Residential Premises: Product Safety and Fire Risk

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Main. I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing this debate. He said some nice things about my expertise and the length of time that I have wrestled with this issue, but that is a fraction of what he has put in.

I am grateful that the chair of the all-party group on fire safety rescue, the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who we have heard from, and the chair of the all-party group on home electrical safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who I hope we will hear from, are both here. I acknowledge the many organisations that have supported us in these campaigns, such as Electrical Safety First, Which?, the London fire brigade and other fire services, and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute. I apologise if I have forgotten any. They are very different organisations but they have an interesting unity of view on what needs to be done. I hope the Minister is listening to that view as well as to the individual arguments. I wish to emulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse in his precision, but that is not my strong point.

Yesterday, I attended the evidence session of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which is looking at this issue. I congratulate the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) on that revealing and interesting session. I hope the Minister and her civil servants will find time to look at it.

This debate is not about one company, one product or even one type of goods—white goods or any other. Product safety goes a lot further than fire risk, and fire risk goes a lot further than individual products. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) mentioned cabling. I was involved in a BBC investigation earlier this month that revealed the rather frightening figure of 4 million metres of unsafe cabling from a now defunct Turkish company installed in residential premises in the UK. That may partly be down to the Health and Safety Executive, which realised that 11 million metres of faulty cabling was out there and tried to ensure that it was not used, but did not go ahead with a compulsory recall. There are echoes here of what happened in the white goods cases. Clearly, the danger of cabling buried in walls as a potential fire risk is in some ways even greater than the danger of goods that are on display.

As I say, this issues goes a lot wider but I will concentrate on three events that concern white goods manufactured by the Whirlpool company. Whirlpool is not the whole story but I do not think that is coincidental. All three have already been mentioned, so I will not labour the points, but I will briefly go through them to draw some more general conclusions and put some questions to the Minister.

The first tragic event happened on 10 October 2014 when two men, Bernard Hender and Doug McTavish, died at their flat in Llanrwst. The preventing future deaths report has yet to be published, but we have the transcript of the coroner for north Wales’s narrative verdict from 1 September. That inquest concluded:

“On the balance of probabilities, the fire was caused by an electrical fault in the tumble dryer in the laundry room of the flat”.

That was a tumble dryer manufactured by the Whirlpool company. I have read the whole of that verdict. It took three years for that inquest to report, and it is incontestable that the delay was partly because of Whirlpool bringing forward often spurious points such as whether the fire was caused by spontaneous combustion. That attitude, which was also shown with regard to the next fire I will talk about, is extremely regrettable.

Although the precise electrical fault was not identified, there is strong evidence to suggest that it was not the known safety fault in Whirlpool tumble dryers—the collection and ignition of dust and lint—but an electrical fault in the door mechanism. In evidence yesterday to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, Whirlpool said that about 20 such fires have been identified, but there has been no product safety notice, let alone a recall notice, in relation to that particular fault.

The second event, which particularly concerns me, is the very serious fire at Shepherd’s Court on 19 August 2016. Late on a Friday afternoon, that 19-storey block of flats was fully evacuated and 50 people were made homeless, some temporarily and some for a long time. According to the fire brigade and other experts, it was only through luck, the circumstance of its happening in the afternoon and the quick and professional response of the fire services that there were no serious injuries or deaths on that occasion. In the view of the residents and their lawyers, Whirlpool has dragged its feet, notwithstanding that from an early stage it was clear that the particular fault—the one that is subject to a product safety notice but not a recall—in the 5.5 million Whirlpool tumble dryers that were manufactured over 13 years and sold in the UK caused the fire. That is not in dispute. A year on, however, we are no nearer to an admission of liability or to any action taken by Whirlpool to deal with the people who, in many cases, lost their entire life: their belongings, their furniture and their flats, when they left because of that fire.

The third and most tragic event is the Grenfell Tower fire, which happened on 14 June. We knew quite soon after the event that it was caused by a Hotpoint fridge-freezer that was manufactured by Whirlpool. We still do not know much more about that. I am grateful to the Minister for answering my most recent correspondence on this subject before the debate. Her response goes some way towards dealing with some of the points that I would have raised, but it also raises further questions. I will try to be concise in saying what those are and if she can answer them today, that would be helpful.

