Liam Conlon

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for securing today’s debate. This debate gives us an opportunity to consider the people impacted by acts of terror who are too often reduced to numbers and statistics. It is so important that our support systems recognise the individuals behind the tragedies, as only then will they be able to deal with the range of challenges faced by victims of terror. That is how Tessa Jowell, whom I had the pleasure of working for, approached the issue through her role as the Minister with responsibility for humanitarian assistance after 9/11 and in liaising with survivors and bereaved relatives after the 7/7 bombings here in London. I will talk about her work today, as well as what we have learned since. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, this is a poignant week in which to have this debate. The 20th anniversary commemoration events across London this week have reminded us all of the horror of 7/7, in which 52 people were killed and 770 injured, with countless lives touched. When my constituent Christian—a survivor of 7/7 who is now an advocate for other victims of terrorism, especially young people—asked me to speak today, it brought home the very real and raw individual horror of those attacks. I am pleased that Christian joins us in the Gallery today. He was only 13 years old on 7 July 2005. He had just begun to commute by himself into central London for school. That morning, just before arriving at Green Park station, his underground train came to a halt in the tunnel. The driver informed passengers that power fluctuations on the line had brought the whole underground to a standstill and that the train would terminate at Green Park. In reality, the underground had just been targeted by suicide bombers. Christian ran the rest of the distance to school, where he was told that his school had shut for the day and that parents would come to collect their children. Christian had no way of contacting either of his parents, so he headed home with his best friend and his friend’s mum, who lived near Russell Square. As they walked towards Russell Square, they stepped on to the road near the British Medical Association on Tavistock Square when, in Christian’s words: “A complete deafening thump presented the torn shape of a London bus. The roof stretched out across the road towards us, and the graphic contents spread in every direction. The image was clear but there was no reference or knowledge of terrorism for comprehension. I did not understand what had just happened.” The trauma of what Christian witnessed at Tavistock Square led to his being unable to speak about his experience for many years. That suppression continued for 11 years—an entirely understandable and predictable response on a human level, especially for a child, but one that could have been prevented by better intervention. Ultimately, Christian suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health problems due to the severe psychological trauma inflicted by the attack and what he witnessed. Better and, crucially, quicker support might have helped to alleviate that. Tessa Jowell spoke of how the “golden hour”—how victims are treated in the immediate moments after the first impact—is essential and crucial. That extends further with “A Survivors’ Charter”, authored by Survivors Against Terror, speaking of the “crucial immediate few weeks”. Those are the weeks in which support is most important and effective. We must understand the difficulties that people face when seeking support during that time, and we must ensure that survivors are proactively offered effective support, rather than their having to seek it. That support must adequately deal with both the depth and breadth of trauma faced by victims and their families. Tessa recognised the depth of this impact. In her lecture on the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, 10 years ago this week, she said: “Pain of this kind is not like a hurdle you scale. It is a stain that may fade over time but it is always visible when you care to look.” The decision was made within two days of 7/7 to open a family assistance centre, which was intended to be a one-stop shop for assistance. It was modelled on the centres set up in Madrid and New York after their terror attacks, which were open 24 hours a day, providing a helpline, counselling, legal briefings, workshops and other services. Tessa was assigned responsibility for co-ordinating the centre’s implementation and for providing Government support for victims’ relatives more broadly. After Tessa sadly passed away in 2018, Gerald Oppenheim—the chair of the London Emergencies Trust and former chair of the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund, set up in the aftermath of 7/7—paid tribute to her work. Undoubtedly there were faults, as the work of Survivors Against Terror has highlighted. Government contact was slow, co-ordination was lacking and compensation was often too difficult to access. To her credit, Tessa acknowledged her shortcomings and was intent on learning from them. She said: “You have to be prepared to stand and take the anger and frustration of families and take their experience as a resolution to do better next time.” We could all learn from that approach, both today and in our broader work in this place. I am confident that, 20 years on, the Government are making important strides and that this is seen as a cross-party issue. We heard from the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) about the efforts following the Manchester bombing, which were supported by Members on both sides of the House. A new 24/7 dedicated support hub for victims and survivors, currently out for tender, will aim to provide comprehensive support, and there will be better, more proactive communication with victims to bolster awareness of the support available to them in the hours and weeks after a future terrorist attack—those are positive moves. Undoubtedly there is more to be done, and I encourage the Government to sustain Tessa’s legacy, her compassion and her willingness to learn. I also encourage them to reflect on the experience of Christian, my constituent who is here today, because looking at the individual, not the statistic, is far more revealing of the impact of terrorism and the support we must provide to victims.