Prime minister considers retrospective scheme to aid Britons injured in Bali, Egypt and Mumbai
Ned Temko
The Observer, Sunday 9 August 2009
Facing warnings of a “Gurkha-scale” policy misjudgment, Gordon Brown has set aside a cabinet decision to deny financial help to dozens of British victims of terrorist attacks overseas.
Overruling his senior ministers, the prime minister was said last night to be considering the possibility of a “retrospective” scheme to cover more than 200 Britons injured or killed by terrorists in Bali, Turkey, Egypt and Mumbai.
As a result of a legal loophole Tony Blair pledged to close in 2005, British citizens targeted in terrorist attacks abroad have been denied payouts from a scheme put in place after the 7/7 London bombings for domestic victims.
For those such as 29-year-old Will Pike, who suffered crippling injuries in Mumbai, this has meant the prospect of life in a wheelchair with the maximum of £15,000 help from a Red Cross emergency fund.
A committee of senior ministers – including the home, foreign and justice secretaries – finally decided last month to close the compensation loophole, but unanimously rejected making the scheme retrospective, deciding that the price tag could be too high.
Last night a Downing Street spokesman confirmed the decision to set up a “fantastic compensation scheme” for victims of future attacks. He made it clear that the prime minister had not accepted the decision to rule out covering existing victims. “We are still considering whether it is going to be retrospective,” he said.
The rethink came amid signs of anger among victims and their families over the decision to cover only future terrorist attacks. Labour MP Ian McCartney said the families’ “sense of abandonment” was understandable. “It is like the Gurkhas,” he added. “The government has done the right thing by agreeing to a compensation scheme, but unless the scheme is retrospective, it will still be justice denied.”
Trevor Lakin, whose son Jeremy was killed in the 2005 terrorist attack in Sharm el-Sheikh and has been a leading campaigner for other victims, also said the decision was perverse and “unjust”.
Lakin’s insistence that he personally does not want compensation has been cited by at least one minister in defence of the decision not to make the package retrospective. But he said this was a gross misunderstanding of his position. “I have said the only compensation that would make any difference to my own family – to bring Jeremy back – is beyond the government’s ability to provide.”
But he said that the government had a responsibility to many other victims in “real need” of support: “The reason that the government has finally decided to help future victims is that they have looked at the current victims and said, ‘These people need help’.”
Source: www.guardian.co.uk, 9 August 2009
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