Civil Liability Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Gloria De Piero Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following:

Amendment 20, in clause 6, page 6, line 1, leave out subsection (3).

See explanatory statement for Amendment 19.

Amendment 21, in clause 6, page 6, line 22, at end insert—

‘(7) In this section, the “MedCo Portal” means the website operated by Medco Registration Solutions (company number 09295557) which provides a system for the accreditation of medical experts.’

See explanatory statement for Amendment 19.

New clause 3—Recoverability of costs in respect of advice on medical report, etc.—

‘(1) For the purposes of civil procedure rules, the costs recoverable by a claimant who recovers damages in a claim for a relevant injury which is (or would be if proceedings were issued) allocated to the small claims track include the costs of the items set out in subsection (2).

(2) The items are—

(a) legal advice and assistance (including in respect of an act referred to in paragraph (a) or (d) of section 6(2)) in relation to the quantum of damages in the light of a medical report or other appropriate evidence of injury; and

(b) in a case where liability for the injury is not admitted within the time allowed by any relevant protocol, legal advice and representation in relation to establishing liability.

(3) For the purpose of ascertaining the amounts recoverable in respect of those items, the claim is to be treated as if it were allocated to the fast track.

(4) In this section “relevant injury” means an injury which is an injury of soft tissue in the neck, back, or shoulder, and which is caused as described in paragraphs (b) and (c) of section 1(4) (negligence while using a motor vehicle on a road, etc.), but does not include an injury in respect of which a tariff amount is for the time being prescribed under section 2.’

This new clause would ensure that a successful claimant is able to recover costs incurred for legal costs in respect of advice sought in relation to determining the quantum of damages following a medical report or the establishment of liability where it is in dispute.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. The Minister had just concluded his remarks, and I had started to say that we would press the amendments in the group to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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Regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority

[Gloria De Piero]

I beg to move amendment 17, in clause 8, page 7, line 15, at end insert—

‘(4A) The Treasury must, within one month of the passing of this Act, make regulations specifying that the Financial Conduct Authority is to require all insurers holding a licence to offer UK motor insurance to publish a report—

(a) on the loss cost savings achieved as a result of the provisions of Part 1 of this Act; and

(b) how, and the extent to which, such savings have been applied to reduce motor insurance premiums.

(4B) The first such report from insurers must cover the period of 12 months beginning with the first day of the month immediately after the commencement of Part 1 of this Act and must be sent to the Financial Conduct Authority by the end of the period of 15 months beginning with the commencement of Part 1 of this Act.

(4C) The Financial Conduct Authority will require further annual reports.

(4D) The Financial Conduct Authority, within the period of 18 months after the commencement of Part 1 of this Act, must make and publish a reasoned assessment of whether it is satisfied that every insurer covered by this section is passing on to customers any loss cost savings made by those insurers arising from Part 1 of this Act.

(4E) Regulations made under subsection (4A) must make provision for the Treasury to grant powers to the Financial Conduct Authority to enforce a requirement for insurers to pass on loss cost savings, achieved as a result of the provisions of Part 1, from insurers to consumers through a reduction in the cost of premiums if, after the period of 30 months following the commencement of this section, the Financial Conduct Authority advises the Treasury that such powers are necessary.”

This amendment would require the Financial Conduct Authority to require insurers to report on the savings they have made as a result of this Bill and the extent to which such savings have been passed on to insurance consumers.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government new clause 2—Report on Effects of Parts 1 and 2.

New clause 6—Passing on savings made by insurers.

‘(1) Any savings made by any insurer as a result of anything in this Act or associated changes by regulation shall be passed to policyholders by way of reduced premium.

(2) The Financial Conduct Authority shall require all such insurers to submit an annual report detailing the savings they have made and how all those savings have been used to reduce policyholder premiums.

(3) In this section—

“savings” means any reduction in an insurer’s outlays in damages or costs paid in personal injury claims from the time this Act receives Royal Assent;

“insurer” means any insurer holding a licence to offer UK motor insurance;

“policyholder” means the holder of a policy of motor insurance with the insurer;

“premium reduction” means a reduction in the annual cost of a policy of motor insurance taken out by a policyholder.”

