Civil Liability Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting)

Rory Stewart Excerpts

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Public Bill Committees

[David Hanson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point; it is one I had not thought of and I am grateful to him for bringing that to the Committee’s attention. If this saving is going to be made, it would be sensible to say whether it is made early on, because downstream, as my hon. Friend indicated, there will no doubt be a tapering.

To be honest with the Committee, the Minister is only proposing new clause 2 because he got done over in the other place by Members of the House of Lords and could not get the Bill through the House of Lords without this new clause. He got done over in the other place because the Justice Committee unanimously called for

“the Financial Conduct Authority to monitor the extent to which any premium reductions can be attributed to these measures and report back to us after 12 months.”

I go back to the all-party Justice Committee, chaired by a Conservative MP, with a Conservative majority, which said in its report on this Bill that there should be a report within 12 months. We have been helpfully reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown why we suggested that at the time: because we wanted to see the impact within 12 months.

On the amendment tabled by Lord Sharkey in the House of Lords, Lord Keen, the Minister dealing with this in the other place, said on Report:

“the Government are not unsympathetic to the underlying intention of Amendment 46, as tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. The point is that having made a firm commitment, insurers should be accountable for meeting it.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 June 2018; Vol. 791, c. 1632.]

That is what this Minister’s colleague said in the House of Lords, and I do not disagree with it. I only say to the Minister that April 2024 seems a tad far in the future to secure the proposals that he is putting to the Committee today.

The Minister needs to say firmly to the Committee what he anticipates the savings to be now, how he will monitor what the insurance companies are making—not just now, but in the next five years—and how he will hold the insurance companies to account. How will he ensure that, whatever date we end up with—be it 1 April 2024 or, if the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield is accepted, as I hope it will be, an earlier date—they meet their obligations and give the money back to the people who are funding it in the first place?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I am grateful to right hon. and hon. Members for bringing proposing the amendments and new clauses.

Effectively, as the right hon. Member for Delyn has pointed out, new clause 2 was introduced with a lot of influence from the House of Lords—it was driven by Opposition Members of the House of Lords to meet exactly the concerns raised by right hon. and hon. Members. Therefore, I am tempted to argue in my brief argument that amendment 17 and new clause 6 are, in fact, unnecessary. The noble Lords did a good job in new clause 2 of addressing many of the concerns raised in the debate, which is why the Government are keen to ask for the Committee’s support.

At the heart of this, the Committee will discover, is a fundamental disagreement about the nature of markets, which will be difficult to resolve simply through legislation. There are profoundly different views on both sides of the House about what exactly is going on in a market. Again and again, all the arguments—from the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn) right the way through to the eloquent speech by the right hon. Member for Delyn—rest on the fundamental assumption that every company, insurance or otherwise, in the country is simply involved in trying to charge their consumers as much as possible and provide as few services as possible, and that there is nothing to prevent their doing that.

Of course, what prevents companies from doing that ought to be competition. It does not matter whether that is the insurance industry or, to take a more straightforward question, why Tesco’s does not charge £50 for a loaf of bread and try to produce one slice. In the end, the decision on what premiums are charged will be driven by competition between different insurance companies. All the arguments, whether in relation to these or other amendments, are based on that fundamental misunderstanding. The Labour party is again effectively pushing for a prices and incomes policy. They are trying to get the Government to fix the prices of premiums and control the prices that insurance companies charge because they simply do not trust the Competition and Markets Authority, the FCA, the insurance industry or any other business to pass on savings to consumers.

[David Hanson]

With respect to the Minister, in this case the Labour party is just asking for confirmation of what the Government want to do. They said that they want to save £1.3 billion, and in November 2015 said that they would give back £50 as premiums. That figure has changed. All I am asking is this: what is their estimate of the figure today? The Minister should be able to give an estimate because he has done so on two previous occasions—in an assessment of the Bill’s financial implications in the Conservative party manifesto, and in the Chancellor’s statement to the House of Commons.

[Rory Stewart]

Unfortunately, something is being missed in the way the right hon. Gentleman is framing his arguments. He is suggesting that there is a fixed, stable situation—the Chancellor of the Exchequer offered £50, nothing changed, and now it is £35. If that were true, it would indeed be a disgrace, but the reality is that, following the negotiations that took place in the consultation and in the House of Lords, the savings that the insurance companies will realise and will be in a position to pass on to the man or woman paying the premium have been considerably reduced.

When the Chancellor of the Exchequer—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman might be interested in listening to the answer rather than talking to somebody else. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke, he of course suggested that all general damages would be entirely removed. His proposal was that there would be no general damages at all. It is therefore perfectly reasonable. If no general damages at all were paid, the insurance company’s savings would be considerably larger, and the savings passed on to the consumer might indeed have been £50.

