Motor Insurance (Whiplash)

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I had not anticipated being on this early—I see faces falling around the room—but it means that I have sufficient time to develop my argument. It is a shame that more Members are not taking part in the debate, because this is an important issue. The report that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) has just spoken to is important and authoritative, and it has had a significant impact for the good on Government policy.

As I will explain, there was a danger that the Government’s consultation on whiplash would be another stitch-up on behalf of the insurance industry, but what has emerged in their response is far less damaging and, in some ways, positive. I do not know whether the new Minister had a hand in developing it—I would like to think he did—but he brings a breath of fresh air with him. Having dealt with his two predecessors over the past three years, I have, sadly, become used to there being a lack of evidence to support the Government’s conclusions and to a disconnect between their policy and their soundbites, particularly on this issue.

I may be being over-optimistic as far as the Secretary of State, although not the Minister, is concerned. I say that because the Government response to the Select Committee report and the consultation was announced in a peculiar way—it was certainly new to me. The evening before it was announced, there was an embargoed press release, which then featured in the morning papers, before the report itself had been considered. Therefore, the report—rather like this debate—did not get the attention it perhaps deserved.

It is fairly clear why that happened. Suddenly, when he took up his post, the Secretary of State for Transport started talking about MOT prices and motorway fuel prices. The reason for that is that the centrepiece of the Government’s consultation, which they intended to adopt —the increase in the small claims limit from £1,000 to £5,000 for personal injury—had been jettisoned, primarily due to the evidence in the Select Committee’s report, and the Government were left with not very much to say on personal injury and whiplash.

In fact, the only thing the Government were left with to talk about were the medical panels. The medical panels are interesting, and I will come on to them a bit later, but they are hardly revolutionary—they are hardly going to make the major changes to personal injury law or the processing of claims that the Government, with the usual bombast that surrounds the Secretary of State, led us to believe they would. We had a bit of clever pre-spinning on this issue, but the substance, which we will talk about this afternoon, is that the Government simply backed off from a very unwise proposal.

As I said, I have had three years of having to deal with rhetoric that simply is not supported by the facts. “Compensation culture” is one of the buzz phrases the Government have used to mount a wholesale attack on personal injury law, despite the phrase being disowned by their own experts and reviews. It has been a cover for cherry-picking the Jackson reforms and implementing only those parts the insurance industry thought favourable. It has also been used as a cover for extending the portal scheme, which is not a bad scheme in itself, to cover higher amounts and to include public liability and employer liability to a high level. That was before we had really seen whether the scheme was working in relation to road traffic. All those factors have tipped the balance very much in favour of defendant insurers and away from claimant victims.

Whiplash is another catch phrase that has been used substantively to tarnish the reputation of all personal injury claimants, and particularly road traffic personal injury claimants. It was something of a cloak for the belated attempt—now abandoned—to raise the small claims threshold to £5,000. That would have taken at least 90% of personal injury claims on to the small claims track, so they would not have been subject to cost regimes or representation. Many victims, some of whom will have quite substantive injuries—a £5,000 general damages claim in a personal injury case represents quite a severe injury—would therefore be on their own, as litigants in person or as prey to insurers or claims management companies, in trying to settle a claim.

The evidence shows that those who are represented in such claims tend to get awards of about three times what they would have got if they had been unrepresented. The average whiplash claim that is paid out is about £3,000 for represented claimants and about £1,000 for unrepresented claimants. That is a significant difference.

It is clear that there are problems with whiplash. Soft tissue injuries will by definition be more subject to fraud than injuries where damage can be clearly seen and assessed. That fact, with insurance sector spin, becomes the view that all whiplash claims, or a very large number of them, are fraudulent, or even, effectively, that soft tissue injuries do not exist at all. That must be wrong.

I think I saw a figure in the report that estimates of the proportion of claims that were fraudulent ranged from less than 1% to 60%. The insurance industry’s own assessment is that about 7% are fraudulent. That is a significant number of claims, and it should cause us all to pause to think and worry, but let us not forget the 93% of claims that are genuine instances of people in pain and suffering, perhaps unable to work or with additional needs and costs. They are entitled to compensation.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) for missing the beginning of her speech.

Has the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), had a chance to make his own assessment of the accuracy of claims?

[Mr Slaughter]

It is difficult. There is a lot of rhetoric out there, and I have said what I want to say: that we should be concerned about fraud per se, and, in the context of personal injury actions, about soft tissue injuries, because it is easier to make fraudulent claims on them. The issue is how we deal with that.

I am delighted that the Committee’s report highlighted two issues. One of those is third-party capture, which is an open invitation to fraud. We know why insurance companies use it. They think they can settle a claim quickly and cheaply by offering a sum of money that is probably a fraction of what a genuine injury is worth. Usually because the victim does not know what it is worth, or needs money in a hurry, or perhaps because they do not want to have the case tested in court, they will settle for the sum—perhaps a few hundred pounds or £1,000—offered in an unsolicited phone call from the insurers. That must be wrong. Lawyers and medical experts have been saying that for a long time.

I am glad that the issue has been highlighted, and even more pleased that the Government appear to have accepted it. I hope that the Minister will say a bit more about what action will be taken. I have tabled parliamentary questions, and the Minister has answered some of them, but I do not think that he dealt with that issue, and it would be useful if he would.

The other issue that I was pleased to see highlighted in the report was how often fraud is pleaded by insurers defending claims. The answer is rarely. I cannot give a percentage, but from talking to practitioners—I do not think that this is denied—I understand it is rare to raise the issue of fraud in defence. If that is not being done, it is difficult for insurers to claim that they are aware of fraud.

Fraudulent claims can and should be challenged, and not only for the sake of the individual cases; if that happened more commonly it would, one might think, discourage fraud. What the insurance industry has been looking for, which the Government were going along with until recently, is a quick and dirty solution, which might deal with the problem but would throw out the baby with the bathwater. It would also prevent victims from getting fair compensation and encourage bad practice. It would encourage third-party capture and would also be likely to encourage the intervention of claims management companies.

Right hon. and hon. Members present will probably all be clear about the noxious effect that the claims management industry has had in its expansion in many areas of public life in the past few years. Having been restricted in some areas, it is looking for others to expand into, and it has its eye on the one that we are considering. If the small claims limit had been raised, with the result that claimants could no longer get representation, they would have been easy prey for claims management firms, who would say, “Let us handle it for you. We will take 30% or 50%,” and would purport to negotiate with the insurers on the claimant’s behalf. I hope that resisting the temptation to raise the limit will deal with that.

I have no particular problem with independent medical panels, if they work. However, I do not think that they will make a dramatic difference, and I am not sure that they are the simplest or right solution. Neither am I sure what evidence the Government have about fraudulent and dishonest practice by medical practitioners at the moment. The Minister might want to explain that.

When the panels have been used in other countries—Australia is the obvious example—they have rather become the captives of the insurance industry. I hope that that will not happen here and that they will be genuinely independent. Also, they seem like a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They will be a great new piece of bureaucracy and I am not sure that we could not have achieved the same objective of being sure we were getting reliable, robust and testing medical reports simply through registers of medical practitioners who were accredited as independent. That would have been cheaper, probably as effective or more effective, and more independent. We shall see where the approach leads.

There has been a progressive erosion of claimants’ rights in personal injury. I do not believe that personal injury claims, on the whole, can be brought by litigants in person. If 90% of claimants had been unable to get representation, it is likely that their claims would have been settled disadvantageously to them.

