Civil Liability Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Craig Tracey and Gloria De Piero

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Stringer. I declare the advice that I have received from Thompsons Solicitors, which will be entered in the register.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

Further to that point of order, Mr Stringer. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on insurance and financial services, and as a former insurance broker.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Tracey]

I just do not see any reason why someone who drives as part of their employment should recover a different sum to somebody else—one of our constituents, for example—who is driving in the normal daily course of their life, because they can still claim loss of earnings. The Bill does not change that, so they can still be compensated if they lose money as a result of being unable to work.

[Gloria De Piero]

It would be grotesque nonsense for a cyclist or a pedestrian injured through no fault of their own to find themselves subject to a tariff and a £2,000, let alone a £1,000, small claims limit when the target is whiplash and, in turn, apparently fraud. The same applies to workers. What on earth have they to do with whiplash for the purposes of fraud? If the Government will not move on this point, the only conclusion one can draw is that there is one rule for the small number of those wealthy enough to own a horse and another for the tens of thousands who drive for a living, many of them not in well-paid jobs—say, the paramedic or the refuse collector—who run the risk of whiplash when going about their jobs.

It is deeply disappointing that the Government are sneaking through crucial parts of their changes via a statutory instrument in order to avoid this sort of scrutiny. I wish to make perfectly clear today where the Opposition stands on workers for the entire package of measures. Workers, like vulnerable road users, should be excluded from both the Bill and the small claims increases.