This new clause would require insurers to pass on to insurance consumers all savings made as a result of these changes.

Government amendments 5 and 6.

[Gloria De Piero]

Amendment 17 would require insurers to report on whether savings have been passed on to consumers. New clause 6 would require insurers to pass on all savings as a result of the changes to consumers. Unlike the Government’s over-wordy, over-complicated new clause 2, which I will discuss shortly, amendment 17 and new clause 6 are straightforward. They would require the Financial Conduct Authority to insist that insurers report on the savings they have made as a result of the Bill, and the extent to which such savings have been passed on to policy holders. There are no caveats, no get-outs—it is a straight-line requirement to do the right thing.

The Bill is the latest in a long line of Government handouts to the insurance industry. Back in 2012 in a closed-door meeting at No. 10, the insurers—in return for being able to set the fixed costs in the new fast track that the new Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced—promised to reduce insurance premiums. Since then, insurers have saved more than £11 billion; those are Association of British Insurers figures, not my own. As the Minister must concede, motor insurance premiums are higher now than they were then. So much for those promises.

In the Bill, the Government have, again, swallowed hook, line and sinker the insurers’ promises that they will reduce premiums. History is repeating itself. Insurers are making record profits: Direct Line’s profits in 2017 jumped by 52% to £570 million and Aviva recorded a profit of £1.6 billion. No, that is not all motor related, but in the case of Direct Line it will largely be so.

Meanwhile, insurer CEOs are on multimillion pound packages—Paul Geddes from Direct Line and Mark Wilson from Aviva made more than £4.3 million each in 2017. We are now discussing measures that will save the insurers £1.3 billion a year. Of that, the insurers might—if the wind is blowing in the right direction and none of the ludicrously large get-out clauses in new clause 2 apply—hand across up to 80%. Notably, the cuts to insurance premiums of £35 a year, which insurers are promising now, are much lower than the previous estimates of £50 per year promised in the Prisons and Courts Bill. The Government represent a party that claims to oppose red tape: here is a chance for them to avoid it. Let us have a simple clause that does what it says on the tin.

That leads me to Government new clause 2, which is as full of red tape as it is holes. Perhaps my most fundamental question to the Minister is this: what is wrong with the word “will”? The new clause is peppered with the word “may”. If the Government are genuinely committed to ensuring that savings are passed to consumers, why do they not insist that that happens? Paragraph 3 includes provision for all kinds of ways in which, by regulation, insurers should provide information. Is there any reason why that information should not be made publicly available?

Paragraph 4 is a catalogue of reasons why insurers could wheedle out of being transparent and evade passing on the very substantial savings that the Government’s impact assessment makes clear they will be making. The truth is that all the Government have managed to extract from the insurers, who stand to gain massively from this Bill, is a vague promise that they will pass on savings.

Embarrassed by the lack of hard evidence for a commitment, the Government have tabled this new clause, which is riddled with get-outs and opportunities for insurers to worm their way out of the flimsy commitments they have made. We know—and if the Government are honest, so do they—that insurers will seek to avoid paying the savings that they make back to policy holders. That is what happened when they last made promises in 2012. Given the weakness of the new clause, that is what will happen again.

In truth, the Government have rolled over and the new clause is simply a fig leaf to cover their embarrassment. The answer, I suggest, is to include a simple clause that—and I use a phrase from Conservative Back Benchers on Second Reading—will

“hold the insurance industry’s feet to the fire.”—[Official Report, 4 September 2018; Vol. 646, c. 111.]

Our new clause would mean that any savings made by any insurer as a result of anything in this Act, or associated regulation, will be passed to policy holders by way of reduced premiums. What could be simpler? The Minister may notice that our proposed new clause quite deliberately refers to

“savings made…as a result”

of changes by this regulation.

The Government have refused to include in the Bill the small claims changes that they propose; we will come back to that issue later in our other amendments. What is crucially different between the Government’s new clause 2 and our new clause 6 is that our new clause is not only simpler but mentions the savings that insurers will make from the small claims changes.

