Motor Vehicles (Compulsory Insurance) Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

3rd reading
Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on his expertise, his dedication, his hard work and, of course, his success in promoting his Bill and securing its passage as far as Report. I also congratulate him on his success in having secured what has become, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) told us today, her favourite piece of legislation. Sadly, she is not in her place to hear of that success.

May I say what an honour it is—and a pleasure, as always—to follow the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane)? I thank and pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight), my hon. Friends the Members for East Surrey, for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb), for Loughborough (Jane Hunt), for Dudley North (Marco Longhi), for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), as well as others who have spoken today or during the Bill’s earlier stages.

As all those right hon. and hon. Members, and my ministerial colleagues, have made clear, this is an important issue. The Government have made it plain since 2014 that they do not agree with the European Court of Justice’s ruling in the Vnuk case, and that view was shared by 94% of the 92 respondents to the Department for Transport’s consultation. The Vnuk decision created the unnecessary extension of motor insurance to private land, as well as, potentially, a greater range of vehicles. That is why we have announced that we will remove the effects of Vnuk from British law in February 2021. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said, it will be a landmark moment when we remove law that does not work for the United Kingdom. That will include removing the associated financial liability imposed on the Motor Insurers’ Bureau via the courts’ decision in MIB v. Lewis.

The Bill represents the best possible opportunity to address this issue at the earliest possible opportunity. It will clarify the way in which the compulsory insurance obligation operates in Great Britain, and will make it clear that there is no obligation to extend insurance to private land and vehicles not constructed for road use. It removes any retained EU law rights to compensation from the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, and it provides that retained EU case law that is inconsistent with the position that it sets out will cease to have effect. That effectively removes the Vnuk decision from the law, and that is why the Government support it. I should perhaps declare a minor interest here: I own one vehicle that is currently off the road.