§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Burns.]
10.17 pm§ Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann)I am glad to have an opportunity to refer to some of the concerns of disabled Royal Ulster Constabulary officers. The matters to which I shall refer have been brought to my attention by the Disabled Police Officers Association, representatives of which are present here this evening.
The DPOA exists for the relief and benefit of those members of the RUC and RUC Reserve who, as a result of any subversive activity, have received "serious permanent personal injury". That definition is deliberately framed to concentrate the association's work on those really seriously injured, so that it caters for just a fraction of thousands of police officers who have been injured in the past 25 years.
At present, there are 275 members of the association, including some 40 who continue as serving RUC officers, and 15 widows. The association receives no grant aid from any Government source. It is a charity which depends entirely upon voluntary subscriptions from those in the force, as normal fund-raising is impossible because of the terrorist threat, and that threat cannot yet be regarded as having been dissipated.
Disabled police officers must provide for their future medical needs, including the extra needs generated by their disabilities. The equipment they require is not always available. Earlier this evening, Mr. Mulcolmson, the former chairman of the DPOA, told me that he had to purchase the callipers that he was wearing on his legs, as he was unable to get them through the national health service.
They have the needs that are generated from their disability. They have to maintain the living standards of themselves and their families. In trying to meet their various needs, they have recourse to state benefits, compensation claims and charity. I shall deal with each in turn.
In dealing with state benefits, I shall focus on industrial injury legislation, under which claims can be made for disablement benefit. It is especially important for officers to qualify for that benefit, because, if they do so, they can claim a reduced earnings allowance, which can be significant for them. The benefit is payable if the injury arises out of or in the course of their employment. There is no difficulty with the first requirement. Officers of the RUC, whether they are attacked on or off duty or after retirement, are attacked because they are or were RUC officers.
There is a problem with the requirement that injury arises in the course of employment. The requirement means that benefit will be allowed only if the injury occurred while the claimant was at work or on duty. That is a reasonable requirement in normal cases or circumstances, but it operates in a most unreasonable manner when applied to the circumstances that have arisen in Northern Ireland.
Terrorists in Northern Ireland do not confine their attacks to times when their victims are formally engaged in their employment. Attacks are made when the victims are off duty. Too rigid an application of the test has caused injustice. The RUC defines being on duty for regular members. It provides that they have a 24-hour responsibility, and when off duty can take a conscious 120 decision to place themselves on duty. Reservists cannot put themselves on duty, but have to be placed on duty by a regular member.
I shall use some examples to show how the test has operated rather unfairly. I refer first to an officer I met in Lurgan. Kenny was shot on Lurgan golf course while on his way to the club house. Three terrorists, concealed in a laurel bush, opened fire on him. The first thing that Kenny knew of it was when he was hit on the face. He threw himself down and, thankfully, the other shots missed him. He could not have put himself on duty so as to qualify for benefit, because the injury occurred before he was aware of the threat. Had he seen the gunmen before he was hit, he could have been regarded as having put himself on duty.
It is crazy that an officer's right to benefit should depend on which way he is looking when attacked, especially as terrorists will concentrate on sneaking up behind RUC officers. Is it right that the state will pay benefit only if terrorists have made what they would regard as the mistake of being seen? If the terrorists, in their terms, are efficient and do their evil work without being spotted, the state disclaims any liability to pay benefit.
The requirement that a regular RUC man must see the threat before he can be awarded benefit has been applied in many cases. The representative federation has challenged the requirement by bringing a case to the social security commissioners.
The case concerned an off-duty RUC officer who was murdered at Newry. The facts given in the case were that a witness stated that he, the witness, had gone into the bar. He said that the constable came into the bar and told him that he wished to speak to him. The constable was off duty at the time. Two men entered the bar carrying guns. One of them stood at the door, and the other shot the constable several times in the back. The evidence was that the deceased shouted and tried to get out.
The three commissioners who heard the case held that there was no entitlement to benefit. They said that the claimant had failed to prove that the deceased sustained the fatal injury after he had an opportunity to put himself on duty. In other words, the fact that he had his back to the gunmen disentitled him to benefit.
Another case was brought by the federation that concerned an off-duty RUC officer who had been disabled by an under-car booby-trap bomb. The case failed. To obtain benefit, the officer would have had to know that the bomb was under his car. Such a situation is bad enough for regular members, but it can be even more unfortunate for RUC reservists, because they cannot put themselves on duty.
I met another officer, Ronnie, who was a reservist. He was in his car in uniform. His gun was strapped to his side. He was about to drive to the police station to go on duty. A booby-trap bomb was underneath his car. The bomb exploded, and he lost both his legs. He was told that there would be no disablement benefit, because he was not on duty until he arrived at the police station and had been formally tasked for his period of duty, even though he knew what duty he would be undertaking that evening.
Another reservist, David, was employed in Mackie's, in west Belfast. He was the subject of three different attacks, and was seriously injured in the third. On that occasion, he was leaving work when he noticed two men approach him in a suspicious manner. He started to run. The next thing he felt was a pain in his hack. At that point, he drew his 121 personal protection weapon and turned, trying to cock it, but just as he was doing so, his strength failed, and he found himself standing with a half-cocked gun, staring at the two gunmen who had opened fire on him.
Thankfully, the mere sight of his pistol was enough to make both of the armed republicans run away. A tribunal, however, in 1986, disallowed his appeal: he was not on duty, nor was he doing anything connected with his duty. Being a reservist, he could not put himself on duty in the same way that a regular could.
In describing these decisions, I intend no criticism of the tribunals. They have to administer the law as the House makes it, and they do so sympathetically: if they can bring the injured officers within benefit, they do so, as they did in the case of Hazel, a reservist like her husband.
On the morning in question, Hazel left home, dropped off her baby with the child minder, and drove to her husband's daytime place of work, before going on to the school where she was a teacher. She and her husband noticed a car, because of the circumstances were suspicious of it, and noted down its number. As her husband got out, the men in the car opened fire. Her husband escaped, but she was hit three times, suffering head and back injuries.
Hazel was eventually held entitled to benefit—I say "eventually", but there was an interval of 18 years between the injury and the benefit being paid—because the act of recording the number of a suspicious vehicle was treated by the tribunal as being "reasonably incidental" to her employment, so she was treated as being on duty. It was a good result in that case, if perhaps not entirely consistent with the RUC regulations.
This is a problem primarily for police officers. It does not arise to the same extent with regard to regular soldiers or to members of the home-based units of the Royal Irish Regiment, and, before that, the Ulster Defence regiment. If any of the latter receive injuries in similar situations to those that I have described, they are entitled to a war disablement pension, which has a very generous range of additional allowances. I shall not go into detail about the allowances, but the war disablement pension is more beneficial than disablement benefit, primarily because of free drugs, no prescription charges, priority hospital treatment, and more regular reviews of condition.
There are also police ill health pensions, but they are less beneficial than the war disablement benefit, because, if a person can do some work and is in receipt of a disablement benefit, one may, if it will advance or improve one's medical condition, whereas under the police pension one cannot work.
The complaint concerning criminal injury compensation is that awards are sometimes low and can he inconsistent. The belief that awards have been inconsistent is a general belief in Northern Ireland, not only among police officers but within the professions. It is difficult to make comparisons, but I have been given some examples that indicate a degree of inconsistency. I shall use only two.
One concerns the loss of a leg. The DPOA has given details of two officers who had lost a leg. The cases were settled in successive years, 1978–79. One received £27,500 in compensation; the other, £45,000. The former, who received less, returned to the police service. The latter left to start a business. I do not know, but it might be the case that the larger figure was regarded as reflecting the uncertainty as to future income.
122 The other comparison—an easier one to make—involves the loss of an eye, where all three officers continued in employment. There was no question of loss of future earnings. It was purely a matter of pain and suffering and loss of amenity. The first case, settled in 1972, was awarded £11,500. The second, settled in 1975, was awarded £22,000. The third, settled in 1980, was awarded £50,000. There may have been some changes in the value of money between the three awards, but compensation is supposed to take account of that. The earlier awards, particularly the one for £11,500, will now have been seriously eroded by inflation.
Hazel, whom I mentioned earlier, was a further education lecturer, grade 1, earning £9,000 per annum when she was injured in 1976. She had injuries to the eye, both shoulders, both arms, back, right lung, liver, stomach and right kidney. She was retired on medical grounds from her college in 1978 and from the police in 1981. In 1979, she was awarded £18,500 in compensation—an incredible award, scarcely enough to cover the special damage from the time of injury to the time of the award of compensation. From that, she has to pay for prescriptions, for physiotherapy and osteopathy for pain relief. It is a derisory award. One can imagine her feelings today as she listens to regular appeals for generous provision for the resettlement of offenders.
In the Belfast News Letter last Wednesday, there was an interview with Phyllis, whose husband died last year, 13 years after being wounded and having had six operations in the interval. She said that her compensation was barely enough to pay off their mortgage, and was soon gone altogether. Phyllis's husband had been in receipt of benefit, but the day he died, she lost the car and more than £200 a week in benefit, and was reduced to little more than £80 a week. The article records that Phyllis
is high in her praise of the RUC's welfare branch and the Police Dependants Trust which helps out financially.Sam Malcolmson, a former DPOA chairman, in the same article, says:All members in the DPOA depend on police charities to maintain a decent standard of living. Without their help they couldn't afford the treatment needed to ease the chronic pain many suffer or the physiotherapy treatment they need.It is a shameful state of affairs that all the members of the association—I do not doubt what Mr. Malcomson says—who have made such sacrifices for the community now find themselves dependent on charity.In the same article, Mr. Malcolmson said that early compensation awards for injuries were an insult to people who were maimed, and, if the Government were determined to spend millions of pounds on the rehabilitation of prisoners, they should also have to care for their victims. He concluded that the Government would have to show "parity of esteem", to use the modern term.Obviously, we hope that the present temporary ceasefire develops into a permanent peace, so that the horrific injuries inflicted on members of the security forces are not repeated. If that is the case, the matters that I have mentioned are past matters, and that complicates the solutions to them.If we were dealing with future events, there are obvious changes. At the very least, RUC regulations could be amended so that RUC reservists are not at a disadvantage. For example, I understand that the Metropolitan police allows special constables to put themselves on duty "in a real emergency" But that would not tackle the real 123 problem, which is the industrial injury benefit test of "arising in the course of employment", which is simply not appropriate.
The emergency exists over and above the details of employment duties, and that emergency can approach unawares. The legislation needs to be capable of coping with the consequences of that emergency, and presently it is not.
We could change the industrial injuries legislation to reflect the facts, but if we are to go that far, would it not be better to broaden the scope of war disablement pensions? Such pensions are not limited to soldiers. As well as the UDR members, they include injuries in time of war to the home guard, the nursing and auxiliary services, civil defence workers, the naval auxiliary services, merchant seamen and coastguards. Obviously, the intention is to cover all those persons who are affected by the emergency. Including the RUC would be within the spirit of that list, and would end the invidious distinction made between the RUC and the UDR.
Alternatively, if one wants to keep the distinction and keep the names of the two pension schemes, we could ensure that there is the same standard of provision in both of them. If changes are being made, obviously they must be retrospective.
Compensation should also be considered. Technically, all the cases have been determined. People have made claims and accepted settlements. I understand that reopening settlements would be resisted, because it would set awkward precedents. But I would ask the Minister to have a quiet look at the discrepancies, and to consider what must be done.
