Claims Management Companies: Unwanted Text Messages

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McNally

Monday 5th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government fully support the work of the Information Commissioner’s Office in enforcing the legislation that protects individuals from unsolicited text messages. The Ministry of Justice’s claims management regulation unit is actively working with the commissioner to investigate individual claims management companies receiving leads or claims as a result of unsolicited text messages, and is taking enforcement action as appropriate.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, the mis-selling of payment protection insurance was an absolute scandal, but the activities of some claims management companies are also a scandal, with unwanted text messages and phone calls. Does the Minister agree that there is a serious problem with this industry? If so, what are the Government going to do about it?

[Lord McNally]

The Government are making sure that there are joined-up investigations, co-operation between the various bodies responsible for various aspects of the industry and carried-through enforcement action. This is feeding through into weeding out the rogue traders and making sure that the consumer has sufficient information to be able to make rational decisions as to whether they use the services offered.

Insurance: Payment Protection Insurance

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McNally

Monday 5th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure consumers are getting good value for money from companies that are marketing services helping people make payment protection insurance mis-selling claims.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government require claims management companies to follow conduct rules focusing on protecting the consumer. The Ministry of Justice’s Claims Management Regulation Unit will take action against companies which fail to comply.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Does the noble Lord agree that the mis-selling of payment protection insurance was a scandal? Does he agree that making a claim is relatively straightforward, that you do not need to use a claims management company, and that losing 30 per cent of your compensation in fees and charges is not very good value for money? Would he agree to meet me and consumers’ representatives to discuss how consumers can keep more of their money?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I would be very happy to have such a meeting, and I congratulate the noble Lord on his campaign in this area. It is an area where consumers have not been best served and where they are not aware that there are many simpler ways of reclaiming this money than paying exorbitant fees to claims management companies. I hope that as a department we are on the case but I would gladly meet the noble Lord and colleagues to discuss it further.

Personal Injury Lawyers

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McNally

Thursday 7th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I can see a few more experienced ex-Ministers over there. The Government are sympathetic to the idea of a ban on referral fees, and are looking at how to tackle the issue as part of wider reforms—how we could do so effectively. Perhaps the Opposition have not yet got used to the fact that we are not a knee-jerk reaction Government; we are looking at the problem. The Prime Minister himself has made it very clear that we believe that Lord Justice Jackson has given us the solution to the problem. We are now looking at how to make it most effective.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords—

Representation of the People (Electoral Registration Data Schemes) Regulations 2011

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McNally

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the order and regulations will together provide the legal basis for the electoral registration data-matching trial that my honourable friend the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform announced in another place on 15 September 2010. These instruments will enable the sharing and matching of specified data between local authority electoral registration officers and public authorities that also hold certain kinds of specified data.

It might assist the Committee if, before going into greater depth about what the instruments will do, I were to supply some context and background to the order and regulations. The view that there is a need for change in our arrangements for electoral registration is, I know, widely shared. It is important that the register is as accurate and as complete as possible. We need to make sure that the system is not vulnerable to fraud, while ensuring at the same time that people are not prevented from registering to vote because the system is too difficult to use or because they are not aware of their rights.

In 2014, the Government plan to introduce individual electoral registration in place of the outdated system of household registration. Alongside that, however, we believe that there are other tools that we may be able to use to tackle under-registration and to ensure that people have every opportunity to register. Data matching is one of them.

Data matching involves comparing the electoral register against other public databases in order to identify people who are currently missing from the register. They can then be contacted by electoral registration officials and offered the opportunity to register if they are eligible to vote. We envisage that through data matching we will also be able to take steps to identify and remove any individuals who are on the register but are not entitled to be.

We believe that data matching has the potential to reduce the incidence of under-registration among specific groups in our society, but we do not yet know enough. We also believe that data matching has the potential to tackle inaccuracy in our electoral registers, but, again, we do not yet know enough. We need to test the effectiveness of data matching in this context and see what kinds of data are most useful in improving the accuracy and completeness of the register. We therefore plan to trial data matching over the next few months in a range of electoral registration areas in England, Wales and Scotland. The instruments before the Committee today will enable that to happen. The results of the trial will be evaluated with the assistance of the Electoral Commission and will help the Government to decide whether to seek to legislate to extend data matching permanently across all local authorities.

The order will enable specified data-holding public authorities, including the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Education, to provide electoral registration officers with the data necessary for their planned data-matching schemes. The 22 local authorities planning to take part in the trial are listed in the schedule to the order and we are grateful to them and to the data-holding authorities that will be participating for the work that they are doing.