In calculating the £1.3 billion in savings that the insurers will make every year, the Government’s impact assessment includes the savings created by the increase in the small claims limit as a result of the so-called wider package of measures. For the Government not to include the savings made from the small claims limit changes in their new clause 2 renders it virtually worthless, and undermines their much-vaunted and fundamental promise that motor insurance premiums will drop by £35 a year.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Henry.

I know it is a long time ago, but I will take the Committee back, if I may, to 25 November 2015, when George Osborne, as he is now known, was the Member for Tatton and serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer. At that time, he said—it was recorded in Hansard:

“We will bring forward reforms to the compensation culture around minor motor accident injuries, which will remove… £l billion from the cost of providing motor insurance.”

And here is the crucial bit:

“We expect the industry to pass on this saving, so that motorists see an average saving of £40 to £50 per year off their insurance bills.”—[Official Report, 25 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1367.]

When this Bill was introduced to the House of Lords and subsequently to this place, the Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment indicated at first that the figure would now be £40, not £50—not between £40 and £50, but £40. However, when the general election was fought last year, the figure had miraculously gone from £40 to £35.

In October last year, one of the insurance companies that the Minister in another place, Lord Keen of Elie, has been fond of quoting—Liverpool Victoria or LV=—spoke. Caroline Johnson, director of third party and technical claims at LV=, spoke at the Motor Accident Solicitors Society’s annual conference in Sheffield, which must have been an important place to say this; it was not just said off the cuff, but at the conference. She said, “The £35 may or may not be achievable”.

I ask my first question today in support of the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield and to start the testing of the Minister’s new clause. In his response, can the Minister give the latest Government assessment of what the £50/£40/£35/possibly-not-achievable £35 is as of today? We are expected to take on trust the figures that he has given.

There is no doubt that the insurance companies will save £1.3 billion a year. That figure has been accepted by the Government and the insurance companies, and I suspect that it will be cited again—not only by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield, but by others who will say that it is the saving, the prize, that the Government seek. My concern is not the insurance companies and the £1.3 billion; my concern is how much, if there are savings to be made in the areas we are concerned about, of that £1.3 billion will land in the pockets of those individuals who would then have lower premiums as a result.

I am very pleased to sit on the Justice Committee, just as I was very pleased to sit coterminously this morning with this Committee; I have to say that was very interesting. The Justice Committee carried out an investigation into this area and came to a conclusion as a whole—it was not just the Labour members of that Committee. It is chaired by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who is a Conservative; it has a Conservative majority; and it has unanimous support for the recommendations it made in this very area. The Committee said:

“As obtaining insurance involves a commercial transaction with a private sector body...there is little that the Government can do to enforce lower premium rates without significant change to present policies.”

My question to the Minister is about his proposed new clause 2. There is something I cannot find in it—it may be hidden in there within the legalese—but, if it is, could he please put it in simple language for the Committee? What happens if this investigation proves that the insurance companies have made a saving of anything between nothing and £1.3 billion? What steps will the Government take at that stage to enforce their policy objective of ensuring that £50/£40/£35/possibly £35 goes into the pockets of individuals who pay the insurance companies?

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The right hon. Member for Delyn asked what the point is of the new clause and why we do not propose a compulsory mechanism to pass savings on. The answer is that it all depends on competition and market law. If at the end of the reporting period there is clear evidence that the companies have significantly increased their revenues without passing on savings to customers, that will raise very considerable questions about the operations of markets and competition. That may indeed imply, as Opposition Members seem to imply, that some form of legal cartel is in operation. At the moment, there is no evidence that that is happening.

[Gloria De Piero]

Does the Minister accept that, since the changes made in 2012, insurance companies have saved £11 billion?

[Rory Stewart]

I am not in a position to accept or reject that figure—I am not familiar with that figure and I am not clear how it has been arrived at. I am happy to look at that in more detail before Report stage of the Bill.

