would understand. Many of my constituents did not understand that they could make a claim. They simply sat with their head in their hands, under-insured and not aware that the state would support them in this way. They got to the understanding that they could make a claim because word about the High Street Fund spread quickly among the businesses alongside theirs. That was how they started to realise that they, too, could make a claim. I am grateful that the Minister has indicated some flexibility on that, but I wanted to stress my concerns that people might be caught out of the system.
I broadly welcome what has been said today, with some reservations about the nature of the bureau and the expertise that it will need, and real concern that we should understand the sort of areas that can experience riots in our country and why it is important that, as a nation, we support those communities.
There is a potential conflict between the Met declaring a riot and the fact that the budget comes from the declarer. I hope that the Minister will say a little more about the circumstances in which a riot is declared, because in 2011 the situation was so patently clear that it would have been very hard for the Met not to declare a riot, but that is not always the case. I remember just a few hours into the rioting the former Member for Holborn and St Pancras said to me, “Watch and see if it
actually declares this to be a riot.” I would therefore like some reassurance about the circumstances in which a riot is declared, because that could be a source of contention.
When the London Assembly looked into the 2011 riots, it came to the view that the police were handling the situation so badly that the money ought to be in the local authority’s pot. There is some merit in that, because local authorities are much closer to local businesses and can liaise very intently with Government. The money is coming from the Treasury anyway—let us be clear about that—but how it works within Government is the big question. I had sympathy with the London Assembly’s view, although I think that it is important that the police understand that consent must not break down and that, if it does, it comes from their budget stream. There is a discussion to be had about that potential conflict. The Bill is settled on the money coming from the police. It is therefore important to understand the moment at which a riot is declared and how that decision is reached.
There was a sense in those early months that the Met was losing money as a consequence of having to give money out—that there was no extra money from the Treasury. We need our most deprived communities to be policed; we do not want all the money available to go to compensation. That is a complexity in the Bill that I think requires further explanation.
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