Nick Thomas-Symonds

I thank the hon. Lady for the tone of her comments. On her final point, that number is just the number of registrations, not the totality of the number of victims. On the point that she raises, I entirely share her concern. As I said when I gave evidence to the inquiry in May, the test that I always have at the forefront of my mind when making changes is about not causing additional undue delay to the payment of compensation. The hon. Lady asked me about 2029; that is a backstop, not a target date. I said that to the inquiry in May as well. The target is to get the payments out as quickly as possible. As I said in response to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), the test-and-learn approach was always taken because we felt—and IBCA felt—that that would ultimately be the way to get the money out to the largest number of people as quickly as possible. I think we are now in an exponential phase where the number of payments is going up quickly. The hon. Lady is entirely right to draw attention to the number of people who have died before actually securing justice. That is again a reason why I have been pushing for payments to be made as quickly as possible. Finally, the special category mechanism is one of the seven issues mentioned in the consultation. I know this has been asked before, but I would urge her and her constituents to respond to that.