Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Debate between Mary Robinson and Kemi Badenoch

2nd reading
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. That is something we can look at again at further stages of the Bill. We understand the issue that hon. Members are trying to resolve, and agree with them that we need to make sure that everybody who deserves justice gets justice, but we also have to be careful to make sure that we are not exonerating people who we know for a fact have committed crimes.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I commend her work and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), not only in recognising the plight of these people and putting in place compensation for their suffering, but in ensuring that these criminal convictions are expunged from their record. It is really important for these people that they regain their standing within their communities.

As my right hon. Friend has rightly said, so many of these whistleblowers were failed by the current law: the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. It is really vital that we not only put that right, but have a good look at the law again. I know that a framework review is going on, and have spoken to my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend about what more can be done. I have tabled a whistleblowing Bill that will sort this problem out. It lands within the Department for Business and Trade—it is something that is within my right hon. Friend’s gift. Will she support my private Member’s Bill on Friday?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for all the work she does in chairing the all-party parliamentary group for whistleblowing. She is right that this issue needs consideration, and we are going to look again at the whistleblowing framework—it is something that comes up time and time again in many respects. I will not comment yet on her private Member’s Bill, because I have not seen it, but I thank her for all her work on this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Robinson and Kemi Badenoch

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mary Robinson and Kemi Badenoch

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It is something I would have liked to say earlier, and I am glad he was able to make it for me.

In conclusion, the Bill fulfils a manifesto commitment by my party and should make it easier for genuine whiplash claimants. I will be supporting it tonight, but not, I am afraid, Opposition amendment 2.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mrs Badenoch). As we have heard, the Bill makes important changes to our personal injury compensation system, and although I broadly support its aims and measures, I would like to put on the record a few of my concerns and those raised with me by lawyers and constituents.

The Bill is long overdue. The last increase to the small claims limit was made in 1991. As we have heard, data from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that about 650,000 road traffic accident-related personal injury claims were made in 2017-18 and that about 85% of these were for whiplash-related injuries—a higher rate than in any other European country. Department for Transport figures, however, show that from 2007 to 2017 reported RTAs fell by 30%.

Clause 3 introduces a tariff for compensation in whiplash claims. Lawyers who have contacted me and met to discuss this have supported the arguments made by the Access to Justice Foundation, which has estimated that the proposed new tariff would deny 600,000 people injured on our roads each year the right to legal advice when seeking compensation.

The question I have asked is: how does this value equality and fairness in comparing types of injury under the compensation regime? For instance, under the proposed tariff, if I experienced an injury in a road traffic accident that lasted up to three months—as I have in the past—I would receive £235 in compensation. Compensation varies across many sectors. If my train journey from London to Stockport, a route on which I travel every week, were delayed by two hours, I could receive up to £338. Under these proposals, the same injury would attract less compensation simply because it was sustained in a road traffic accident rather than in another way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Robinson and Kemi Badenoch

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

5. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the application of the rule of law to cyber-activities.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

8. What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the application of the rule of law to cyber-activities.