Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Jonathan Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I absolutely agree. I began this journey because of constituents’ concerns about motor insurance, and my private Member’s Bill specifically concentrates on that, but I accept entirely what the right hon. Gentleman has been saying for such a long time and what his Justice Committee said in the report that it published two weeks ago—that the ban on referral fees must be extended beyond personal injury cases.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

I am anxious for the right hon. Gentleman to reflect on his point about the change in the solicitors rules in 2004. It is important that the House considers the fact that up until that time, referral fees were banned by the Law Society. It was the intervention of the Office of Fair Trading that resulted in the Law Society changing that rule and recommending the creation of a marketplace, which he has rightly described as later becoming a full-scale scam.

[Mr Straw]

I said earlier today outside the House that I believe the reason why the OFT has decided rather late in the day to hold an investigation into market conditions in the motor insurance industry is that it is deeply embarrassed by the position that it took in 2004. In no sense could it be said that referral fees encourage fair trading. They are essentially a fraud on the consumer. Lord Justice Jackson, in his magisterial report, completely demolished the OFT’s case in favour of referral fees.

The other body that should examine its processes is the Legal Services Board. I accept readily the reason why the Secretary of State felt obliged to wait for its consideration of referral fees, but its consumer panel released the most extraordinary report stating that referral fees worked in the public interest. If we examine the basis of its research, we find that a third of the people whom it surveyed had received compensation for things like whiplash.

On any objective consumer evidence, and there is plenty of it, it is perfectly plain that the public collectively do not like what they are learning about how the wider insurance industry operates. They reckon they are being defrauded, and that is absolutely true. In motor insurance, for example, a conservative estimate is that at least £2 billion of the total premium income of £9 billion is additional costs caused by the merry-go-round of referral fees.