That is not just my opinion—that was the Government’s opinion last year, three months, I think, after they decided not to proceed with any change to the small claims limit for personal injury claims. They started a new consultation in April. I think it was in February that the previous report found against going ahead. The Government decided to go ahead and raise the limit to £10,000 for non-personal-injury cases, and that is probably right. We can argue about the exact figure, but it was somewhat overdue.

I do not think that, if the Government had decided, to allow for inflation, to raise the personal injury limit to £1,500 or £2,000, anyone would have had much of a quarrel. It is somewhat perverse that, having wanted to raise the limit to £5,000, they have now decided not to increase it at all; after they dismissed the matter in February there cannot really be any explanation for their proposing consultation in April, other than that they wanted to go ahead and have now been dissuaded.

However, it was not just that report: every report in the past 15 years, under the Labour Government as well as the present Government, that has considered small claims limits, as well as independent judicial reviews of the matter, found that it would not be sensible to increase the limit as the Government proposed. I think that, having got everything it wanted through the insurance summit at Downing street and so forth, the insurance industry decided it was on a roll. Having got the Jackson concessions and similar things, it was looking for an opportunity to go further. This was the prize that insurers really wanted, because they thought that it would almost entirely destroy the personal injury lawyers, save for catastrophic and major injuries.

If one looks at other countries to learn lessons, with Australia being the obvious example, one can see that such changes lead to wholesale restrictions on the rights of claimants. In Australia, there is something called whole-person impairment that has quite a high threshold below which no personal claims can be made. In other words, a person has to be substantially injured before they can bring a claim. There is also no-fault compensation, under which the onus is effectively passed to the state rather than being on insurers.

There is a proposal in Australia, not due to come in for another five or six years, simply to ban the common law right to sue for personal injury. I find it perverse that a Conservative Government might start to walk down that track. The losers would be not only the victims, but the state, which will end up picking up the tab through the increased costs of the NHS and benefits, and in other ways. The proposal would effectively nationalise the liability for personal injury.

The winners here are clearly the insurers, whose shareholders and profits are the major driving force. Are motorists winners? So far, there is no evidence that they are. Although the Minister’s predecessors said—it will be interesting to hear whether he repeats this—that insurance premiums will come down as a consequence of the measures, the insurance industry never says that. It says that it hopes that insurance premiums will come down. They have come down, I think, by 12%.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I respectfully suggest that the hon. Gentleman look at what the AA has said—that average insurance premiums for comprehensive cover have gone down.

[Mr Slaughter]

I think that there is a misunderstanding. No one denies that insurance premiums have been going down. They have been going down for some time, and were doing so before any of the Government’s changes were implemented in April. I refer the Minister to an answer he gave. I asked,

“with reference to his…announcement of 23 October 2013, how much of the 12 per cent reduction in motor insurance premiums over the last year is attributable to the reforms to civil litigation funding and costs brought in April 2013.”

I am afraid that the answer was that it is

“too early to assess the full impact of the reforms”,

but that AA Insurance has ascribed the reduction

“to anticipated savings to the Government’s reforms.”—[Official Report, 6 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 255W-256W.]

But we are asking for evidence, which was my starting point.

[Mr Vara]

With respect, the shadow Minister has slightly moved the argument. The first comment to which I replied was simply that insurance companies do not say that insurance premiums have gone down, and I gave him a simple response—that the AA has specifically said that insurance premiums have gone down by an average of about £80 for comprehensive cover. That was all I was addressing, but he has moved on to a slightly different point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

With respect to the Minister, my point was whether insurance companies say, whenever changes are implemented, that insurance premiums will go down. If he has evidence of an insurance company saying, “We expect insurance premiums to fall by 10% in the next year as a consequence of proposals introduced by the Government in response to the whiplash consultation”, I will be sceptical, but impressed, and I will monitor that to see whether it is true.

I asked the Minister a series of questions about where the Government were going on the announcement, specifically in relation to medical panels and fraudulent claims. I am grateful to him for today’s answers, but I am not sure that they take us much further. I asked when he proposes to implement the new independent medical panel scheme for whiplash claimants, and he replied that there was “no set time frame”.

I asked the Minister whether the scheme would apply to all personal injury claims, to which his reply was that it

“will apply to similar road traffic accident soft tissue injury claims”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 259W.]

With respect, that is a bit vague. I take from that that it will not apply to all personal injury claims, but to those for whiplash and similar claims. The Government need to be more precise and to define exactly what the medical panel will deal with. It would be helpful if the Minister did that today, but if not, I am sure that he will write to me about the issue.

I asked what steps the Minister was taking to ensure that insurers did not make offers to settle whiplash claims without medical evidence. I made that point earlier, and he may have misunderstood me, but I do not think that he has replied to it, specifically in relation to third-party capture and how that can be prevented. There could simply be a ban—for example, on unsolicited approaches by insurers, without the benefit of medical evidence. That issue was not covered in the answers I received today, so I would be grateful for that reply.

I asked the Minister how the new independent medical panel scheme for whiplash claimants will be funded. I am afraid that his answer was:

“We are keen to talk to stakeholders about funding opportunities which would meet the costs of setting up and running the new system”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 259W.]

I take that as, “I don’t know at the moment,” but if I am wrong, will he let me know?

[Mr Vara]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but I hope that he agrees that it is very important to get this measure right and, in doing so, to consult all the relevant stakeholders. That is what we propose to do, rather than shoot from the hip. I gave a frank and honest reply, in the expectation that we will come up with the right answer for the public, for whom this is an important matter.

[Mr Slaughter]

This early in the Minister’s tenure, I am perfectly happy to accept his answer as it stands. However, we need to know at least the timetable for where this is going. To me, the response has the smell of a climbdown. I am sure that the Minister is absolutely sincere in wanting to tackle fraud in this area, but having gone along with how it was presented by the Secretary of State, we now need to know, factually, where we are going. The issue is important not just to victims—and to motorists and insurers—but to how the system works. Many hard-working practitioners are now scratching their heads about how things will change.

I asked the Minister what further proposals he was considering to reduce fraudulent or exaggerated whiplash claims, which was alluded to in the announcement. The answer was that the

“primary focus is on…implementation of the measures outlined in the 23 October announcement”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 259W.]

I think that that means there are none at the moment.

I also asked the Minister what steps he was taking to ensure that insurers shared more of their data on suspected fraudulent or exaggerated whiplash claims. Again, I take it that the answer is that he is looking at the matter and will come back with further proposals. Finally, I asked him for how long he has deferred any increase in the small claims threshold for personal injury claims. I take from his other answers that there are no plans to do that, at least until there has been a full review of the Jackson proposals, to which he has linked the issue, and that will some three to five years hence.

I do not want to put the Minister completely on the spot, because I appreciate that such things are not an exact science, but some certainty is needed. As I said, there has been a huge amount of rhetoric in this area, with puff stories in the Sunday papers for many years—the Government are entitled to do that—but the serious business of litigating and settling injury claims must be dealt with.

If the Government say, as they clearly now are saying, that they will not increase the limit, but might do so in future, they should state at least a minimum time that will have to pass before that can happen. I take it from the answers that until there has been a full review of the current changes—Jackson, the portal and so on—we will not return to that subject again. The fact that the Minister answered those questions has shortened my contribution, but I would be grateful for any further clarification.

In conclusion, the Government need to be more even-handed in relation to this matter. If they are, they will get a better response from all sides. The insurers feel that they have been on a roll so far. We must have no more summits with the Prime Minister or anybody else to which only one side is invited. I think we can all agree that that was a serious error of judgment; only listening to one side is never a good idea if we are to make sensible policy. The Conservative party needs to place less reliance financially on the insurance industry, which is a very substantial donor, because that is not a helpful way to go.