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[Rory Stewart]

The premiums dropping will be assessed and published in the normal fashion. The requirement in new clause 2 is much more complex. The new clause requires a prodigious amount of information about all forms of income streams, the number of claims and the number of premium holders so the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority can develop a sophisticated and detailed picture in order accurately to address the concerns of Opposition Members that, over the period—particularly the three-year period that will be affected by the introduction of the Bill—insurance companies will not pass on savings to consumers. We believe they will, which is why we are comfortable pushing for this unprecedented step of gathering that information to demonstrate that the market works.

On that basis, I politely request that the Opposition withdraw their amendments and support Government new clause 2, which after all was brought together by Opposition Members of the House of Lords and others, and which achieves exactly the objectives that the Opposition have set out.

[Gloria De Piero]

The Minister talked a lot about where the Committee disagrees, but there are things we can all accept as fact—the facts that insurance profits are up massively and that these changes will save insurance companies £1.3 billion, for instance—and we all want premiums to come down. We believe only amendment 17 and new clause 6 will deliver that, so we seek to divide the Committee.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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The Government will publish the Government Actuary’s report, the panel’s report and later reviews. I am happy to make that commitment to the hon. Gentleman, who asked about transparency. I respectfully ask that the Opposition amendment be withdrawn, and that the Government amendment be accepted.

[Gloria De Piero]

My learned and experienced colleagues have spoken in great detail about our issues with the amendments, so I do not anticipate making a long speech. I wholeheartedly concur with the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge made about the importance of periodical payment orders and a proper, timely review of the personal injury discount rate. As everybody who has contributed has said, we are talking about the most seriously injured. They cannot and must not be let down by our playing politics or by insurers seeking to save money.

In amendments 22 and 23, we say that, if an expert panel is appropriate for subsequent reviews, why should not expert opinion from the panel be appropriate for the initial determination of the rate of return? That is why we will press them to a Division.

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank the Minister for his response to the points that I made. For the reasons that I and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate set out, I want to press amendment 24 and new clause 5 to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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Brought up, and read the First time.

[Gloria De Piero]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 1 deals with one of the most important effects of this package of measures. It says that the whiplash small claims limit can increase only in line with inflation based on the consumer prices index. It specifies that the limit can increase only when inflation has increased the existing rate by £500 since it was last set.

The Government have been disingenuous in trying to sneak through these changes to the small claims track limit by using delegated legislation, which restricts the proper scrutiny that such significant changes deserve. With the new clause, we ask the Government to do the right thing and to put it on the face of the Bill, enshrining the terms that a plethora of experts agree on: the use of CPI over the retail prices index when it, and using 1999 as a start date for any recalculation of the limit for a small claims track.

The White Book that I showed the Minister shows that there was a 20% increase in the small claims limit in 1999 when special damages were removed from the calculation of the limit. Lord Justice Jackson, in his “Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Final Report” said that the only reason to increase the personal injury small claims limit would be to

“reflect inflation since 1999. As series of small rises in the limit would be confusing for practitioners and judges alike.”

He made it crystal clear that the limit should remain at £1,000 until inflation warrants an increase to £1,500.

The Government admitted to me this morning that there is a difference of opinion in their own ranks about which of these years should be the benchmark. We say again that they must listen to the Lord Justice Jackson and the Justice Committee chaired by one of their own, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who agrees with him. We should state on the face of the Bill that 1999 must be the start date for any recalculation of the small claims limit, not 1991. The Government accepted all the key recommendations in the Jackson report save the recommendation that there should be an increase in the small claims limit to £1,500 only when inflation justifies it.

To turn to another aspect—the Government have admitted that it has caused a dispute among Ministers—I want to make the case, as I have done before, that CPI and not the RPI is the correct measure to apply for inflation. It seems that the Government use RPI when it suits and use CPI when it suits. CPI is what we use for the pensions and benefits paid to injured workers while they are pursuing justice for that injury through the claim. Even the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agrees with me. When asked at the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee whether she agreed that RPI was an inadequate measure, she said:

“We certainly agree that it is not the preferred measure of inflation. CPI is a much better measure of inflation… we agree that it is not the preferred method, and we are seeking to move away from RPI”.

