Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-09-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I support this amendment and speak to my Amendment 73 on the same topic, which seeks to achieve the same aim as Amendment 72. The scale of nuisance calls is of great concern, as has been expressed in previous debates on this Bill from noble Lords on all sides of the House. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers states that an estimated 51 million cold calls or texts are received each year from regulated claims management companies for personal injury claims. Although such nuisance calls are supposed to be prevented by existing regulations, current measures are clearly ineffective Reforms of claims management companies are clearly urgently needed. I congratulate my noble friend on introducing the Bill. Carol Brady’s excellent independent review of the regulation of claims management firms recommended moving responsibility to the FCA, which is what the Bill does, and I wholly support that. However, it is also important to protect the public from nuisance calls and texts, which the claims management companies often plague people with; to reduce the level of speculative and even fraudulent claims, which cause added costs for companies and end up costing other consumers extra money; and to stop customers being fooled into paying up-front fees to unscrupulous claims management companies, which they then never recover after they discover that they did not have a valid claim in the first place FCA regulation of CMCs will help toughen the oversight of nuisance calls, but that move alone is not sufficient to properly protect consumers. The FCA has powers of enforcement that are better than the current regime; it can strip those found to be flouting the rules of their ability to operate and can hold directors personally liable. But a ban on unsolicited approaches would add much more protection. It would be clear to consumers that they should not engage with firms which contact them and encourage them to make spurious claims. Currently, the claims management companies act with impunity to entice people to make easy money. But of course this has the effect of imposing higher costs on the wider public, as we have already heard this afternoon, because firms will charge more to cover the risks of such claims. We have seen this clearly with whiplash injuries and we are seeing this with holiday sickness claims. Indeed, the Law Society has also written to me to support the banning of cold calls. ABTA cites the problems that we have already discussed about the dramatic rise in speculative and fraudulent claims. This will cause detriment to the wider public if we do not make sure that we take the opportunity in the Bill to retain effective measures to address the issue. The Minister has already said how much she wishes that she could ban cold calling for pension companies, and there was support across the whole House for that measure, but it is questionable; we hope that we might be able to find a way to get that into the Bill. However, cold calling for claims management companies clearly is in scope of the Bill. When defining "claims culture" in a Parliamentary Answer on 19 April 2016, my honourable friend in another place, Dominic Raab, said: "The Autumn Statement referred to the cost to society of the substantial industry that encourages claims through cold calling and other social nuisances and which increases premiums for consumers" Therefore the Government have clearly equated claims culture with cold calling, and the logical and fair action would surely be to ban cold calling for personal injury claims rather than restrict the rights of people who have been injured through no fault of their own, which the Government are expected to do in the forthcoming civil liability Bill. These proposals perhaps aim slightly at the wrong target, but the Bill gives the Government the opportunity to aim at the right target and ban cold calling, which they state encourages a claims culture As the Government recognise that there is a problem, and there is both industry and public support, the Bill could be amended to include this ban on cold calling. Whether it is through Amendment 72, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, or Amendment 73, in my own name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, I hope that we might take this opportunity to protect the public in this manner by banning cold calling.