In relation to the product safety notices for the Whirlpool tumble dryers, it is right to acknowledge that Whirlpool has gone to considerable lengths to modify those dryers—1.65 million of them, according to the Minister’s letter. There are other issues that I will not go into today about the speed at which that was done, how that was done, whether that is sufficient and whether further problems result. That is a substantial programme of modification, but 5.5 million dryers were manufactured. Whirlpool’s own estimate—it has to be an estimate because no one knows how many have worn out, been put out of use by other methods or possibly burnt out without causing a fire—is that at least 1 million are still in use in the UK. Which? and other organisations estimate that the figure is probably nearer 2 million. Certainly a substantial number of tumble dryers with a known fault that has caused hundreds of fires are still causing a problem, probably in every constituency in the United Kingdom.

Notwithstanding whatever efforts Whirlpool has gone to—the Minister will doubtless say that the success rate in identifying a faulty product is about 40% compared with the typical 20%—this fault is so serious because of its potential risk to life and property and the number of dryers that more has to be done. It is absolutely clear that Whirlpool is not in the mood to do more. I pray in aid for that the evidence that it gave to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee yesterday.

It was remarkable that Whirlpool turned up at all because in the two or three years of various all-party groups and Committees asking it to attend, it has studiously refused and sent out the same standard letter. The Minister may want to say more about its attitude, but in terms of its accountability to Parliament, it has been extraordinarily disrespectful and continued, in the view of Committee members, to show that disrespect yesterday. It sent not the managing director or anyone with the competence to talk about the technical side of its programme, but effectively its PR man, who was able to answer very few of the questions, even the quite basic questions that I could answer. I urge the Minister to look at that and to deal with Whirlpool in the light of the attitude it continues to show.

We cannot sustain the position whereby there are 1 or 2 million highly unsafe products probably in daily use. Let us not forget the background: this company, against all professional advice, refused even to tell its customers not to use the machines. There is a great suspicion that that was because it could not cope with several million people suddenly saying, “I can’t dry my clothes any more.”

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I heard only the evidence from Electrical Safety First, Which? and the London fire brigade at the BEIS Committee yesterday. From what my hon. Friend describes, the way in which Whirlpool answered the questions will surely feed the appetite of the Select Committee to have a full inquiry so that it can summon Whirlpool and interrogate it to get full answers rather than the dismissive ones that seem to have been given yesterday.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am not sure the Committee has reached such a conclusion, but I sincerely hope it does. If anything will have encouraged it, it was the desultory way in which the manufacturers dealt with the matter yesterday.

Whirlpool’s view over months and years was that it was perfectly all right for customers to continue to use the machines, provided they were in the same building and awake—not even in the same room. It persisted with that view even against the evidence from the Shepherds Bush fire where the victim, my constituent, was in the same room when the fire started and took every possible correct action: pulling the plug out, calling the fire brigade, shutting the door, and doing everything they could to prevent the fire from spreading. It took another six months for Whirlpool to change its advice and only, as has already been said, under threat of legal action from Which?, which I applaud. It was disgraceful to see Whirlpool pretending yesterday that that was not the cause of its change of policy, but that it just suddenly lighted on the fact and, after a couple of years, decided to do that. I think all Members will be angry at the dismissive attitude that was shown.

What are we going to do about the Whirlpool situation, specifically in relation to Grenfell? I am grateful for the Minister’s clarity in saying that the broader issues to do with the cause and spread of fire are matters for the public inquiry. We accept that. As I understand it, the specific issue of a fault within the model of fridge-freezer identified is a matter for her Department. I will press her a little further and ask when we will know that. We knew quite quickly that it was a fridge-freezer, which model it was and which flat it was. We know the model number, so that indicates to me that it was not completely destroyed. I would hope that by now there was some indication, because there could be a variety of faults. It could be within the fridge-freezer, it could be to do with its use or the cabling or anything of that kind. If it is a fault in that model or similar models of fridge-freezer, that needs quick action in terms of product recall and product safety notices.

Whirlpool: Product Safety System

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter]

Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments and for raising that issue. I will conclude my speech by putting that matter to the Minister. If, when the new Parliament is elected, we still do not have satisfactory answers, I hope that whoever then chairs the BEIS Committee will pursue the matter with the Government and Whirlpool.

