Civil Liability Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-11-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Robin Granville Hodgson (Conservative, Centre-right): I raise a narrower point than that of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. I refer to the Government’s Amendment 1 where, notwithstanding the heavyweight legal artillery from the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Hope of Craighead, I would like to probe the thinking a little further. What is proposed seems undesirable in a number of aspects, not least of which is that it may put the Lord Chief Justice into a conflicted and undesirable position Clause 3, to which the amendment applies, is entitled "Damages for whiplash injuries". The House will be aware that because of the difficulty of diagnosis—as we have heard from my noble and learned friend—whiplash has provided easy pickings for the fraudulent over several years; in the vernacular of our early debates, the phrase was "cash for trash". Millions of motorists’ insurance premiums have been unnecessarily increased. The Government—sensibly, in my view—introduced the blanket figure to cover all injuries with a duration of less than two years. That was discussed extensively and amended during the passage of the Bill here and in the other place. It was not, and is not, an uncontroversial policy decision. It remains an issue about which different parts of the House and different political parties have strong views Clause 3 is about money and the compensation payable under the whiplash tariff in different circumstances. I invite my noble and learned friend and the House to look at subsections (1) to (5). In each of those, the key word is "amount"—the amount of damages due and payable in different circumstances. The clause provides that these amounts are determined and laid out in regulations by the Lord Chancellor. Under this amendment, as my noble and learned friend pointed out, there would be another hoop to go through, in that the Lord Chancellor would have to consult the Lord Chief Justice before making regulations under the clause. The discussion in the House of Commons was pretty threadbare. I am concerned that the Lord Chief Justice may find himself dragged into policy areas which are not to his advantage. The clause is about money, not process. I ask my noble and learned friend to consider the options available to the Lord Chief Justice when the Lord Chancellor turns up at his office and presents the new tariff. As far as I can see, he has only two. Either he can accept without demur, or he can say that he thinks the proposed new tariff is too high or too low. If he does the latter, on what grounds would he make that judgment? What expertise does a judicial figure, the Lord Chief Justice, bring to the determination of these monetary figures? What expertise is available to him that was not available to the Lord Chancellor in making his original determination I make it clear that this is not an attack on the Lord Chief Justice. Indeed, it is intended to draw attention to the difficult position that future Lord Chief Justices may find themselves in as a result of this amendment. They would either have to act as a cipher and simply tick a box, or require amendments to figures that will remain politically highly charged. That runs the risk of the role becoming politically tainted, and further involving the Lord Chief Justice in the determination of matters on which the courts and justice system would later, no doubt, have to adjudicate It is not desirable for the Lord Chief Justice of the United Kingdom to be seen either as a cipher or as a participant in political processes. I look forward to hearing from my noble and learned friend why I have so gravely misjudged the situation.