Why are we moving towards it here? The Government say they wish to apply RPI to the small claims limit because RPI is applied to updating damages—the same damages that they are taking an axe to with the new tariff.

Perhaps some in the Conservative party are persuaded, like me, that CPI is the best option, because of yet another expert who has lined up to say so. On 30 January 2018, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said:

“At the moment, we have RPI, which most would acknowledge has known errors. We have CPI, which is what virtually everyone recognises and is in our remit.”

It is perfectly clear that we need to enshrine CPI as the key measure on the face of the Bill. The amount of £1,000 from 1999 would now be worth either £1,440 if CPI is applied, or £1,620 if RPI is applied. Lord Jackson said that it should not go up to £2,000, as the Government suggests, until inflation warrants it.

I trust the Minister will not be as dismissive as Lord Keen was when he said in his evidence to the Justice Committee:

“We do not feel that there is a material difference between setting it at £1,700 today and seeing it drop behind inflation next year, and setting it at £2,000 without the need to review it again for a number of years.”

Try telling the nurse, the caretaker or the bus driver that there is no material difference between £1,700 and £2,000. For those on real wages, that has a real impact.

[Rory Stewart]

Relatively rapidly, I would say that we have five types of disagreement with the amendments. Broadly speaking, those are political, philosophical, economic, financial and constitutional. The political disagreement is that the amendment would go to the heart of the Bill. The entire concept of the Bill is to try to effect a change in the current practice and process around whiplash claims by moving the claim limit to £5,000. That is part of the entire package—the tariffs and small claims limits are related to that.

Philosophically and fundamentally, we are not arguing that the shift to £5,000 is fundamentally a question of inflation. There are many other reasons why the small claims limit has been moved in the past. Indeed, in relation to some types of claim, as you will be aware Sir Henry, as one of our learned friends, some of the claims have been moved to £10,000, which goes a long way beyond inflation.

Largely, the driver of whether or not something is on a small claims track is to do with the nature of the claim, not the nature of inflation. However, if we worked on the narrow question of inflation, the Judicial College guidelines are currently on RPI as opposed to CPI. I respect the arguments that the hon. Member for Ashfield made but that is not the fundamental argument the Government are making.

The amendment would have curious financial implications. It would create a strange syncopated rhythm, whereby movements in CPI are not necessarily reflected in the triennial review except in £500 increments which, over time, mathematically will lead to peculiar results.

The fundamental reason we oppose the amendment is the final argument I mentioned, which is constitutional. This is business for the Civil Procedure Rule Committee, as it always has been, and it is not suitable to put in the Bill. On the basis of those political, philosophical, economic, financial and constitutional arguments, I respectfully request that the amendments be withdrawn.

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Brought up, and read the First time.

[Gloria De Piero]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 8—Restriction on increase in small claims limit for relevant personal injuries suffered by people during the course of employment—

‘(1) In this section, the “PI small claims limit” refers to the maximum value (currently £1,000) of a claim for damages for personal injuries, specifically general damages, for which, in accordance with Civil Procedure Rules, the small claims track is the normal track.

(2) Civil Procedure Rules may not increase the PI small claims limit in respect of relevant injury claims to an amount above £1,000 for the first time unless—

(a) the Lord Chancellor is satisfied, and has certified in writing, that on the day the rules are to come into force, the value of £1,000 on 1 April 1999 adjusted for inflation, computed by reference to CPI, would be at least £1,500, and

(b) the rules increase the PI small claims limit to no more than £1,500.

(3) Civil Procedure Rules may not increase the PI small claims limit in respect of relevant injury claims on any subsequent occasion unless—

(a) the Lord Chancellor is satisfied, and has certified in writing, that on the day the rules are to come into force, the value of £1,000 on 1 April 1999 adjusted for inflation, computed by reference to CPI, would be at least £500 greater than on the day on which the rules affecting the previous increase were made, and

(b) the rules increase the PI small claims limit by no more than £500.