Having mentioned many Members, I want briefly to pay tribute to the campaign organisations, without which we simply would not have got this far. It is invidious, because some always get left out, but they include Which?, Electrical Safety First, the London Fire Brigade, the LGA and the Chief Fire Officers Association. They have all been extremely helpful in keeping the issue on our agenda and ensuring we are properly briefed. In particular, Which? has led a campaign specifically on Whirlpool’s unwillingness to undertake a recall. That resulted in a change in Whirlpool’s safety advice in February. Last December, Which? sought a judicial review into what it regarded as failures by the trading standards team overseeing the case in Peterborough. As Members may be aware, Peterborough trading standards has been acting as Whirlpool’s advisers, and the review would have looked into whether Peterborough trading standards acted lawfully in this capacity. Which? said at the time:

“We believe that the way Whirlpool has handled the tumble dryer safety issue is absolutely appalling and to add insult to injury Peterborough Trading Standards has failed to do its duty to protect consumers. We have decided to step in and take legal action because we want Peterborough Trading Standards to properly protect Whirlpool customers and carry out its role as an enforcer of product safety laws.”

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

Is it the case then that Which? forced Peterborough trading standards’ hand and moved the issue on as a result of the threat of judicial review?

[Andy Slaughter]

Absolutely. Trading standards and Whirlpool had to be dragged kicking and screaming. Peterborough trading standards said Which?’s action was premature, which is extraordinary given what happened in my constituency. In February, Peterborough changed its mind and finally issued an enforcement notice. After resistance and presumably after it took legal advice, Whirlpool changed its advice to consumers, at last telling them to stop using the faulty machines. The London Fire Brigade and many others had been advising that all along. It is clear that if it was not for Which?, the previous advice would still be given to consumers, putting them and their families at risk. While that change of advice was a step in the right direction, it is simply not enough. The organisations I have mentioned, along with my hon. Friends and I, want to see a full recall of these faulty machines, and we will not rest until that has been implemented.

Finally, in terms of acknowledging who is on the side of virtue, I would like to say—Members do not always do this—that we have had huge support for a full product recall not only from the public, but from the media. I must mention Alice Beer of ITV, as she is here and has done fantastic campaigning work, as has Lynn Faulds Wood. The Daily Mirror, The Sun, The Guardian, the BBC and ITV have all taken the time to provide ample coverage of this issue, and the petition I set up calling for a full product recall has now reached the magic 100,000 signature mark. If the matter is not resolved by the time the new Parliament comes in, I hope it will be considered for a fuller debate on the Floor of the House.

It is clear that the issue is not going away, and the public are incredibly dissatisfied with the response they have had. The Minister said in my previous debate that she was satisfied with Peterborough’s actions at that time, so will she please explain what discussions the Government have had privately with Trading Standards and Whirlpool since that debate? What is her assessment of Peterborough trading standards’ actions now? Does she recognise that Peterborough trading standards was wrong last year when it failed to take effective action against Whirlpool? Does she believe that it is now right to have done so, albeit only when threatened with legal action? Does she accept that the Government played no part in that and can take no credit, but that they have an opportunity to act now?

The Minister’s brief includes consumer protection, but for her to be able to claim that she really does protect consumer rights, we need substantive action. At the moment, we are leaving many people with dangerous tumble dryers in their homes. What discussions has she had with Whirlpool recently? When will she acknowledge the daily problems that people are having with their tumble dryers, which they are now told not to use because of the risks to life and property? How many more lives need to be lost before firm action is finally taken? Is this not just the tip of the iceberg of a wider problem with white goods and recalls that needs to be urgently addressed?

That brings me to the BEIS working group. We have already had one review—I mentioned Lynn Faulds Wood —which made very sensible recommendations, such as creating a single register for all product recalls, which the fire brigade has long been calling for. However, that was ignored by the Government and another review was set up. In the previous debate, the Minister said that the working group was

“primarily focusing on three work strands: establishing a centre of excellence, or official website…considering how to ensure that we have more reliable, detailed guidance on product recalls, which would, I hope, improve the rate of recall from its current one in four success rate; and establishing a mapping process whereby all organisations involved in product recalls can have access to better data and information sharing.”—[Official Report, 13 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 875.]

She also mentioned that that work would take two years, and that was a year after Lynn Faulds Woods had reported. We were told to expect an interim report at Christmas. Four months later, there is no sign of that report. Where is it? Has it now been buried as a result of the general election, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) suggested? When will the Government take action to protect consumers? Will they include any of Lynn Faulds Wood’s recommendations, such as the creation of a single register for product recalls?

Brexit also raises a number of issues for the Minister’s Department about important EU electrical safety regulations and consumer regulations that we need to ensure are maintained in UK law. Will the Minister confirm where the report is and whether it will include considerations on Brexit? What is her Department doing to ensure that we maintain important EU consumer laws when we leave the European Union? My concern is that her Government will seek to deregulate consumer protection, rather than increase it, as they are seeking to do with environmental regulations.

