The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) raised the tragic case of Mrs. Joan Smith, whose application for compensation was recently refused by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

Before I turn to her specific points, I should like to emphasise how much I share the sympathy that the right hon. Lady expressed in view of the appalling injuries that Mrs. Smith suffered. It is, as the right hon. Lady said, in a way a classic and horrific example of the type of brutality which is from time to time inflicted by one person on another. Perhaps the seriousness of the attack that was made is well illustrated by the length of the prison sentence imposed upon her attacker.

At the end of the right hon. Lady's remarks she made various wider comments about the problem of battered wives which was raised by her hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) in a debate in the House recently to which I replied. I shall ensure that her comments about the hostel in her constituency are conveyed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. I can only repeat my reply to the other debate—that the right hon. Lady's views about the need for availability of accommodation will be conveyed to the relevant Department. If I might venture a suggestion, it has been my personal view, as a practising barrister, that this is the greatest need of all for those who are attacked in this way.

I shall limit myself to commenting on what the right hon. Lady said about the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, which comes directly under the responsibility of the Home Office. I confirm that the scheme was established in 1964 on an experimental and non-statutory basis. It provides for ex gratia payment by the State of compensation for personal injury directly attributable to a crime of violence.

Until 1964 there was no such State scheme and any victim was thrown back on to his common law rights—rights which, I accept, as the right hon. Lady said, are there in law but which in practice are often illusory. The person often does not have the money to pay the damages that are awarded. In cases such as the one that we are discussing, I accept the unreality of obtaining a judgment unless a man has money somewhere tucked away when he is starting a sentence of six years of imprisonment. That was the situation until 1964.

I am glad that the right hon. Lady said that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme has proved a success in meeting the needs of those who are victims of violent crime. Some indication of its success is that applications to the scheme, I am told, are rising at the rate of well over 1,000 additional applications a year

From the time the scheme was started in 1964 until the end of the financial year 1972–73 the board has received some 53,549 applications and awarded compensation totalling more than £15 million. That is evidence of the need for the scheme. It is administered by a board of eight legally qualified members under a chairman who has wide legal experience. It is entirely the responsibility of the board to decide within the terms of the scheme whether compensation should be paid in any particular case and, if so, how much that compensation should amount to.

The procedure under which the board considers applications is set out in the scheme. The application is first looked at by the board's staff. It is then referred to a single member of the board who decides whether the application falls within the scope of the scheme and, if so, what award should be made. An applicant who is dissatisfied with the decision of the single member is entitled to ask for a hearing before three members. I must emphasise that the board's decisions are in no way subject to any form of ministerial review. The decisions of the board are binding although, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) knows from a recent case, the board is subject to the normal supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court in the interpretation of its terms. But subject to that the board's decisions are binding and are not reviewable by Ministers.

Paragraph 7 states that compensation will not be payable where a victim who suffered injuries and the offender who inflicted them were living together at the time as members of the same family. In applying that, the board has been guided by the Divisional Court in the case of R v. the Board ex parte Staten, 1972, where it was stated that living together … as members of the same family was to be given its ordinary, straightforward meaning.

I do not propose to go into the details of the individual case. I have expressed my horror at it and I confirm the facts mentioned by the right hon. Lady. The application for compensation was initially rejected by the single member of the board on the ground that Mrs. Smith was ineligible for compensation under paragraph 7. She subsequently asked for a hearing before the three members of the board and, although legal aid at the moment is not available for applications to the board, she was legally represented before the board. After a lengthy hearing the board again decided that Mrs. Smith's application was excluded by paragraph 7. Having come to that decision it was excluded from making any form of ex gratia payment. Although, it is not normally subject in any way to ministerial review, from what one has read of that application there certainly appeared to be evidence on which the board could come to the conclusion that it was excluded from treating this case.

Mrs. Smith was legally represented. I know the firm of solicitors who represented her and I have no doubt that she was adequately and well represented at that hearing. The right hon. Lady said that the trouble lies with paragraph 7. When the scheme was originally brought in, the White Paper set out the reasons why those living together were excluded. It said: Offences committed against a member of the offender's household living with him at the time will be excluded altogether, in view of the difficulty in establishing the facts and ensuring that compensation does not benefit the offender. That was the basis on which in 1964 it was decided that applications in this area should be excluded.

Whilst these arguments—the difficulty of establishing the facts and the danger that the assailant would benefit from his crime—clearly have considerable force, I appreciate from what the right hon. Lady said and from what was said in correspondence that there are arguments the other way. Clearly it was envisaged that the 1964 scheme should be reviewed with a view to placing it on a statutory footing when adequate experience of the working of the scheme had been gained.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced in answer to a Question on 17th April the establishment of a working party to carry out such a review. He stressed in announcing that review that the working party would take steps to canvass opinion widely among interested bodies and would take account of the views of members of the public. That working party is now set up. I cannot tell the right hon. Lady how soon it will report, but certainly the question of paragraph 7 is within the terms of the review and, in addition to that, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in its eighth report specifically asked that the exclusion of this clause should be reconsidered when the scheme is reviewed.

I can assure the right hon. Lady that this is being done and that what she said and the case that she mentioned will be taken into account in the course of that review, as will the question of the right of legal aid before an inquiry.