All of us want motor insurance premiums to continue to decline. I think the figure of £90 in the average premium is given in relation to whiplash and soft tissue injuries. That is a substantial sum, but it is far smaller than the amount spent on repair costs, car hire costs and many other areas that are open to abuse. I hope the Government will turn their attention to that matter and not be put off by the fact that the insurers are often complicit in those areas. Credit hire and inflated repair costs are a scandal. They cost far more than personal injury costs in relation to insurance premiums, and that is something that should be tackled.

One reason why there are a lot of soft tissue claims is that car safety has improved immeasurably over the past 20 or 30 years. I am talking about the structure of vehicles, the compulsory use of seat belts and other matters of that kind. People are suffering moderate soft tissue injuries where previously they would have suffered catastrophic injuries. That improvement is to be welcomed, so let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let us bear down on fraud, whether it is in the area of whiplash or credit hire, and on excessive profit taking, whether that is done by claims management companies, insurers or lawyers.

We must also ensure that victims’ voices are heard. I am sure that the Minister, in many other areas of his brief, would be the first to say that that should be the case. We must not prevent the victims of road traffic accidents or of other personal injuries from being able to mount a claim and get representation, proper redress and fair compensation. The Government have been singing from one side of the hymn sheet, and it is about time they took into account both sides.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Robertson, to speak in a debate that is chaired by your good self. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) on securing this timely debate. Indeed, this is my second debate as a Justice Minister and the second debate that I am replying to that has been secured by the hon. Lady.

On 29 October, the hon. Lady asked a number of questions in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice. I will try to address some of those issues in my remarks today. If there is any shortfall, I will expect her to have a reply very soon.

I was a little disappointed that the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) was so critical of everything that the Government seek to do, particularly as this is something that will actually benefit the public. He asked me who the winner will be. Let me assure him that, at the end of the day, it will be the public. I hope that when I have finished my comments, he will be slightly persuaded that this is actually a good news story, rather than a negative one.

There have been some real challenges for the Government in seeking to put right some of the imbalances in the criminal justice system. Such imbalances have led to a disproportionate growth in personal injury claims, especially whiplash claims, and in the considerable costs of dealing with them. Too many claims are being brought inappropriately. We know that reported road traffic accidents have fallen from 190,000 in 2006, to 150,000 in 2012—a reduction of more than 20%. Yet at the same time, the number of personal injury claims resulting from road traffic accidents has risen from 520,000 to 820,000—an increase of almost 60%. That is a clear indication that there is a problem.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will not interrupt the Minister every five minutes, but does he accept that whiplash claims fell by about 60,000 in the last year that figures were available, which is, I think, 2012-13? They are now down to the sort of levels of 2008-09.

[Mr Vara]

If the hon. Gentleman would give me the opportunity to speak, he will find that I address a little bit later the disparity of numbers and what is a genuine whiplash claim now compared with what it was before.

It is worth noting that the proportion of road traffic accident claims that relate to whiplash has dropped to 58% recently. However, further study of Department for Work and Pensions statistics suggests that that is misleading and that a change in claims labelling may be responsible. Many claims are now labelled as soft tissue neck injuries when notified to the DWP. When those claims are considered with those labelled “whiplash”, the figure increases to around 87% of claims. Even though the number of accidents is falling, there has been a large increase in the number of personal injury claims, which is real evidence of a system crying out for reform.

[Mr Vara]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. The Government did indeed consider that recommendation, but we do not intend to take any action on it. The limitation period is of long standing and applies to wider personal injuries than just those in road accidents. It is important to bear that in mind. This debate is specific to whiplash claims.

The Government accept that many claims may be genuine, but many speculative, exaggerated or even outright fraudulent claims are clearly being made. It is not right that people who cheat the system should get away with it and force up the price of insurance for honest, hard-working motorists. I make no apology for targeting the exaggerated claims of whiplash fraudsters to drive down premiums.

People seemingly now claim for whiplash injuries sustained in the most minor of incidents, and Government data show that more than 1,900 claims a day are made. According to the Association of British Insurers, the cost to the industry from whiplash claims is £2 billion, resulting in £90 being added to the average motor insurance premium. That is why the Government were committed to reducing the number and cost of whiplash claims at the Prime Minister’s insurance summit last year. We need to take action to tackle speculative, fraudulent and exaggerated whiplash claims, but we must not lose sight of the needs and legitimate expectations of those who have suffered a genuine injury. A reduction in the number of such claims will lower the costs for insurers, which will in turn allow them to continue to reduce motor premiums for consumers.

Motor insurance premiums are beginning to fall. Figures published by the AA’s British insurance premium index in October, as I said earlier, show that quotes for annual comprehensive car insurance have fallen by 12% over the past year. Incidentally, regarding some remarks made earlier by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, I refer him to what the Association of British Insurers said in oral evidence to the Transport Committee. The ABI said that it expects savings from the Government reforms that have been implemented to result in a decrease in insurance premiums.

That is a good start, but the Government fully expect insurers to continue to meet their commitment to pass on the savings from the Government reforms that are driving down the costs of civil litigation. In December last year, the Ministry of Justice launched a consultation seeking stakeholder views on the creation of independent medical panels to support better diagnosis of whiplash and options for increasing the small claims threshold for personal injury claims to £5,000.

The consultation closed on 8 March. I thank all the individuals and organisations who took the time and trouble to contribute. A healthy 292 responses were received from a wide range of stakeholders, providing the Government with a strong evidence base to inform our decisions for reform.

The Government published our response to the consultation and to the Transport Committee report, “Cost of motor insurance: whiplash”, on 23 October. Our response detailed the Government’s direction of travel on whiplash reform and announced a number of reforms to the medical evidence and reporting system for whiplash claims. Exaggerated and speculative compensation claims have helped force up insurance premiums, and such unnecessary and costly claims will be targeted by the Government’s new and robust medical evidence scheme.

The new system will ensure that only evidence from fully accredited medical professionals qualified to carry out thorough medical examinations can be considered when pursuing a claim, so people who aim to cheat the system will be deterred, while victims with genuine injuries can still get the help that they need. Improvements to the system to support medical experts will include an approved accreditation scheme, new best practice guidance, better accident information and access to medical records, where appropriate, and an improved medical report form to speed up settlements.

The Government are particularly pleased that representatives from the insurance, legal and medical sectors have put aside their differences and submitted a consensus approach to improving medical evidence and reports. Such a consensus can only be positive for all involved and provides the Government with a clear mandate for our reforms. We look forward to working closely with stakeholders to build an effective and rigorous new system on that solid base of agreement. Ministers plan to meet representatives from key stakeholder groups to outline the way forward and identify experts to work with officials on the detail of the new system. It is both important and sensible to involve industry experts when designing the detailed changes. Such input will be invaluable as we work up an appropriate and effective accreditation process, methods to control the use of pre-medical offers, robust examination techniques and best practice guidance and an improved medical reporting process and report form.

Details of the most appropriate funding method for the new scheme are still to be developed, but the Government believe that there are areas of common ground with the industry. We will talk to stakeholders about funding opportunities for meeting the costs of setting up and running the new system and for ensuring that the Government achieve our intention that such costs should not fall on the taxpayer. We aim to work at pace with stakeholders on those and other issues, and we intend to start implementing improvements to the system next year. I assure the hon. Member for Hammersmith that we are actively considering a timetable for implementation.