Returning to the faulty dryers, do the Government know how many unregistered machines are still out there posing a risk? We know that millions of affected Whirlpool machines are missing from any registration scheme. What are the Government telling Whirlpool to do to ensure that consumers do not use those machines in the meantime? We were told that there was press advertising; I cannot say that I saw it, and it was certainly not sustained over a period of time. Do the Government have any faith in Whirlpool’s modification programme, particularly given that some consumers have reported that their dryers continue to catch fire after modification?

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andy Slaughter

Friday 20th March 2015 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley). I have the highest regard for him, as I am sure he knows, and I am sorry that he is leaving the House. He has given another eloquent and solid performance on behalf of his Chancellor and his party, but he will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with his analysis, as I shall outline in a few moments.

Many previous Budgets have taken until Sunday to unravel. It was to the credit of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that he immediately spotted the big flaw in this Budget. In his response, he cited the Red Book to identify that the level of cuts impacting on the public sector over the next three years will be as deep as the cuts during the past five years. Many Labour colleagues have already referred to that in the debates during the past two days.

In fairness, there were some redeeming features, as there are in every Budget. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds mentioned that that was true of Budgets during Labour’s period in office. Those features include the initiatives on savings and the extra money for air ambulances, while bashing the banks is always popular—the hon. Gentleman is going back to the City, but that measure has gone down well with the public—and the measures on tax evasion and avoidance clearly have universal support.

There are, however, clear dividing lines between the parties. In east London, the big ticket issues are homes, training, the national health service and the public sector in general, including the issue of local authority budgets. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), who I am happy to see in her place, have not only assisted the campaign to save the local health service for the past 18 months, but are still trying to get a clearer picture of the budget for primary care in our part of east London as well as that for east London generally. There is real concern about the funding of health centres right across the country, and it is not clear whether the Budget will offer them any help.

On adult training and further and higher education, Tower Hamlets college has had a 25% in its budget during the past four years, and only this week there has been an announcement about another 24% cut. That will have a huge impact on adult training in east London; it will certainly do so in my constituency. The announcement has united the Association of Colleges, the University and College Union and the National Union of Students, as well as students themselves. The fact that such an alliance should come together demonstrates that the issue is very serious, and it is not just restricted to east London. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) raised it in an oral question yesterday, showing that other parts of the country are affected as well.

That announcement will also mean further cuts to English as a second language training, which is hugely important to east London. Last year, it was found that English for speakers of other languages training has already been reduced by 40% over the past five years. Such training is critical to train and educate people with English language challenges so that they can compete in the jobs market.

On policing, there seems to be something of a conundrum. Although crime figures are down, my office has supplied me with Library statistics that show that there were 825 police officers in Tower Hamlets in 2010 and 627 this year, which is almost 200 fewer. Theft is up by 8%, burglary by 24%, sexual offences by 28% and robbery by 33%. Notwithstanding the Government’s success in making efficiency savings in police budgets, at some point the pendulum is going to swing too far. We are already perilously close to that point, and, sadly, it looks like police budgets are going to be squeezed even more.

There is consensus on and support for the benefits cap, but it throws up some anomalies. In east London, a number of families live in private sector rented accommodation and are charged market rents, and the benefits cap has a disproportionate effect on their ability to live. That is one example of how a universal benefit cap affects families in London. The shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), outlined Labour’s proposals for a fairer rents policy and guaranteed rents over three years, which will go down very well in east London and elsewhere.

A number of colleagues, certainly the Chancellor, made great play of the minimum wage. Government Members have said a lot about Opposition predictions of the number of jobs that would be lost through austerity. We say that if there had been no austerity, we could have made progress a lot sooner, because when the coalition came to power the economy had been growing for a couple of months. I remind the Conservative Members that when Labour introduced the national minimum wage, they were very confident that it would cost 1 million jobs. That prediction proved to be entirely wrong. For many of us, the living wage is even more important than the minimum wage.

In Canary Wharf in my constituency there are some fantastically well-paid bankers, but 105,000 people work there, many of whom are in low-paid jobs in cleaning, security and retail. I am happy to report that the majority of companies on the wharf have a living wage policy. I would like to see the Government promoting the living wage far more aggressively than they currently do. I am sure that a Labour Government would bring that aggressiveness to bear in due course.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Conservatives are taking exactly the same view of the living wage as they did of the minimum wage? That is shown by the comments of the Tory peer Lord Wolfson, who, as head of Next, paid himself £4.6 million last year, but says that the living wage is “irrelevant”. It is not irrelevant to my constituents.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Low wages are costing the Exchequer, and higher, fairer wages would benefit both the Exchequer and families. That argument is borne out by statistics that show that the living wage would help not only families but the economy.

