Civil Justice Council Review of Litigation Funding Debate
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Oliver Ryan
Main Page: Oliver Ryan (Labour (Co-op) - Burnley)Department Debates - View all Oliver Ryan's debates with the Ministry of Justice
Civil Justice Council Review of Litigation Funding
Oliver Ryan Excerpts(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I thank the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith) for securing the debate and allowing me briefly to contribute.
When people go to court, they deserve justice, not a financial system that puts investors before victims, yet that is what litigation has too often become. We all remember the Post Office case, which the right hon. Gentleman eloquently discussed. It was one of the darkest chapters in recent legal memory. The postmasters fought for years to clear their names, yet when the settlement came in, around 80% of the damages—£46 million—went not to them, but to funders and lawyers. That is not right.
This is not some distant issue that affects courts in London. In my constituency of Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield, many households were drawn into cavity wall insulation claims by legal vultures only to be left thousands of pounds in debt when the funder and law firm behind them, SSB, collapsed. Ordinary families were left exposed, with no resource and no protection. That failure should shame us all. We can do better by having effective regulation of the market. The Solicitors Regulation Authority and others still have questions to answer about SSB.
More than 70 litigation funders are active in the UK, managing billions of pounds but operating with very little formal oversight. That gap leaves consumers exposed and confidence in our legal system weakened. The right hon. Gentleman has ably explained some of the practical recommendations in the Civil Justice Council report—in which Seema Kennedy, previously of this parish, although on the Conservative Benches, was also involved—so I will not go into them now. However, I hope that this Government take on board recommendations for greater transparency and oversight, clearer limits on funding controls, the strengthening of the ombudsman and alternative dispute resolutions, as has been mentioned, and court scrutiny of the profits and sources of funding of those taking these legal cases through. Those steps would restore fairness and integrity to collective actions and make sure that outcomes serve the people involved in these cases and not the profit motive.
I know that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister has ambitions to address concerns in this area, perhaps in legislation. I look forward to hearing her response and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for allowing me to contribute.