In addition to the work on the new medical reporting scheme, the Government will also work with stakeholders to improve the provision of data relating to whiplash. As the Committee indicated in its report, accurate data and statistics are needed to have a baseline to work from. Ministry of Justice officials will be working with colleagues in other Departments and with representatives from the insurance and legal sectors, including Claims Portal Ltd, to identify and compile baseline data. That will ensure that future work in this area can be underpinned by a robust evidence base.

[Mr Slaughter]

I appreciate all that, but in considering the cost of insurance premiums, will the Minister also consider insurance company profits? Admiral has just said that it is delivering £80 per policyholder to its shareholders—a sum equivalent to whiplash costs—and Direct Line has just announced that its overall operating profit has risen 73% in the past nine months.

[Mr Vara]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we want to get this right, and we are speaking actively with all stakeholders: insurance companies, lawyers, claimants, defendants and the judiciary where applicable. I hope that there will be consensus, and that we will get it right. If he wishes to have any input other than this debate, I will certainly welcome it. He is welcome to write to me, as indeed he has done with all the questions that I have helpfully answered in this debate.

The Government are also keen for the insurance sector to work with the claimant lawyer groups to share available data on fraudulent claims. Doing so would enable many such claims to be stopped at source. Ministry of Justice officials will work with stakeholders to assess the work undertaken so far, consider the issues on both sides that are slowing agreement and identify solutions to enable both sides to reach agreement on this vital issue.

The sharing of data on fraudsters will be of immeasurable help to claimant lawyers when considering whether to take on a case and will be a considerable step forward in the fight against fraudulent claims. However, the Government consultation document contained a further proposal on whether the small claims threshold for personal injury claims should be raised from £1,000 to £5,000. Right hon. and hon. Members already know that, following a thorough assessment of the evidence submitted to the Government from both consultation responses and from other sources, we decided to defer the raising of the small claims threshold for now. For the moment, more work is needed to support litigants in person, consider how best to regulate the personal injury claims sector, mitigate any impact on the online portal used to process road traffic accident claims where liability is admitted and assess the impact on the market of other Government reforms.

As Members will also be aware, the Government have undertaken a major programme of reform to civil litigation and costs with significant impacts on the personal injury litigation sector. The implementation of part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 on 1 April introduced major changes to no win, no fee conditional fee arrangements, the provision of after-the-event insurance and a ban on the payment and receipt of referral fees in personal injury cases.

Those reforms, and the subsequent changes to the road traffic accident pre-action protocol and associated fixed recoverable costs, have already begun to have an impact on the personal injury market. However, the Government believe that time is needed for the changes to bed in completely and for the savings that they will create to be fully realised before further reform to the sector is undertaken. I ought to make it clear that the Government have not ruled out further reform to the personal injury market. The consultation document and the Transport Committee inquiry both highlighted areas where further reform would be possible, and the Government may wish to consider such proposals in due course. However, our primary focus for now is on the effective implementation of the measures outlined in the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor on 23 October.

It is also our desire to identify and eradicate dysfunctional behaviour by those who operate in this sector, and we would like all stakeholders to work together with us to address this issue. In addition, we await with interest the Competition Commission’s forthcoming report and recommendations on the personal motor insurance market.

There is an opportunity now for insurers, claimant lawyers and others to build on the recent spirit of co-operation that was shown in agreeing a sensible consensus position on medical evidence. I call on all interested parties in this market to come together to build a personal injury process that deters speculative and fraudulent claims, while providing the genuinely injured with the help and support that they need to recover from an accident.

I thank the Transport Committee for its valuable inquiry and report on the cost of whiplash claims on motor insurance premiums. The report was well-balanced and thought provoking, and it provided much useful evidence that helped to inform the Government’s final decisions on whiplash reform.

As Members are no doubt aware, Ministers helpfully agreed to defer the publication of the consultation response to allow the Committee’s recommendations to be considered in full. The Committee published its recommendations on 31 July, and my predecessor wrote to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside on 25 September to propose that a combined response to the consultation and the Committee should be published. I understand that the Committee was content with this approach, and the response was published on 23 October.

As I have already mentioned, the Government agreed with a number of the Committee’s conclusions, such as those on improvements to medical reporting, data sharing and evidence gathering and on whether to raise the small claims threshold for personal injury claims, so I will not go into them again now. I should point out that the Committee’s report addressed areas where the Government felt, on balance, that change was either not required or not appropriate.

Whiplash is a complex issue and all options, including whether it would be proportionate and appropriate to make changes to primary legislation, were looked at before final decisions on the way forward were made. For example, the Government considered the Committee’s recommendation on whether to amend the limitation period for whiplash claims, and I have already dealt with that issue. As I said, the limitation period is long-standing and applies to all personal injury actions arising from negligence or breach of duty. However, the Government decided that the available evidence did not at present support such a change.

As I said in my opening remarks, we have received the letter of 29 October from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside, and we hope to reply to her more substantively very shortly.

I conclude by noting that the Transport Committee issued a further call for evidence on Tuesday relating to the publication of the Government’s response document. The Government will, of course, provide an appropriate contribution, and I look forward to the Committee’s further report.

North Liverpool Community Justice Centre

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Vara]

I would like to make a little progress, but I am happy to give way to the hon. Lady a little later.

The outcome of the consultation is to proceed with plans for closure of the centre, but the consultation response identified two areas in which the original proposals should be revised: youth and educational welfare cases. We have listened to those views and revised the proposal accordingly. Youth and education welfare cases will now be dealt with by the Liverpool youth court and the Liverpool and Knowsley magistrates court, respectively. Again, they are around two miles away—no more.

The points about work load and courtroom utilisation, plus the high running costs of the centre, were set out in the initial consultation document and in the consultation response document published last week. Moreover, the criminal justice agencies have reduced the number of people based at the centre, in line with the decrease in work and to meet their changing operational needs. For example, the Crown Prosecution Service has reduced its presence significantly and is now supporting the centre’s cases in the same way as it would in a mainstream court, as opposed to providing dedicated prosecutors and service levels, as it did previously.

As announced last week, the proposal to transfer the work from the centre to the nearby Sefton magistrates court will now proceed. Sefton has excellent modern facilities and good transport links. It has earned its own reputation for innovation, including a dedicated problem-solving court, and because of its efficient processes it was the first model court—subsequently, beacon office—in what was then known as Her Majesty’s Courts Service. Indeed, Sefton magistrates court’s problem-solving approach is built on the principles of the North Liverpool community justice centre, but is achieved at much lower cost. The principles and ethos of the centre will not be lost; they will be carried on at Sefton.

We have much for which to thank the centre. It pioneered a scheme to improve case management—to the centre’s credit, that scheme is now in place in all magistrates courts in England and Wales, reducing waiting times considerably, with the majority of cases completed within four weeks. The spirit of the North Liverpool community justice centre will move to Sefton, while allowing us to deliver cost savings of £630,000 per year.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Minister is being generous with his first speech here; I wish it were on a happier subject. Four weeks is an impressive turnaround time. What assurances will he give that it will be maintained when those cases are transferred to a much larger court?

[Mr Vara]

There is plenty of capacity at Sefton. It has five courts at the moment, and on any given day, two or three are being used. To the extent that more staff and the like are needed, provision for that has been taken on board. I am confident that the rate of processing cases will continue.

The Government published our consultation response on 22 October 2013. There were 18 responses. Five supported the proposal fully, three were neutral and 10 were opposed in some way to the closure of the centre, the choice of Sefton as the court to receive the centre’s work, or both.

