Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-07-05
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Charles Hay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, with his typically well-thought-through analysis in this important pair of policy areas. I join all noble Lords who have spoken so far, I think, in welcoming the noble Baroness to her new role and I wish her well in it. It is a very important Bill to start off on, and I hope it will go well. I declare my interests, too, as set out in the register, in particular those relating to my 25 years in the non-life insurance industry, which included large helpings of interactions with regulators in this country and many others As others do, I very much welcome the Bill. I had not intended initially to say anything about Part 1, but I was for a period a director of a UK group that included a subsidiary that offered pensions advisory services. Although that subsidiary represented less than 5% of group turnover and no profit, it took up a considerable amount of board time because of the fearful legal and regulatory complications in this area. These complications of course affect clients, the guidance providers we are discussing today, advice providers—which we were—and regulators alike. This Bill will go some way towards reducing complication, which must be good. My half point is really that, as we reach Committee, we must look through the lens that says that the provisions of the Bill must directionally produce greater simplicity, and indeed the many amendments that I am sure will come through should also be looked at through that same lens. This House has an amazing way of having ingenious thoughts put to it, but sometimes those will not add to the simplicity of the situation. We will win here by making things simple for all the people, including, as I said, guidance providers, advice providers and regulators, let alone the clients I wanted to speak about Part 2 and have three points to raise this afternoon. My first relates generally to access to justice, which has been mentioned before, where there is a delicate balance to be struck. On the one hand, it is of central importance that those not in a position to get legal or other assistance towards making valid claims can do so via no-win no-fee arrangements with professional firms at a reasonable cost. On the other hand, we have seen an unpleasant load of carpetbaggers arrive and abuse matters. Abuses range far and wide. There is the downright criminal, for example, as we have all read, masterminding or inciting fraud in whiplash cases, which has done so much damage to my beloved insurance industry. There is the disgraceful overcharging, seen in some PPI claims, where a very large percentage of the recovery goes to the CMC and the ordinary citizen who retained them has seemingly little redress The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to the targeting of new loophole issues such as the "gastric sickness while on holiday" claim, where, just as the activity for CMCs on lucrative PPI business and on whiplash is dropping off, a huge spike in claims is hurtling towards the insurance industry and the tour operators. This area is developing rapidly. I personally do not believe, and I am sure no one else in this House does, that hygiene arrangements in the kitchens of holiday destinations have fallen off a cliff. Having listened to advertisements on commercial radio, I feel that the naughtiness of a few, being egged on by CMCs, will add to the cost of the holidays of the many in a wholly unnecessary way if not controlled Thus I found the very excellent 70 pages of Carol Brady’s independent review to be filled with not-so-common common sense, and I welcome the Government’s resolve to implement, in general, its recommendations. I note that the executive summary of her report says: "The overwhelming majority of stakeholders, including the banking and insurance industries which have been hardest hit by CMC misconduct, argued that there is a legitimate need for CMCs, and therefore the Government should not seek to regulate them out of existence" The Bill seems firmly aimed at reaching that delicate balance that I referred to a moment ago, and I hope that the House will help on that process My second point comes off the back of that little sentence and relates to the FCA. I have spent a lot of my life being regulated by and interacting with the FCA and its predecessor organisations and, as I said, with analogous regulators in many jurisdictions in the western world. Regulators in financial services generally in some way charge the cost of regulation back to those that they regulate. Thus, one way of assessing how heavy the regulation is comes from comparing those relative costs. The British Insurance Brokers’ Association reports that the UK is 14 times more costly than Germany, where general insurance broking regulation is concerned, so I assume the regulatory burden is 14 times heavier. The UK regulator concerned there is the FCA. I could go on citing how the FCA has a record, I regret, of gold-plating, and how in other areas it represents a truly heavy burden on the businesses that it regulates. I have spoken about this previously on a number of occasions Accordingly, I am concerned that the good firms providing access to justice might be handicapped or worse, yet the bad firms may be able to cope with the regulatory burden. In short, the FCA has a vital role to play in the delicate balance that I have referred to. I should add that in other areas I feel the FCA has relied a bit too heavily on paper-based and process analysis and not at all on industry gossip. I urge it to rely on industry gossip because that will let it know where it should direct its energies, particularly in the area of CMCs. In any event, I would be most grateful for the Minister’s assurances on these concerns I turn to my third and final point. I join the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Kirkwood, in mentioning Scotland, though in respect of a slightly different set of issues. As has been observed, Scotland has a separate legal system and major differences concerning the way in which no-win no-fee operates, but I cannot see that there should be any difference in the regulation of CMCs. How wrong it would be if a substandard CMC could camp in, say, Dumfries and aim at English consumers, free from regulatory control. Indeed, I submit that any form of cross-border arbitrage would be wholly against the admirable intentions of the Bill My concerns are widely held. I know that they are held by at least two noble Lords, while DWF, the respected Manchester-based international law practice that has offices in Scotland, commented in February that, "in recent years increased levels of fraud have been detected in Scotland, along with a significant rise in injury claims. In part this is thought to be due to the effect of LASPO"— the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012— "in England pushing claims management companies into Scotland, where their activities are not regulated and referral fees are allowed" That is a warning bell that I think we in this Chamber ought to listen to hard The FCA is, rightly, a UK-wide regulator in, for instance, the non-life insurance industry. While I might moan a bit, I think the FCA is upright and highly professional, and I strongly feel that it should have a UK-wide role here. I therefore ask the Minister to comment on the position regarding the territorial scope of the Bill. It seems that the interests of the UK and of those citizens who most need the services of properly functioning claims management companies would best be served by having a single market and a single regulator. Is she in touch with Scottish Ministers to discuss that? In closing, I once again welcome the Bill.