(4) In this section—

“CPI” means the all items consumer prices index published by the Statistics Board;

“relevant injury” means an injury which is an injury of soft tissue in the neck, back, or shoulder suffered during the course of employment which is caused as described in paragraphs (b) and (c) of section 1(4) (negligence while using a motor vehicle on a road, etc.);

“relevant injury claim” means a claim for personal injury that consists only of, or so much of a claim for personal injury as consists of, a claim for damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity caused by a relevant injury, and which is not a claim for an injury in respect of which a tariff amount is for the time being prescribed under section 2;

“general damages” shall mean damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity.’

This new clause would limit increases in the small claims track limit in relation to people who have suffered a whiplash injury during the course of their employment to inflationary rises in increments of £500 only.

[Gloria De Piero]

The Government have refused to allow the small claims changes, which will have a fundamental impact on access to justice for hundreds and thousands of injured people every year, into the Bill. New clause 7 is designed to ensure that vulnerable road users are exempted as the Minister has promised. New clause 8 would do little more than reflect the recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson in his civil justice review. The Minister agreed this morning that there had been a change to the small claims limit in 1999. New clause 8 says that 1999 is the date from which any change to the small claims limit should be calculated and that the increase should be by no more than £500 at any one time. As I have said, that reflects the recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson.

There is a difference between us on the appropriate level of inflation. We say CPI—the consumer prices index. There is absolute logic in that because that is the inflation rate applied by the Government to benefits paid to injured people. It is also, of course, the rate that the Governor of the Bank of England recommends.

[Rory Stewart]

Given that we are coming towards the end of the proceedings, I again pay tribute to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for the quality of debate. It has been quite testing personally: a lot of very learned friends have asked a lot of fundamental questions, ranging from inflation rates to the good challenges from my friend the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), who keeps me on my toes. I thank them very much for their various contributions.

With the final group of amendments, we come to questions that relate to some of the debates that we have had already, in different forms. This in effect is a subset of the arguments made on new clause 1. As right hon. and hon. Members will remember, new clause 1 involved an argument that the reductions should be made in relation to all personal injury claims. These proposals take the same arguments and apply them to two subsets of people who are injured: vulnerable road users and people injured in the course of employment. On both those things, there are some differences between us, again, on the correct level at which to set the rate, but there are also some important concessions that are worth bearing in mind. They were made in the House of Lords and in the subsequent process.

In relation, first, to people injured in the course of employment, personal injury claims that are not as a result of whiplash, we have listened very carefully to right hon. and hon. Members. They will remember that in the initial consultations there were suggestions about raising the limit to £10,000 or £5,000. The agreement has been that for non-whiplash-related injuries, it is kept at £2,000.

There is some discussion about whether it is correct to see that in terms of CPI or RPI—the retail prices index—but broadly speaking, it is not very significantly different from the rates that were set in the 1990s when inflation was applied, although there is some disagreement between the two sides of the House, to the extent of a few hundred pounds, on the extent of headroom put on top of inflation. There could be a broader argument, which was raised earlier, about the fundamental principle that compensation should be paid for the injury rather than on the basis of why somebody was present on the scene, whether in the course of employment or another activity. However, that goes beyond the scope of the amendment.

The real concession has been made in relation to vulnerable road users, which I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome. We listened carefully to representations made primarily not by people who own horses—although I remind hon. Members that there are more than a million horses in the United Kingdom, so it is not quite as much of a minority pursuit as some might like—but by cyclists, who led a strong campaign arguing that they are particularly vulnerable on the roads. They are: they are not encased in a sheet of metal. We accept that the same argument also applies in spades to pedestrians—as a proud pedestrian, I feel that very strongly—and to people on motorcycles, who are not encased in metal either.

We are delighted to confirm that vulnerable road users will be excluded in respect of the small claims limit and the Bill. On that basis, with many thanks to everybody for their prodigious and learned contributions, I politely ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Gloria De Piero]

I will disquiet the Minister one more time and press the new clause to a Division.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.