The main issues recognised in support of closure were the financial benefit and the fact that the centre had moved away from its original community-focused role. Those opposed to closure focused on what they perceived as an adverse impact on the provision of justice within the north Liverpool community and raised concerns about youth and mental health cases at Sefton magistrates court. As I have said, we listened to those concerns and have acted accordingly.

Closure of the North Liverpool community justice centre will result in savings of £630,000 a year, whereas maintaining its operation would mean a continuation of costs of £930,000 a year, based on this year’s budget. The proposed savings outweigh any perceived benefits from continuing to operate the centre. That is particularly so given that I have been assured that the ethos and principles developed at the centre will live on at Sefton magistrates court, which itself has a reputation for innovative work, but will provide far greater value for money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will continue to try to ensure that we provide the right financial balance. Most senior members of the Bar mention the number of people training as barristers compared with the number of pupillages available, as that represents a huge challenge for the legal profession. The Government will continue to work to achieve the right balance, but under our proposals for criminal legal aid, in normal routine Crown court work the lowest daily amount we will be paying is £225 plus VAT.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with the former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association who commented this weekend that for the Secretary of State to hold a “global law summit” to celebrate Magna Carta, while destroying access to justice through his legal aid policy, and access to human rights by his threats to repeal the Human Rights Act 1997 and withdraw from the European convention on human rights, is “hypocrisy” that “beggars belief”?

[Chris Grayling]

Everyone has a right to their opinion, and I think that that is complete hogwash. It is absolutely right and proper that this country should celebrate a profession that makes a huge contribution to this country and its economy. We should celebrate our long legal traditions and we will do so proudly in 2015. That does not mean that we do not have to take tough financial decisions to clear up the mess that Labour left behind.

[Mr Slaughter]

The right hon. Gentleman has never been a big fan of the Criminal Bar Association—that might be reciprocated—but does he agree with the president of the Supreme Court, who last week said that legal aid:

“ensures that the most underprivileged people in society, the people who need the protection of the law most…get a proper hearing”

and that

“legal aid cuts therefore do cause any person concerned with the rule of law worry”?

[Chris Grayling]

That is precisely why, despite taking the tough financial decisions, we are ensuring that anybody who cannot afford it, if they are arrested and charged with a crime, will always have access to a qualified lawyer, and qualified barrister if they need one, to provide them with a proper defence, according to the traditions of Magna Carta.

Criminal Legal Aid Reforms

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) for his outstanding speech—a tour de force—demolishing the Government proposals. I also thank all hon. Members who have made very fine speeches on a range of issues—and, indeed, all 20 Members who have turned up, not one of whom have I heard give unqualified support to the Government proposals; there has been much for the Minister to think about and reply to. In its way, it is almost as impressive as the 31 Members who attended the Backbench Business Committee debate. There has also been a debate in the other place.

As my hon. Friend said, it remains a scandal that the Government have not provided any of their own time to debate these issues. We had a year going through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill—now an Act—but these measures are equally controversial and should have been the subject of primary legislation or, if not, certainly given ample Government time. We will no doubt return to the issues in other debates, but such debates all seem to be up to Back-Benchers and the Opposition to supply. I remind the Minister that the Government’s own lawyer said about the consultation document:

“We consider that the proposals in the consultation paper will undermine the accountability of public bodies to the detriment of society as a whole and the vulnerable in particular.”

More than 100,000 people have so far signed the petition opposing the proposals.

In the few moments that I have this morning, I want to look at where we are. A two-month consultation process earlier this year yielded 15,000 responses. We had the climbdown on choice, which was welcome as far as it went. The Joint Committee on Human Rights then intervened, asking the Government to pause, partly because some of the proposals might be unlawful. That was rejected out of hand by the Lord Chancellor, who said that he had to get on and make the cuts.

The areas of particular concern that the Joint Committee identified for review were the proposals on judicial review, residency and prisoner rights that, on the Government’s own estimation, make savings of no more than £6 million. The Government still cannot say—the Minister may want to correct me—what the savings will be from introducing the residency test. Some have pointed out the appalling consequences of such a test for the relatives abroad of those who have died in custody, the Gurkhas or other groups for whom justice should be done. The Government say that those proposals will save £6 million.

I hope the Minister has read the excellent paper by Dr Nick Armstrong at Matrix Chambers. It has been endorsed by the probation service, which says that, cumulatively, the proposals will cost about £30 million. The Lord Chancellor is simply wrong to say that it is on the grounds of cost that we must proceed in a hurry to make those fundamental constitutional changes.

We are told by the usual channels—a leak to the Law Society Gazette—that tomorrow there will be an oral statement and the publication of the Government’s response. I am not sure whether the Minister is in a position to confirm that today. He might as well, because we do not know whether the Lord Chancellor will even turn up to the statement tomorrow; someone might be rude to him on the way there or he might have to go and do a bit of canvassing in a marginal seat.

Let us hear what the Minister can tell us this morning. Will he answer my questions? First, given that choice is back in, what is the savings target now? Is it still £220 million or has it changed? What effect will the second consultation, which we are told will take place shortly, have on the timetable for implementation of the changes? What will the new tendering regime look like? Is the decline in the number of firms by 75%—1,600 to 400—still on the table?

Will anything be done on the issue of specialism? A lot has been said about that in relation to, say, black and minority ethnic firms and small rural firms, but these measures go across the board. One submission that has already been mentioned was from Thompsons Solicitors, which represents a lot of public sector workers such as paramedics, nurses and care workers, who are often accused of serious offences that have implications for not just their liberty but their continued career and employment. They need specialist representation, and it is very unlikely that they will obtain that under the proposals.

On average, what will be the costs of a bid? We are told in the consultation paper that they need to be digitally prepared and done in a certain way. The process will be extremely expensive for small firms, which may not be able to make the investment with any certainty that they will be successful at the end of the day. Will the Government’s proposals still discriminate against small, rural or specialist firms?

The Government have said nothing so far on the issue of the perverse incentives. It is nonsense to suggest that the same fee should be payable for an early plea, a cracked trial or a short trial of up to three days. Given his background, the Minister should know that and that it must be addressed at some stage. Retaining choice is a step forward, but it is not the magic bullet that will sort out all the problems.

The Government have been asked to pause. They are bringing forward a second consultation, but they have not addressed the main reason for the pause. They have not addressed the issue of legality that the Joint Committee has raised, and the timetable thus far has shown the confusion and inadequacy of the proposals.

The other matter I want to raise with the Minister is the cumulative effect that this avalanche of proposals is having on the criminal justice system as a whole. We saw in the research from the shadow Home Secretary this morning that the number of domestic violence cases being handed by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service has fallen by 13%—primarily due, it appears, to a lack of police numbers and time.

Reference has been made to the crisis in the CPS. Again, a leading defence firm that responded to the consultation estimated that in 85% of cases, disclosure is not supplied timeously by the CPS. The consequence is more applications in court and more wasted costs orders against the CPS.

The court amalgamations—we are told that there may be more closures coming forward—are also causing great problems of management for magistrates, court staff and the CPS. The continuing interpreters fiasco is not only a problem in itself but an indication of where we might be in relation to the proposals. Having a system in which the lowest common denominator drives down prices to the lowest possible level means that we just cannot get the people to do the work. There will be solicitors who either cannot or will not work for those rates, because the costs are just too low.

We have not seen the full impact of the cuts enshrined in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, which were introduced in April. We have not seen the effect of other savings such as the defence costs orders, which were introduced at the end of last year. They effectively mean that if a person is paying privately for their defence and is acquitted, they may now recover only 25% of their actual costs.

