Civil Liability Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Sharkey

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Thursday 10th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey]

Talking about vulnerable road users, I was reading Tuesday’s edition of Insurance Times, and the opening sentence was:

“Justice minister Lord Keen makes the first concession on Civil Liability Bill ahead of it entering the committee stage in the House of Lords”.


It went on to say:

“Lord Keen sent a letter to peers this morning, and in it, he made his first real concession regarding the Bill”—


and it then went on to quote the Minister at some length.

I looked on the Bills in progress website and could not find any letter. I searched through my emails and could not find any letter; I searched through my junk mail and still could not find any letter from the Minister. I wonder whether he will simply tell me that I should not believe everything I read in Insurance Times, or whether there is some letter that he would like to draw our attention to.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I, too, declare an interest as a regular cyclist and a member of the APPG on cycling. As has been made clear at all stages, the Government’s main aim in this Bill is to tackle what they perceive as the compensation culture, and in particular fraudulent and exaggerated whiplash claims. It should not be a by-product of that that vehicle road users, including cyclists, are penalised by measures designed for a completely different purpose.

Whiplash claims are brought by motor vehicle occupants, not by people riding bicycles or motorcycles or crossing the road. Nobody makes a fraudulent claim by throwing themselves off a bicycle or a motorbike or by jumping in front of a car. The point has been made to the MoJ that there is no evidence to suggest that fraudulent claims by vulnerable road users are an issue of concern—and, as far as I am aware, no evidence to the contrary has been provided by the Ministry of Justice.

Whiplash claims from cycle and motorcycle collisions are almost entirely unheard of. The mechanism of the typical injury sustained is, of course, different. People on bicycles tend to be injured by hitting hard surfaces—car bonnets or the road. They sustain fractures and injuries from those impacts. It is not at all likely that they would be making a fraudulent claim. Indeed, I think it is impossible to imagine that they would.

I support this amendment. I think that a Bill designed for whiplash claims should not accidentally spread its effect to vulnerable road users whose injuries are likely to be of a completely different nature.