Civil Liability Bill [HL]

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I will address only Part 1 of the Bill, following on from the very eloquent remarks of the noble Baroness.

It seems to me that there are four problems that will have to be addressed, and I will briefly mention them and suggest some solutions. The first is the need for advice and who is to pay for it. This is a problem that runs right across the whole of the legal sector at the moment, and gets more difficult by the day. We need to deal with small claims— small areas where advice is needed—in a proportionate manner, but one that does not incentivise people to bring litigation for the sake of litigation.

Secondly, it cannot be right to categorise a claim as for the fast track or a small claim, simply to enable fees to be recovered. Those are different points: the point of a track is the difficulty of the case.

Thirdly, I welcome the principle of a tariff; this is a novel departure. We ought to look at this and I very much take the point made by the noble Baroness about why we are doing it in this one sphere, which could be met with the remark, “Well, you should pilot it”. There is much to be said for setting a simple tariff, for two reasons: one, it gives certainty and two, it enables claims to be settled more easily. I shall return in a moment to the way in which that should be set.

Fourthly, there is the problem of fraud. In my own experience, the insurance industry—not merely in large claims but in small ones—crusades or works very hard to suppress fraud. In the instance mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, what are commonly known as “cash for crash” cases, the insurance industry has instigated significant prosecutions and has made use of the contempt of court rules to seek the imprisonment of those who have brought false claims. It would be helpful to know what the issues and difficulties are, and the proportion of cases where the insurance industry feels there is a fraudulent claim but cannot prove it. It is important when setting the tariff to have some clear idea of why and how you are setting it. Are you setting it to stop fraud, or on the basis that people should be more stoic and should not be paid so much for a bit of pain? What is the basis?

I will return to each of those four points. First, on the provision of advice, it seems that we need to look at this issue more broadly and not separate out those who suffer this type of personal injury. It is wrong that the energies of claims managers and the legal profession should go into this kind of claim and not the much more important types of small claim. If resources are to be used, they should be used for the vindication of serious rights. It is, I think, the experience of everyone that many people have rights they cannot vindicate because they cannot get legal advice. I hope that the Government give serious consideration to funding the Courts & Tribunals Service or some other body to provide proper online advice in this area, in which a great deal can now be done. Last year, City university and others sponsored a hackathon where people tried to create this kind of legal advice online. I hope that efforts will be made to pursue that.

Secondly, on the allocation of tracks, whether a small claim or fast-track claim, it is essential that the courts have the right IT. If they are to have litigants in person, the IT must be designed to deal with those.

Thirdly, on setting the tariff, I listened with great interest to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, explain the task the Lord Chancellor would have in setting the discount rate. The task of setting the tariff rate, although dealing with much smaller sums, poses some difficulties. He is given no committee—although a committee is provided for in the other part of the Bill—and no guidance as to what he is to take into account. It would be helpful to look in Committee at assistance that could be given to the Lord Chancellor. Certainly, as has been suggested, maybe the judges could give advice, or the Lord Chief Justice could appoint people who can give advice. It is wholly wrong in principle that this should be set by a government Minister without proper legal advice and medical advice, because no doubt over the next few years, medical science will improve so that we have a much clearer idea of how you prove or show that such injuries have been sustained.

Finally, we must address a fundamental problem: what is this compensation level to be set at? Is it to be set to deter fraud, or is it a matter of compensation? If it is the latter, and assuming that an ordinary individual needs advice, who is to pay for the advice? Is that part of the compensation or not? That point must be addressed. You cannot say we are offering fair compensation unless you are clear about the various objectives. I warmly support this Part of the Bill—as I do the other Parts, on which I could not better the comments already made. It has the right principles, but a great deal needs to be done to improve it.