There seems to be an issue of justice there; people should be put back into the position where they should have been had they not been falsely accused of offences. None the less, there will be a saving there. Will the Minister say what that will be? Equally, what additional costs will we increasingly see to litigants in person, and what are the additional costs that will come about because of some of the so-called cuts that Dr Armstrong has identified in his papers?

The Government are hardwiring inefficiency and injustice into the criminal justice system. There are inefficiencies in the system and they should be taken out. Several hon. Members have alluded to possible ways of making savings in a way that would improve the efficiency of the courts and the administration of justice. The Government’s proposals offer the worst of both worlds. They are increasing inefficiency, making things more uncertain and putting delay into the system. At the same time, they are unlikely to achieve many of the savings that the Government have outlined.

On the way to the Chamber, I was reading an article by Stephen Sedley, one of our most eminent judges, in the London Review of Books. He says:

“The decision in 2012 to put a political enforcer, Chris Grayling, in charge of the legal system carried a calculated message: the rule of law was from now on, like everything else, going to be negotiable.”

He adds that

“departmental housekeeping is being used not to rebalance but to unbalance a central element of the constitution.”

We have to make cuts in legal aid and elsewhere in the public finances. However, putting in jeopardy the justice system of which this country is so proud and on which so many people rely is not the way to do it.

Magistrates' Courts: Salford

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2013 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Slaughter]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how the theft of a network server from Salford magistrates' court in January 2012 took place; who stole the server; what the value of the server was; how it was recovered; what action has been taken against the thief; what documents were on the server; whether such documents (a) related to court staff, defendants, victims or witnesses and (b) included personal or confidential matters or matters related to evidence; what steps have been taken to inform those affected; for what reasons he believes that the information has not been accessed; for what reasons the theft was not reported to the police and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) until June 2012; when he expects the ICO to report; and if he will make a statement.

[Official Report, 18 July 2013, Vol. 566, c. 829W.]

Letter of correction from Helen Grant:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) on 18 July 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mrs Grant]

The theft of a network server from Salford magistrates court occurred during the IT decommissioning process undertaken by contractors during the closure of the court. Following a police investigation, there was insufficient evidence to identify who stole the server and secure a conviction and no charges were brought. The estimated value of the server was £1,200.

The theft came to light on 3 May 2012 when the server was put up for sale on eBay still bearing the contractor's logo/asset tag. Arrangements were made by the contractor to recover the server on 9 May 2012. Once the facts were established, the incident was reported to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on 14 June 2013.

Files recovered from non user-accessible areas of the server contained personal and sensitive data, including court documents and e mails, but a detailed forensic analysis and audit did not identify any access to the files during the time the server was not under the control of MOJ and therefore no action has been taken to inform those affected.

The matter is still under investigation by the ICO and we await their report.

The correct answer should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am very concerned to pursue that. I am aware of the issues that my hon. Friend mentions. It may well be down to the fact that there was a surge in cases prior to the legal aid changes that came into effect in April, but I can give him an assurance that this is very much on my radar, and I intend to pursue it.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Last week, the Lord Chancellor was telling some of the 16,000 respondents to his legal aid consultation that their responses had been automatically deleted, but he must have read some of them, as they provoked his embarrassing U-turn on choice of solicitor yesterday. Will he now also U-turn on forcing small firms out of business and on giving cash incentives for guilty pleas, and will he abandon the further cuts in civil legal aid that will, according to the Parole Board among others, cost several times the £6 million he claims they will save?

[Chris Grayling]

Labour Members really do not get it, do they? Government Minister consults on proposals, listens, makes some modifications, and gives an early decision to help people, so they are not attacking proposals that have changed. Labour Members never listened to anybody when they were in government; they just ploughed ahead regardless.

The hon. Gentleman is the person who said, in 2011, that the Government should look for

“efficiencies in the criminal legal aid system,”

to

“save…money”.—[Official Report, 2 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 958-9.]

We are now doing that; they have changed their minds. It is shambolic.

Interpreting and Translation Services

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

You have ruined the round of applause at the end of my speech, Mr Pritchard. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon.

If the Minister did not know at the beginning of the debate how important this issue was, she will now, from the quality of the debate and from the contributions from Members on both sides of the House, including from very senior Members of the House; and whereas it is right to say that she did not preside over the inauguration of what the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), has called a shambles, she has been defending that shambles since she was appointed, so she does need to give some clear and full answers today.

Included in the contribution from the Chair of the Select Committee was the worrying information, which is in the report, that there was interference with the inquiry by the Ministry of Justice to prevent the fullest account of what has happened coming to light. Perhaps the Minister would like to address that and say whether she wishes to see that there is no repetition of it in the future. It is difficult not to conclude that the reason for it was that the Ministry did not want the full facts of the contract to emerge. I am delighted to hear that this is not the end of the matter for the Select Committee, because it not only has severe implications, as many hon. Members have said, for the quality and the standard of justice in our courts, but it has implications for the Ministry of Justice’s generally shambolic tendering processes.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) said that in his experience, and looking at the three substantial reports from the NAO, the Justice Committee and the PAC, he had rarely seen such an indictment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) quoted some, but only some, of the examples of failure. The dossier from which he was reading is only one of several dossiers about hundreds of individual cases that have been prepared. I was grateful for those contributions, and grateful also for the contributions from the hon. Members for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech), and for Redcar (Ian Swales), and my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who brought to the debate their own experience, either from their private life or from the Committees on which they have served.

A number of Members wanted to take part in the debate, and what their contributions come to, in summation, is the anatomy of a disaster. The Ministry set out to save relatively small amounts of money; I shall explain why I use that phrase. Some Members—certainly Members on the PAC—will have seen the interrogation by the Chair of the PAC, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), of the senior responsible officer, who had not read the report and was not aware of the fact that when a £42 million contract was let to ALS, it was subject to a £1 million limit. He had not read that because he thought that it was de minimis and below his estimable gaze, and things went from bad to worse in that interrogation.

There appears to have been no assessment of the risk in this case. There has been contempt for the way in which professional interpreters should be dealt with. I am very grateful for the way in which professional interpreters have assisted us. I particularly mention Geoffrey Buckingham of the Association of Police and Court Interpreters, but I am also referring to many of the organisations that make up Professional Interpreters for Justice. They have been prepared to brief hon. Members at length on what is going wrong in our courts every day. The only party that appears not to wish to listen to that is the Ministry of Justice, which is why we have had the meltdown in our courts during the past 18 months.

Let me deal first with the issue of costs. I do not expect to get an answer from the Minister on costs, although many hon. Members have asked her about them. I have been trying to get answers to these questions for months through parliamentary questions and Freedom of Information Act inquiries. Let me tell Members what my latest inquiries have gained me. I asked the Ministry to provide the information on wasted costs in courts, and it said that it would not do that, although it could, because it was too expensive. I am appealing that decision, because it seems to me that the Ministry could simply contact each court and ask it to supply that information as raw data, and my office could collate that. Failing that, I asked whether the Ministry would provide me with the e-mail addresses of the country’s courts, so that I could undertake the exercise myself, and it said, wrongly, that that information was available publicly. It is not available publicly, so I am appealing that as well. The fact that the response to one of those inquiries was addressed to Mr Safranov and the other one was unopenable and caused my computer to crash only confirms that the Ministry is either unable or unwilling to provide the information because it knows how devastating it is likely to be.

What we do know—these are in part estimates but also in part statistics—is that about 50% of the requirement for interpreters is being fulfilled through the Capita contract. We know that after 500 days, the alternative system—courts finding their own interpreters—is still in effect. We know that whereas the Ministry claims that from a 58% starting point, Capita’s performance has got better, which is not much of a claim, in fact it got worse again from the middle of last year—it does not acknowledge that. I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton, gave the figures for the trials that have been aborted—more than 600 in the magistrates court and more than 30 in the Crown court over that period.