I intervened earlier on the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to ask him about the Institute for Fiscal Studies report on migrant labour fuelling the economy, which was reported on in yesterday’s Independent and today’s Guardian. We do not seem to have acknowledged the contribution of migrants to the economy and how they have helped it over the past five years. The Government do not deserve all the credit. As I said, the Government wasted a number of years—a point that has been made a number of times by the Opposition.

Moving towards a conclusion—I am sure you will be pleased to hear that, Madam Deputy Speaker—I want to draw attention to some comments that have been made about the Budget. The chief executive of Citizens Advice, Gillian Guy, said:

“People on the lowest income and those without savings benefit least from this Budget…Positive moves on the personal allowance and fuel duty provide some small gains for stretched households, but there was nothing to address challenges around childcare, energy bills and private rents.”

All those challenges are addressed by Labour’s programme, which will go down well with Citizens Advice.

The Chancellor might not have been happy to hear what two commentators from the right had to say. I do not often quote right-wing commentators, but the editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson, said:

“I wonder: how ‘independent’ is the OBR? Osborne created it, defined its remit, appointed its chairman, banned it from assessing Labour ideas”.

If the Government, particularly the Conservative party, are so convinced and confident that Labour’s plans do not stack up and that our figures would create a black hole, why not use the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to do the analysis and reinforce their argument? I find it very strange and curious that that has not happened.

In yesterday’s Times, the subheading to an article by Tim Montgomerie—I do not agree with a lot of what he and Fraser Nelson say, but they are great writers and always a pleasure to read—stated, “The chancellor’s statement was the latest example of the Tories’ risk-averse strategy and leaves them without a vision”, while the headline stated, “We need more than this dull, simplistic budget”. If the Chancellor is being attacked from the right and from the left, I assume that some people will say, “He must be getting it right, because he’s in the middle,” but Labour Members do not agree.

The Chancellor also referred a number of times to fixing the roof while the sun shines. In Tower Hamlets when Labour was in power, most of our health centres and schools were rebuilt or refurbished; more than 20 Sure Start centres and the new Royal London hospital were opened; and thousands—possibly tens of thousands —of council and housing association properties were raised to the decency threshold for the first time in years and in some cases decades.

I do not accept that we crashed the car. As the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central, said earlier, Lehman Brothers did not crash in New York because of public sector spending in east London. Labour Members not only think but know there is a better way, and on 7 May I hope people will give us a chance to show exactly what it is.

Motor Insurance (Whiplash)

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andy Slaughter

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%.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andy Slaughter

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

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

The dangers of asbestos and the risks of asbestosis and mesothelioma have been known since the 1920s. Successive Governments of both persuasions have ignored them. In the London fire brigade, in which I served for 23 years, we used asbestos equipment regularly. Every firefighter who worked with the London fire brigade or any other fire brigade has had their personal files annotated with “Exposed to asbestos”. The Government—whichever Government—have a responsibility to those workers, because we have failed to protect them. Is my hon. Friend saying that, in rejecting Lords amendment 31, the Government are not accepting their responsibility to people who have been exposed?

[Mr Slaughter]

That is exactly what is happening.

Water Industry (Financial Assistance) Bill

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Andy Slaughter

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point that will be a matter for scrutiny in Committee. I expect it to be raised in Committee in due course.

East London assembly member John Biggs and I are seeking Thames Water’s latest considerations, and obviously the Bill would affect the building of the Thames tideway tunnel. The local community is resolute on this issue. My only concern about the choice between the Heckford street site and the Thames foreshore site is that building the interceptor to the sewer on the foreshore would mean much more traffic by water, on the Thames. If Heckford street is chosen, there will be several thousand heavy goods vehicles on the streets of Tower Hamlets and further east for several years. That would not be a welcome dimension, but these things are in the balance, and obviously we are pressing for the best possible outcome for the local community.