Members of the Committee may have noticed that there are in fact 23 local authorities in the schedule. This is because Cardiff has unfortunately had to withdraw since the order was laid. I am, however, very happy to confirm that Peterborough, which withdrew prior to the order being debated in another place, has since been able to resolve its problems and will after all be taking part. Cardiff’s withdrawal does not affect the validity of the order, because being included in the schedule does not compel an area to take part. Nor will it affect the validity of the eventual results of the pilot schemes. Even if another one or two of the pilot schemes were to run into unforeseen practical difficulties of the kind recently encountered by Peterborough and Cardiff, there will still be enough of them for the results to be useful.

The order stipulates that before any data can be transferred a written agreement must be in place between the electoral registration officer and the data-holding authority, setting out the requirements as to the processing, transfer, storage, destruction and security of the data concerned. It also sets 1 March 2012 as the date by which each of the schemes must have been evaluated.

For the information of the Committee, let me say that 1 March 2012—not the end of December 2011, as mentioned in the draft agreement attached to the Explanatory Memorandum—will now be the date by which all data created for the purposes of the pilot schemes must be destroyed, except of course where data have been added to the electoral register in the mean time. Since that version of the draft agreement was prepared, the Electoral Commission has told us that it would assist its evaluation of the pilot schemes if the data were still to be available, should the commission need to see it. We agree with the commission, so the final version of the agreement will reflect this change of date.

The regulations complement the order by enabling registration officers to supply a copy of their full register, or an extract from it, to another person for it to be compared with the information that is to be provided under a data-matching scheme. The regulations also provide that a person to whom the copy of the register is passed may not do anything with it for any other purpose or without the registration officer’s consent. This means that registration officers will not be given data relating to everyone in their area. They will receive only targeted information about particular individuals, thus ensuring that unnecessary personal data are not transferred to registration officers and that the data that they receive are provided to them for a reason.

Data-matching schemes may lead to greater accuracy and improved levels of registration in some electoral registration areas and among some groups within the next few months. If so, the schemes may be the key to greater accuracy and improved levels of registration on a much larger scale within the next few years. However, we need to know for certain and we need to be able to produce the evidence. That is why it is so important to put these trials in hand. The order and regulations will enable us to do that and I commend them to the Committee.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I declare that I am an electoral commissioner, having joined the commission on 1 October last year. I fully support the thrust of the commission’s views on these important statutory instruments.

I am sure that all noble Lords want completeness and accuracy of electoral registers. We want confidence in our democracy and our electoral system. We want confidence that you will be able to vote if you want to and if you are eligible. We want confidence in those who have been elected to serve at all levels of government.

It is important that clear and reliable evidence on data matching is produced and that the evidence is robustly assessed. It is particularly important that this assessment is done carefully and represents fully what can be achieved, not least because data matching is envisaged as the primary method of ensuring the continued completeness of individual registration in 2014-15. I should welcome a response from the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on that specific point and on the commission’s concern that the timing of the schemes will coincide with the annual canvass of electors. It is important that there is clarity about the design of the data-matching schemes, so that the impact and any follow-up activity can be demonstrated beyond what the annual canvass activity would normally achieve.

Can the noble Lord give any further information on the agreement to process the data? It is particularly important that personal data are handled carefully and are protected. The commission has specifically recommended that the approach to the delivery of each pilot area should also form part of any written agreement, so that the commission can fully evaluate each scheme.

Finally, the noble Lord will be aware that the commission is required to produce an evaluation report on the operation of the scheme by 1 March 2012. To achieve this, it will be important that EROs are able to provide the commission at agreed intervals during the schemes’ operation with the information needed. Clarity about the design and delivery of each scheme will ensure that the commission is able to undertake its statutory evaluation effectively and that the results can inform future policy development on electoral registration. I am of course happy for the noble Lord to write to me to clarify a number of these points.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord McNally

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I will not detain the House long; many distinguished noble Lords will know Wales and the island of Anglesey much better than I do. It is an island constituency which deserves exemption in much the same way as your Lordships agreed to exempt the Isle of Wight recently. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to my amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, this is another attempt to except a single constituency; we have already debated a longer list of proposed exemptions. In the case of Anglesey, where geography is concerned, the two road bridges crossing the Menai strait clearly show there is no question of Anglesey being a difficult place to travel to or to travel around for the MP or constituents. We believe that parliamentary constituencies often cross the boundaries of a local authority without taking away all the sense of identity of each community within the constituency. Nor does it take away the ability of an MP to represent various communities with different senses of identity in one constituency.

I understand the noble Lord's motives in moving this amendment, as I do those of other noble Lords who have a particular attachment to a constituency. However, the fact remains the same. If we are to pursue our overall aim of having votes of equal weight we do not want to make the type of exceptions that the noble Lord proposes. I therefore invite him to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble Lord for his response and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.