Those are appalling figures, but it should not be up to any Member of the House to go away and find out that information. That information should be made available, and if the Minister does not have it available, perhaps she could undertake today to give a clear answer about the costs of the failure of the ALS-Capita contract. They include, of course, not only the costs from wasted court time, but the costs from unnecessary remand, the costs to the Crown Prosecution Service and the costs to the Prison Service.

In relation to the impact, I will not read out a great swathe of examples from the dossiers that have been prepared, but they range from the hugely serious to the almost comic. Examples include interpreters who cannot translate the word “guilty”; an attempted murder case in which the interpreter had received no training and did not appreciate the need to translate everything; an interpreter who chatted to witnesses about the case, causing a mistrial after 12 days; and a Crown court trial that was postponed because there was no rare language interpreter, the rare language being Polish—the second most commonly spoken language in the UK. This is going on now.

There was the very serious quadruple murder case at Nottingham Crown court last month. The BBC report stated:

“The failure of an interpreter to show up for a murder suspect’s court appearance has been described as a ‘complete disgrace’ by a judge…No Mandarin interpreter was available, and Nottingham Crown Court heard it was ‘not worthwhile’ for one to turn up”—

according to Capita—

“as they would ‘not make enough money’.”

That was described by the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) as the service being “out of control”. I wonder whether the Minister agrees with her colleague’s view on that matter. A murder case is going on today at Birmingham Crown court for which no Capita interpreter—certainly at the time when I was briefed, early this morning—had turned up, and that case is therefore also in jeopardy.

I do not think that I have to elucidate for Members at this debate how serious these matters are, not just in terms of cost but in terms of the administration and execution of justice. I am not being pompous in saying that these matters go not just to the heart of the Administration, but to the heart of justice itself.

I have with me the translation of an article from Lithuanian, and because it was done by someone on the National Register of Public Service Interpreters, it is certified and I trust it as a translation. It is from a Lithuanian website and is telling people about the interpreting service in this country. It quotes a Lithuanian interpreter in the UK as saying this about dealing with clients:

“We just advise them to tell the truth about how everything happened. For example, how and where they went to steal”.

The most fundamental part of an interpreter’s job is not to interfere in the process of justice—not to do the solicitor’s or the barrister’s job and certainly not to give the client legal advice or advice on how to conduct themselves, yet that appears to be the way in which these matters are routinely conducted.

In the few moments left to me, I would like to deal with where we go next. I do not think that the case against this contract has to be made any further; I think that we have to say, “Where do we go now?”

The MOJ is in a parlous state, in terms of letting contracts; its complete reliance on payment by results; what it is doing with the probation service; and what it is threatening to do with the privatisation of the entire Courts Service. I read in the technical press this week that a £300 million MOJ desktop and laptop support contract has been postponed, reportedly after the four most serious contenders had already spent millions bidding. That is the computer contract for the entire court, prison and probation system, which has been in planning for some years and which has now simply been pulled. We do not know why; perhaps the Minister will tell us. The point is that there is no coherence to the contract letting process in the MOJ and the contract is perhaps the clearest example of it. It is also one of the smallest contracts that it has let, and I fear for what may now happen.

So what should now happen? First, the Government need to stop being in denial about the failure of the contract. They need to stop saying that there has been a dramatic improvement when the situation is getting worse. They need to stop misrepresenting what they say about the view of professional interpreters. In their response to the Select Committee, they claimed that the slight amelioration of conditions was something that had been welcomed. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is clear in the minutes of the meetings between the Minister, officials and interpreters that the terms being offered do nothing to meet the concerns of the professional interpreters or to adequately compensate them. Until the Minister realises that and begins to address that matter, the contract will continue to fail.

What interpreters want is the reinstatement of the national agreement; proper—not excessive, but fair—remuneration and conditions of service; legislation to protect the title of registered public service interpreter, so that there will no longer be the types of extraordinary cases that we have heard examples of this afternoon; and to work with the Government to establish a regulatory professional body that is robust and rigorous in its approach, enabling interpreters to provide quality interpreting services to public bodies. They do not seem extreme or unreasonable claims or ambitions.

There is a break clause in the contract. The Government could—and should—act now to suspend while they determine how they can properly address the concerns raised. In my opinion, there is now sufficient evidence that the contract with Capita should not continue.

I will stop now, because I want to give the Minister sufficient time to reply to all the points that have been raised. She is a courteous Minister, but she tends to read from her civil servants’ brief, rather than answering the points raised in debate. As we have a full house today and interpreters are present who have come to hear the Government’s current stance, I hope we will hear about some progress and movement towards a fair deal for interpreters, which is important, because they are professional people whose livelihoods are at stake, and that we can have within the courts of England and Wales what we used to take for granted. Certainly when I was in practice, I would take it for granted that interpreters would be competent, efficient, present, and able to discharge their duties.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Minister, as is convention, I intend to call the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) to make some concluding remarks for two or three minutes, if he wishes to do so, before the end of this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

I was not greatly shocked to be told that recovering the figures that I asked for would involve a disproportionate cost. If the Minister is going to persist with that line, she cannot give a figure for savings, because, if it is accurate, it is clearly a gross figure. The collapse of any of the serious Crown court trials that I mentioned will cost tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds. The Government must be able to make some estimate of the costs. It is not good enough just to say, “We’re not going to collect that information from the courts.” Although it may not be 100% accurate, we need some idea of the cost to the public purse of this contract going ahead.

[Mrs Grant]

I am afraid that I cannot honestly say any more than I have already said; I do not want to be disingenuous. I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says, and if we can do any more—if we can give him any further and better particulars—I will be happy to try to do so.

The system has been operating well in the National Offender Management Service. The senior presiding judge told the NAO that the system had improved since initial roll-out through the Ministry’s actions. I am pleased to confirm that complaints are declining. I have outlined the improvements in our success rate. Just 0.4% of magistrates court listings were delayed because of interpreter problems in the first and second quarters of 2012, which was the difficult period. We will continue to work closely with our partners and to bring about changes that deliver improved performance in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It certainly brings competition to bear. We are trying to take tough decisions on legal aid in a way that, where possible, impacts on the top end, not the bottom end, of the income scale. That is what we believe in, and I am surprised that Labour Members appear to disagree with us.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State read his interview with the Law Society Gazette this week? I would not blame him if he had not, because it is a bit of a car crash. Does he stand by the passages where he says that he has no evidence of a lack of public support for legal aid but has received “lots of letters”, where he is “unsure” where £160 million of Department spending has gone, and where he defends taking away a choice of solicitor because

“people in our prisons and…courts come from the most difficult and challenged backgrounds”

and are not

“great connoisseurs of legal skills”?

[Chris Grayling]

Not surprisingly, I do stand by interviews I give. We are now three years into this Government and Labour Members have no answers to any of the challenges we face. We have big financial issues to deal with and we need to create a system that is affordable. They have no alternative suggestions about how to do that.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Justice Secretary has one answer: payment by results.

Last Friday, the Justice Secretary was forced to investigate alleged overpayment to G4S and Serco on the tagging contracts. Today the Financial Times is reporting that he has suspended outsourcing prison contracts to Serco, Sodexo and Amec. Should not he review all current contracts with the chumocracy of private firms who get the MOJ’s shilling, including Capita’s disastrous running of the interpreters contract, and should not he suspend plans to hand out another £500 million of probation contracts to more of the cosy cartel?

