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Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will have listened with great respect and interest to the intervention of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. The incident that he has retailed from 50 years ago shows what a very humanitarian politician he has been during 50 years of extremely distinguished public life.

My noble friend the Leader of the Opposition and my namesake, my noble friend Lord Davies of Coity, spoke powerfully on this subject and I agree with them. There would be no point in repeating what they just said. But I rise to ask the Minister a question. Can he tell the House what is the average time taken to process applications under the criminal injuries compensation scheme? My noble friend gave us some rather different figures, but if the noble Lord’s figures are correct and annual disbursements are of the order of roughly £200 million and the total liabilities of the scheme are about £500 million, it implies that rather a long time is taken to process each individual claim.

If my noble friend’s figures represent reality, the situation may be slightly better, but it is important for the House to know exactly the effectiveness of the bureaucracy handling this important scheme and therefore what sort of time is taken.

Will the noble Lord also tell us the cost at the present time of administering claims? Perhaps he could break down the average cost of the claim so that we can see how much of taxpayers’ money that goes into the scheme is used for the benefit of victims and how much goes to the administration of the bureaucracy involved.