Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Coussins]

21: Before Clause 44, insert the following new Clause—
“Exception for international human rights cases
The changes made by sections 46, 48 and 49 of this Act do not apply in relation to proceedings which include a claim for damages for international human rights cases as defined in section 58(C)(2B) (Recovery of insurance premiums by way of costs) of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990, as inserted by section 48 of this Act.”

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, the other amendments in the group are clearly consequential, in the case of Amendments 22, 23 and 26, and directly consequential, in the case of Amendment 27. These amendments are designed to preserve the status quo in our justice system for victims of international corporate human rights abuse. I am very grateful to the Minister for the further meetings he has had with me and with others since Report, and for the correspondence we have had. I readily knowledge that he wants to achieve the same things as do I and my co-signatories to these amendments, who are from all sides of the House. Indeed, I had very much been hoping that at this stage we would be announcing an agreement of some sort, and I am very disappointed that this has not turned out to be the case. I am afraid that I have not even been able to persuade the Minister to see it as acceptable to put corporate human rights abuses on the same footing as clinical negligence, as Amendment 27 would do.

I do not believe that the Government have adequately understood the impact of the Rome II regulations, which are binding on the UK as an EU member state, let alone the additional restraint and restrictions that this Bill would provide. Figures to illustrate this are very hard to come by, because of the small number of cases of this sort that have been settled over the past decade, so many have included a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement.

However, I will illustrate the impact of the Rome II regulations with one brief example that is in the public domain: the Trafigura case, which is probably also the most well-known case, where toxic waste was dumped on a large community in the Côte d’Ivoire. There were 30,000 claimants in this case, who shared £30 million in damages—£1,000 per head. It is estimated that under the Rome II regulations, the damages would have shrunk to £6 million, making it £200 a head. Yet the “after the event” insurance premium would still have cost over £9 million. If £200 a head seems a very small amount of compensation for loss and damage to life, homes, health and community, how much less compensation would there be under the provisions of this Bill? It makes it far too costly and risky to bring the cases in the first place.

It is a question of straightforward arithmetic, added to which there is no cost to the taxpayer whatever as a result of these amendments. We have a very good system in place already, which is the envy of many other countries in the world that are looking to us to build their own system to deal with international corporate human rights cases. I appeal to the Minister even now to accept my amendments, but if he cannot then I hope that the House will support me in trying to prevent the clock being turned back for poor and vulnerable victims of human rights injustices at the hands of UK companies, which should remain accountable in practice as well as in theory. I beg to move.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

My Lords, if the Government think it appropriate that the private disputes of Russian oligarchs should be settled in our courts, how much more appropriate is it that poor people in countries such as the Côte d’Ivoire, who have been treated utterly disgracefully by a large international corporation, should also be able to seek remedy in the British courts? Should we not be proud to make that a possibility?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coussins]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate and the Minister for his very detailed and thoughtful reply. I am only sorry that, although we started from the same place, we have not reached the same conclusions.

There has been much reference in this debate to costs running into millions of pounds. However, the Rome II regulations provide for damages paid to successful victims to be calculated according to the costs in the country where the abuse took place, whereas legal costs are calculated according to what they are in the UK. Therefore, vast disparities are bound to occur. It was the UK Government who signed up to this, not the South African miners or the Peruvian campesinos. We need to take responsibility for that and for the additional restraints proposed by the Bill.

In a case with thousands of claimants, of course the costs will run into millions. If there are 1,000 claimants, there will be 1,000 medical reports and 1,000 toxicology reports to get. There will be travel and translation costs. Of course it will be expensive. The firm of solicitors to which the Minister referred, Leigh Day & Co, which has conducted most of these cases, routinely cross-subsidises its human rights work by taking on many other types of case. That enables it to take on those human rights cases. In the case of Trafigura, for example, in which each victim was awarded £1,000, it was not extraordinarily disproportionate for the company to have achieved £3,000 in costs, given the kind and amount of work and the length of time that such cases involve.

The disparities and the inequalities are too great. Justice is justice, whatever the cost. I want to test the opinion of the House.