[Chris Grayling]

Sometimes Labour Members are breathtaking. I am not going to say much to the House today about the investigation that we are carrying out into the tagging contracts; I will provide that information in due course. I simply say to Opposition Front Benchers that the contracts we are investigating date back to 2005 and were signed and put together by the previous Government.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement—it is generous of him to share his thoughts with the House on this important subject so soon after briefing the national media. He is right that one of the best ways to cut crime, the number of victims and the cost of our criminal justice system is by tackling reoffending. It is disappointing that it has taken the Government three wasted years to reach that conclusion, but we welcome the intent of today’s announcement.

Reoffending rates are too high. We started to reduce them when we were in government—especially the rate of youth offending, which breaks the cycle of reoffending at an early point—but much more needs to be done. This is an ambitious programme. Unfortunately, it is based on fewer resources, on untried and untested methods and on putting faith in exactly those private sector organisations that have failed to deliver other major public sector contracts.

Let us take the proposal for support for everyone leaving prison—an extra 45,000 offenders on the Secretary of State’s figures. Can he explain to the House whether that is an uncosted demand for more resource or whether existing moneys will be spread much more thinly to deliver it? Resettlement prisons, as he said, represent a major restructuring of the prison system. What is the cost of that restructuring and what additional resources will go into preparing offenders for release? He knows that the prison estate is still chronically overcrowded and understaffed, so does he seriously think that a reorganisation can take place against such a backdrop? In London there is a major shortage of prison places, which means that offenders from London often end up housed hundreds of miles away from home and family, so how is resettlement to work here?

On release, even those who have served the shortest sentences are promised a year’s supervision and support with addiction, housing and employment. Who will pay for that at a time when drug treatment centres are closing? Housing is perhaps the most expensive item for newly released prisoners. On the “Today” programme, the Secretary of State speculated that housing associations would help out, so during the worst housing shortage for a generation are ex-offenders to get priority for social housing?

Who will fund the army of mentors, and who will vet them to ensure that the right people mentor offenders? The probation service has been cut by almost 10% so far and those cuts will continue. The service, which received an award for excellence two years ago, is by definition not to blame for rising reoffending by short-sentence prisoners, because they are currently unsupervised. However, it is not probation officers who will now undertake 70% of the supervision. The Justice Secretary places a great deal of faith in reformed old lags helping out, but he admitted on the “Today” programme that they will have to be paid. Professional probation officers sacked and replaced with ex-offenders: is this the Justice Secretary’s brave new world?

In reality, it is the Secretary of State’s old friends Serco, G4S and the rest of the cartel who will profit from today’s announcements. The 21 contracts are too large for smaller providers. An extra £500 million of public contracts are going to the people who gave us the Work programme and security at the Olympics. Now he is to impose his untested and untried payment-by-results methods on probation. Perhaps most seriously, a dangerous chasm will open up between public and private providers on the basis of an offender’s risk level, taking no account of the fact that in 25% of all cases offenders move between risk levels. Therefore, contrary to his assurance, private firms will be in charge of the most serious criminals, and we genuinely fear that that will put the public at risk. Failures in delivering probation services even to medium-risk offenders will mean that those guilty of domestic violence, burglary, robbery, sexual offences and gang activity will walk our streets unsupervised. Regardless of whether private sector providers deliver, they will still get paid at least 90% of the money. Do they have the incentive or the skills to supervise dangerous and violent people in the community?

Reducing reoffending while maintaining public safety should be our twin priorities. A focus on reoffending is to be welcomed, but the Government’s ill-thought-out policies and total reliance on payment by results are putting at risk the safety of communities up and down the country.

[Chris Grayling]

I plead guilty to having done a couple of media interviews this morning, but I am at least in the House right now. My opposite number, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), also gave some media interviews this morning but has not made it to the House, which is rather a surprise to me.

We learned an important lesson in opposition, which is that sometimes when one aspires to be a Government it is necessary to accept that something is the right thing to do. That is a lesson that today’s Opposition have not learned. I do not understand why they are coming out with this faux anger about what we are doing when the legislative foundations that enable us to push through these reforms were passed by the previous Labour Government. If they supported the concept then, why do they not support it now?

The hon. Gentleman asked about costs. That highlights an important difference between us and the previous Government. They believed that a problem would be solved by throwing money at it, and they ended up with an over-bureaucratic, over-complex system which simply did not deliver. Thanks to the work done by the Select Committee, we know that probation officers spend only about a quarter of their time at work on supervising offenders, while about 40% of their time is spent on providing support services. Are the Opposition really saying that it is not possible to run that system more efficiently and deliver support where it is needed to the offenders who are most likely to reoffend when they leave prison? Again, there is a divide between us and them. They think it is a question of spending more taxpayers’ money and having higher taxes; we want to get better value from the taxes that we already raise.

On resettlement prisons, again, it is about making our system work more effectively. At the moment, we move far too many prisoners all over the country in a fairly haphazard way. Over the past few months we have worked with prison governors and prison officer teams to work out a better way so that short-sentence offenders will almost always stay in one place and longer-sentence offenders will go to a prison close to where they will be released to ensure that when they are released we can deliver continuity of support through the prison gate. The Opposition should welcome that. It is the right thing to do and it should have been done years ago.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the past three years. It is only a few months since the Opposition were attacking me for not undertaking pilots on this issue. In fact, for the past few years we have been looking at how such a system would work, in Peterborough prison and in Doncaster prison. The work that has been done there is first-rate. It has also shown how effective older prisoners who are turning their lives around can be in supporting and mentoring younger offenders who have yet to do so. The hon. Gentleman needs to go out and look at what is happening, not in the world of big businesses, which his party’s Government contracted with regularly, but in the voluntary sector with some of our first-rate charities, where there are living examples of former offenders who have gone straight and who are now helping to turn around the lives of the next generation of offenders. I want to capture those skills in helping to bring down reoffending.



The hon. Gentleman questioned payment by results, but why is it such a bad thing in the eyes of the Opposition? They want to pay a whole-contract fee, but I believe that we should pay part of a fee based on whether the taxpayer gets a good deal or not. We should pay not unconditionally, but conditionally, and that is what we will do under these contracts. I want to pay for real results that bring down reoffending and crime.

Under the previous Government, reoffending barely changed. We ended up with a situation in which people were going round and round the system. We finally have a set of proposals that will start to change that. It is shame that this did not happen, not three years ago, but 13 years ago, when the Labour party was in power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the things that I have found most surprising about the system that we currently operate is that we do not currently provide all-round support for those who get sentences of less than 12 months. A central part of our reforms is to change that. It is this group who have the highest propensity to reoffend. It is simply not acceptable that we continue not to provide them with the same level of support as longer-sentenced prisoners when they leave jail.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Secretary of State has looked at the National Audit Office’s response to his consultation. It says that, in the Work programme, the majority of providers were big private companies. It also says that it is likely that the most difficult, prolific offenders will not be picked and that there will be cherry-picking. So despite his warm words, does he not think that this is going the same way as his failed Work programme? Is he intending to have moved on before this fails as well?

[Chris Grayling]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the Work programme is succeeding in getting very large numbers of people into work, and is delivering much better value for the taxpayer than the programmes that we inherited from the previous Government. The truth is that the National Audit Office has contributed some valuable thoughts to our preparations for this exercise. I have listened to its contributions, as I will listen to all contributions, and we will deliver the most sensible, rounded package, particularly one that ensures that no one is left at the fringes of the system and that we provide rehabilitation and support to all offenders.