Civil Liability Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-09-04
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Francis Slaughter (Labour, Centre-left): I will be brief because a number of my colleagues have made important points that I do not need to repeat and because I have not been here for the whole of the debate. The reason for that is that I wanted to take part in the debate in Westminster Hall on the review of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. There is a certain symmetry to the two debates going on at the same time. The onslaught by this and the previous Government on victims and access to justice really began with the LASPO Act. It continues with this Bill. The measures on road traffic accidents and the change to the small claims limit are basically unfair. A tariff will be introduced in respect of certain types of injury but not others. The tariff will be at a level that is far below—for a year-long injury, about £2,000 below—what would be set by a judicial authority. There seems to be no basis, fairness or logic for doing that. Why should there be two tiers for different types of injury? If the reason is what we have heard about fraud, I think even the ABI would admit that a small minority of cases are fraudulent, so why should the legitimate cases be punished because of the small minority that are fraudulent I used to be a personal injury practitioner and most of my work was done for insurance companies. I was always very happy to run a fraud defence and to cross-examine on that basis. Insurance companies usually were not. They preferred to settle; their eye was always on the bottom line. The Minister made a point earlier about there being a conflict between what insurance companies are up to here, but I do not think there is a conflict. Insurance companies want to depress both access to justice, in terms of people getting meritorious claims into court, and the value of that claim, which the Bill does very efficiently for them—I am sure they will be very grateful for it—but if they can make money wearing another hat through claims management companies or the passing on of information, they will be happy to do that as well. Yes, they are commercial organisations in that way, but the eye of the Justice Minister—I would have thought rather better of the Minister—should be on ensuring fairness Another basic unfairness is the increase to the small claims limit. It is not on the face of the Bill, but it is integral to this range of measures. I refer to the increase to £2,000 in relation to employer liability, where no fraud is ever alleged or at least only in very rare cases, and the increase to £5,000 in relation to road traffic accident claims. There is no basis for that. These are complex claims. That has been accepted in a bipartisan way. I am sorry that the House is dividing on party lines, with the honourable exception of the Chair of the Justice Committee. I hope that, in Committee, the Minister will listen more carefully to some of the reasons that have been given We are deprofessionalising the justice system. People will no longer be able to get representation for even quite complex legal matters and serious injuries. The judicial arm is being removed by the introduction of the tariff and the medical role is also being downgraded, because there is no proper medical definition of whiplash and a number of quite serious soft tissue injuries are likely to be included We have heard time and again that there are abuses that need to be corrected. Pre-medical offers are a recipe for fraud, as is cold calling—I am not sure why certain people are saying that that should not be outlawed. It should. Why are those easy targets, rather than the rights of victims, not being tackled? In employer liability cases, trade unions can effectively represent their members by taking cases to court with representation. Unison says that two thirds of people whom it has helped said that they would not have felt confident enough to pursue their claims without such support Finally, I turn to the personal injury discount rate. I hope that the Government will be more open to agreement and consensus on that. Tiny changes can significantly affect the damages awarded to or life experiences of very severely disabled people. I urge the Government to look again at the level of risk, which can affect awards over a lifetime, and to look carefully at the issue of the expert panel, allowing it a greater role.