The second issue that I want briefly to mention is fire sprinklers. I pay tribute to the Minister, who is always courteous and efficient. I am grateful for the meeting that he afforded me and the officers of the all-party group on fire safety and rescue to discuss the matter only four to five weeks ago. There is a myth perpetrated by the media—mostly in adverts on TV and in the cinema—that when a fire in a building activates the sprinkler system, every sprinkler right across the building is activated and the whole place is doused in water and damaged. The reality, of course, is that the only sprinkler activated is the sprinkler head immediately above the seat of the fire, as the heat generated by the fire melts the soldered link, causing the blockage to fall away and allowing the water to act as an extinguishing agent. The problem with the myth is that people are frightened of sprinklers, because they think that if they install them in their building and they are inadvertently activated—we know that smoke detectors can go off because of burning toast—their home would be damaged. However, that is not the case, and the cost to society of not installing sprinkler systems in buildings includes the hundreds of millions of pounds lost to schools damaged by fire every year—a cost that is often passed on to local council tax payers, as most local authorities self-insure.

[Mr Slaughter]

My hon. Friend is making a good point about a matter that was brought home to me recently. Hon. Members will remember the serious fire that closed Wood lane, opposite the BBC in Shepherd’s Bush—perhaps that is why it got so much publicity. The consequence of such events in major buildings with no sprinkler systems is not just the risk of loss of life, but often the permanent loss of jobs where buildings cannot reopen and the huge damage to industrial and public buildings.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend anticipates the point that I am coming to, immediately after I make the point that when a school burns down, the problem is not just the damaged building, but the disruption to the education of the students at that educational establishment and the impact on parents, who have to take their kids to schools further away, with disruption to friendships and the rest of it. As for the point that he correctly makes, when there is damage to an industrial or commercial premises, there is not only the damage to the building, but the cost of insurance for the company, a loss of production and, more often than not, unemployment costs to the individuals who work on those premises, because it takes months and sometimes longer to rebuild or replace, if at all possible.

Most critical of all is the loss of life. Fire deaths affect the most vulnerable in society. The majority of people who die in fires are the most vulnerable—the old, the sick, the young, people with social difficulties or people with addiction problems. The most vulnerable are the ones who predominantly die in fires. Tragically, we have recently seen a number of major multiple fatalities across the country, most recently in London—in what was formerly Brent East—where a mother and five children died in a fire. However, the experience of local authorities where fire sprinklers are the norm is entirely different. There is a district in Arizona called Scottsdale—one of Phoenix’s five districts—that is the fire sprinkler capital of the world, as I am sure the House will be pleased to learn. Scottsdale has had a city ordinance for 30 years that says that if someone builds something, they have to install a sprinkler system. One person has died in a fire in Scottsdale in 30 years. Scottsdale has 250,000 people. They smoke, they cook, they burn candles and they probably have heating too, despite the desert climate. Sprinklers save lives. That is now becoming the UK experience. More local authorities, more registered social landlords and more developers are recognising the benefits of sprinkler systems.

There has been extensive correspondence between the all-party group and DEFRA on the Water Industry Act 1991. If I may, I shall quote from a letter from former chief fire officer Ronnie King, who is a highly regarded officer in the fire service, as well as being the active administrative secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety and rescue and the chair of the water liaison group. In reference to the Act, which the Bill amends, he says:

“To this end I outline in this letter a proposed change to section 57 on the provision of water for firefighting. Section 57 covers the duty to provide water for firefighting and currently this duty is limited solely to providing water from designated fire hydrants. Increasingly householders are seeing the benefit of installing sprinkler systems, which will lead to significant reductions in fire deaths and injuries if they could be more widely used. Under the current legislation such supplies are classified as non-domestic supplies and are subject to agreement of terms and conditions on a case by case basis. An amendment of section 57 to include as firefighting water that taken from service pipes connected to a sprinkler system will clarify the status of connections to the water system for automatic fire sprinkler purposes. The current ambiguity is a barrier to the proliferation of sprinkler systems.”

I acknowledge that the Minister has asked his officials to examine that matter and to report on it. If nothing can be done in this Bill, we would be grateful if it could be considered for the water Bill that is coming along not far behind it. I also want to acknowledge that the vast majority of the water companies already do the right thing in co-operating, without the legislative clarity that the proposed amendment would provide. An amendment to the Water Industry Act 1991 in the Bill would be welcomed by the fire service and the fire industry as another major step towards a safer society, but I recognise that that might not be possible yet. School fires are increasing, and I am told that 10% of schools are affected by vandalism involving fires each year. More fires are occurring during school hours, and it is only a matter of time before there is a major tragedy. Most fire legislation is reactive and retrospective, drafted on the back of a major loss of life. The amendment that I have suggested could take us forward significantly, and protect our children in the future.

In conclusion—and as a complete aside—we really need to hold a fire evacuation drill in this place at some point, because we need to give leadership to the rest of the country on these issues. I am grateful for your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker.