Robert Buckland, South Swindon’s Conservative MP has been put on the Delegated Legislation Committee, which is meeting next Thursday (1st November) to vote on massive cuts to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.
It remains to be seen what influence Mr Buckland – who has yet to leave his career as a barrister and court recorder behind and therefore will know full well how devastating these cuts will be – will have on this cuts committee. Indeed, even staunch right wing Conservative John Redwood – who suggested in 2010 those hardest hit by cuts should turn down the heating and put on a jumper – was deeply uneasy about the cuts being looked at. He said “The last place I would look for savings would be benefits and payments to the vulnerable, injured and incapacitated—indeed, I would not look there at all. If anything, we should be more generous. I did not come into Parliament to see those things cut” [1].
Given his voting record on the regressive Tory budget and the trebling of the tuition fee cap to an aspiration-destroying £9,000; it seems rather unlikely we have a defender of the vulnerable in Mr Buckland – but we in the South Swindon Labour Party are calling on him to do the right thing. We call on him to consider victims of dog attacks, particularly in light of the horrendous attacks by a crazed dog in Swindon earlier this year (2). We call on him to resist the Tory temptation to reduce vulnerable people down to statistics, where money can be saved.
Victims of crime and the most vulnerable in society are having a hard enough time dealing with Tory cuts as it is. Contact