Here, I must pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates), who the DPOA tells me was the most sympathetic of previous Northern Ireland Office Ministers on the point. Apparently, when it raised the issues with him some years ago, he said that he felt that the best thing to do was to increase the amount of money going into the Police Dependants Trust.
That could be used as a channel where, with respect to past decisions and settlements, we can leave the formal position as it is, and effectively modify those settlements by making additional grants out of something like the PDT. That could bring provision for disabled RUC officers up to the level that it should be, while, of course, putting in place a better and more coherent provision for the future, should it be needed.
§ The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Sir John Wheeler)I congratulate the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble) on securing the debate. I share his great concern for members of the Disabled Police Officers Association. I know that the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis) also takes a special interest in Royal Ulster Constabulary affairs, and has a particular interest in this important subject.
Unusually, a number of hon. Members are present, including the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) and the hon. Members for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross), for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) and for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe). I know that, with their 124 particular concern for the RUC and those who have served in it in the past, they will take the fruits of tonight's debate back to Northern Ireland.
I have listened closely to the hon. Member for Upper Bann,, and I assure him and others that I shall consider what he has said very carefully to establish whether the situation can be improved in any way. I cannot, of course, comment on individual cases tonight, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to do so—particularly on the case of Mr. Arthur Mullan, which is subject to court proceedings and is therefore sub judice.
I assure the hon. Gentleman and others that the Government are ever mindful of the many sacrifices that have been made by all members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and their families in carrying out their duties over the last 25 years. Indeed, given the many terrorist atrocities that have been perpetrated over the years, it is debatable whether anyone in Northern Ireland—police officer or civilian—has escaped unscathed.
But the House will pay tribute to the men and women of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who, together with their colleagues in the armed forces, have been in the front line in the fight against the terrorism that has plagued Northern Ireland for so long, and have borne its brunt: some 297 have been killed, and at least 7,300 have been seriously injured. Those who have so grievously suffered have not been, and will not be, forgotten.
The Government, in conjunction with the Police Authority for Northern Ireland and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, have made provision by way of pensions, compensation and rehabilitation for all officers who have been injured on duty. I note what the hon. Gentleman said about the definition of duty.
Police disability pensions, in common with such pensions paid in other fields of service and employment, are primarily based on the officer's length of service and average pensionable pay. An officer who is medically retired from the Royal Ulster Constabulary because of having sustained an injury on duty is generally entitled to ill health pension, an annual pension part of which may be commuted to a lump sum. He is also entitled to injury on duty pension, an annual pension based on average pensionable pay, the degree of disablement suffered by the officer and the officer's number of years of service.
The amount actually paid is its total, less three quarters of the total ill health pension and certain social security benefits paid in respect of the injury—for example, incapacity benefit, disablement benefit and reduced earnings allowance. He is entitled to an injury on duty lump sum, paid only to officers who have been permanently 100 per cent. disabled, and to injury gratuity, based on the officer's length of service and degree of disablement.
Pension awards are paid without delay by the Police Authority for Northern Ireland, generally within three to four days of an officer's medical discharge. Provision is made for pension increases based on movements in the cost of living. The pension arrangements are matters for national consideration, and are dealt with by the police negotiating board, which is responsible for the determination of all police pensions. A lump sum and pension are not all for which there is provision, and neither should they be all; more help is indeed available.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary has a long established occupational health unit. This unit, along with the welfare and personnel branches, has made, and continues to make, 125 a major contribution to the rehabilitation of officers who suffer periods of sickness or injury. Twelve trained welfare officers working with seven support staff also provide a wide range of confidential services to Royal Ulster Constabulary members, their families, widows, next of kin and pensioners.
The police dependants' trust provides substantial financial support to officers incapacitated as a result of an injury on duty, and to the dependants of officers who have died in similar circumstances. I will look further at the work of the trust to see how it is progressing, and whether it can be expanded. I agree with the hon. Member for Upper Bann that its work is very important.
