Mayor to seek tax-breaks for victims

London mayor Ken Livingstone is to call on the Chancellor to give tax breaks to victims of the London bombings, he said today.

More than £6m (€8.7m) has been donated by the public and businesses to the Bombings Relief Charitable Fund to help bereaved relatives and the injured from the July 7 blasts – and Mr Livingstone does not want the British government to take a cut.

“It is really bizarre that we have got a more punitive regime for tragedy than for gambling”, he said during a tour of the July 7 Family Assistance Centre in central London.

“We have got money here that can make a real difference to people who have been injured or bereaved.”

Mr Livingstone said he will write and try to speak to Chancellor Gordon Brown to ensure that victims who receive a grant do not face an unexpected tax bill.

“Clearly what we do not want is that we give perhaps a grant to someone who has lost a relative or been injured and they receive £10,000 (€14,500) or £20,000 (€29,000) and months down the road they get a tax bill,” he said.

“I will write to the Chancellor and ask about the implications of this.

“When they get the money they will be thinking about immediate needs and not expecting to give the money back.”

Mr Livingstone also said that the family of Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, shot eight times by police who mistook him for a suicide bomber, are also eligible for a grant.

He said: “Of course if his family want that we would want to do all that we could to help.

“He is as much a victim as all the people we are seeing here (at the family centre).”

Mr de Menezes’s relatives have said they plan to sue the police over the killing.

The first grants – £5,000 (€7,200) to bereaved relatives and £3,000 (€4,300) to the injured who were hospitalised in the July 7 terror attacks – were paid out last week.

They are to be topped up at a later date.