Member

This is really worrying. At the moment we are seeing that the Government cannot possibly on one hand delay compensation payments for 40-plus years and to have been found guilty of evasion, and then, on the other hand, argue that they cannot set up the scheme until after they have read the final report, which is what happened under the previous Government, and fix eligibility to said ex gratia scheme set up as late as 2017. The Government’s advisors recommended that past payments should be discounted. There was a specific argument that this was not compensation but now it appears that everyone is insisting it must be fixed to it, which conveniently denies those who died before the schemes were established 40 years ago. After the fact, they have lost their right to claim special injuries, suffering or mental injury. I apologise; I realise this is highly technical. Can the Minister help explain why these changes are happening? They are so different from Sir Brian’s initial report, his subsequent report and the Francis review.