There is also the Disabled Police Officers Association, some of whose members are, I believe, witnesses to this debate, which has successfully completed a programme of events, commenced in 1993, marking the 10th anniversary of its formation. Special emphasis continues to be given to encourage members of the association to participate in sporting and leisure-based activities whenever and wherever possible.
The association has full and free access to all the Royal Ulster Constabulary's resources—for example, the gymnasium facilities. The Chief Constable is the president of the association and takes a keen interest in its affairs; and, since 1990, regular meetings, involving, among others, the Royal Ulster Constabulary's welfare services, are held to review issues of interest and concern to the association and its members.
The police benevolent fund, an in-house charity, is run by the Police Association, which comprises the Police Federation, the Superintendents Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers. The fund continues, as it has done for many years, to provide assistance and support, where appropriate, to serving members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Royal Ulster Constabulary reserve, and to pensioners, ex-members, medically discharged personnel, widows and dependants.
The fund's management committee liaises closely with local Royal Ulster Constabulary welfare committees and Police Association representatives to identify need and to provide support where assistance is shown to be required. The fund also continues to support, both financially and practically, the welfare activities of local voluntary welfare groups.
In addition, support for the northern police convalescent home, which services all northern constabularies, remains at a high level through individual membership from benevolent fund subscriptions. In 1994, 150 serving members and 22 former members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary visited the home for continued convalescence or treatment.
Protracted work on the purchase of a much-needed additional home was concluded during the year and it is hoped that the new home, in Scotland, will open its doors later this year. I hope that that will be viewed as very good news.
Separately, in each individual case, there is the question of criminal injuries compensation. Provision is made for such compensation in the Northern Ireland criminal injuries scheme which is based in statute, the Criminal Injuries (Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Orders.
126 In assessing the amount of compensation which may be payable under the terms of the scheme, account is taken of the additional expenditure a disabled officer is likely to incur over the rest of his or her life—a point that the hon. Gentleman touched on.
Neither I nor the hon. Member, I am certain, would presume to suggest that physical or indeed mental disability sustained while on duty, however slight, can be fully compensated for by money alone. But I trust that he and the House will recognise that, from what I have outlined tonight, the degree of assistance—financial, practical and in terms of counselling support provided for disabled officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary—is considerable.
Of course, individual cases which are particularly tragic, through force of circumstances at the time of the disablement or those coming about in the course of retirement, will from time to time heighten awareness of just how much sacrifice has been made over the years not only by the Royal Ulster Constabulary but by all who have been in the line against unprecedented and such vicious terrorism. When that happens, it can stir emotions to the point at which, in the extreme, comparison is made between what has taken place in Northern Ireland during the past 25 years and a general state of war.
The declaration of the ceasefires, the calls for the release of "prisoners of war" or "political prisoners", seem to some to lend a boost of justification to that comparison. That, of course, is absolutely wrong. There can be no way in which the terrorist campaign, so long suffered by the people of Northern Ireland and often carried to the mainland, should be construed as a war.
There are no prisoners of war and no political prisoners in the prisons of Northern Ireland. Let there be no misunderstanding: every prisoner is there because he or she has passed through the due process of the normal criminal justice system and has been convicted in and sentenced by the courts. That statement should be clear and unambiguous.
I understand what the hon. Gentleman says about war pensions. Police pensions compare well with those that are available to members of the armed forces in similar circumstances. As the hon. Gentleman knows, police officers are well paid, and that is reflected in pension and injury benefits. The chief difference relates to taxation. Since 1939, members of the armed forces have received their income resulting from awards for injury while on service tax-free from the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Social Security. That is a unique recognition of the special status of service personnel.
Other differences relate to priority of treatment under the national health service for the disability in question and the provision of fares for hospital and similar travel. I am not aware that any Royal Ulster Constabulary officer has been seriously disadvantaged in such matters, but I am, of course, willing to look at any particular cases that come to my notice to see what device—
The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.