Due to the very good work that the Opposition and the noble Lords put in, there have been a number of compromises to the Bill, which mean that the savings passed on to the insurers, and from the insurers in the form of premiums, will be considerably reduced. One of those compromises is that, whereas in the past there were going to be no general damages paid to anybody getting a whiplash injury of under two years, there is now a tariff for money to be paid out. As it gets closer to two years, the tariffs paid out will be much closer to the existing Judicial College guidelines, so the savings will be considerably less.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

We have been here before with the Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Act 2018, in which the Government fixed the energy price cap and said that the big energy companies would give money back to the consumers, even though the money is not as high as we expected. Then it was £100, and now it is about £70. Why does the Minister not want to do that with insurance companies?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good question. The hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Delyn are essentially asking the same question. Indeed, that is what this whole debate is about. The question is about the extent to which the Government wish to interfere in the market to fix prices. As the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate suggested, a very, very unusual and unprecedented decision was made about the energy companies following a suggestion originally made by the Labour party that we should get involved in fixing prices. That is something about which, from a policy point of view, we generally disagree with Labour because—this deep ideological division between our two parties goes back nearly 100 years—we are a party that fundamentally trusts the market.

The Financial Conduct Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority argue that the insurance companies are operating in a highly competitive market. The reason why we did not initially suggest that we need to introduce anything equivalent to new clause 2 is precisely that we believe that the market is operating well, and that the savings passed on to the insurance companies will be passed on to the consumers, as happens in every other aspect of the market. I have not yet heard a strong argument from the Opposition about why they believe that not to be the case. Logically, Opposition Members can be making only one argument: they must somehow be implying that the insurance companies are operating in an illegal cartel.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

rose—

[Rory Stewart]

I give way to hear why the Opposition believe that is not the case.

[Jo Stevens]

The Minister has said that the Opposition want to fix the market and prices. He also mentioned trust, which is exactly what this is about, because we have been in this situation before. Previously, insurers promised to return savings to consumers and did not. Why is it different this time? Why does the Minister think we can take insurers at their word this time when they have not returned savings previously?

[Rory Stewart]

Recent evidence on the cost of motor premiums shows that, after the implementation of the last set of reforms, there was a flattening off in the increase in the insurance premiums that was lower than inflation. The reason we believe this mechanism works—this was all part of the evidence put forward by the Competition and Markets Authority—is that it is a very mobile market. Currently, 72% of policyholders have switched their motor insurance provider—it is not a static market where people do not move between providers, which gives a very strong incentive to compete on the premiums. Fifty per cent. of insurance customers are going to comparison websites to compare the premium prices.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gloria De Piero]

Does the Minister accept that, since the changes made in 2012, insurance companies have saved £11 billion?

[Rory Stewart]

I am not in a position to accept or reject that figure—I am not familiar with that figure and I am not clear how it has been arrived at. I am happy to look at that in more detail before Report stage of the Bill.

[Craig Tracey (North Warwickshire) (Con)]

The Minister mentioned the reforms of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, but is it not right that, in the two years following those reforms, insurers passed on £1.1 billion of savings, and that average premiums dropped by £50?

[Rory Stewart]

Again, the Competition and Markets Authority is our best guide. Its job is to look very closely at the operations of its industry. It believes that this is a very competitive industry, which is why it is confident that the reforms introduced led to savings that were passed on to customers and why it believes that the current reforms will lead to the same. If that does not happen, it would be interesting to hear Labour Members’ theories about why competition is not operating in this market and why they believe there is a cartel. If that is the argument they wish to make, they will be assisted and not impeded by the Government new clause, which will enable them to gather the information with the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority in order to make precisely that case.

[Jo Stevens]

Perhaps I can help the Minister on the figure that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield mentioned—the £11 billion of savings after the 2012 changes. That is an Association of British Insurers figure. That figure was saved in claims costs over six years, according to its evidence, but premiums are now higher than ever.

[Rory Stewart]

I will return to the fundamental disagreement between right hon. and hon. Members. We can all agree that there were significant savings to the insurance industry. We can all agree that some of those savings were passed on to customers and that premiums ceased to rise at the rate at which they had been. There is some disagreement between the two sides of the House about whether enough of those savings were passed on—we argue that the industry passed on sufficient savings—and whether premiums went up more than they should. However, without Government new clause 2, the evidence or information will not be available to people in order to make such arguments.

It is not enough to produce a general figure, saying, “Here is £11 billion, and this is how much was passed on in premiums.” That is why the new clause has no less than 11 subsections that detail the kind of data that would need to be extracted from the insurance industry by the date recommended in order to prove that case. I was asked why reporting would not be done annually. The answer, of course, is that a claim can be brought any time within three years of an accident. The date takes into account that the law is due to come into effect in 2020. We add three years to that for the claim, and then time for the data and evidence gathering in order to report in 2024.

[David Hanson]

If the Bill comes into effect in 2020 and we add three years, that is 2023. However, new clause 2(7) says:

“Before the end of a period of one year beginning with 1 April 2024”.

That means that the report may not be done until the end of March or April 2025. It may be published by the Government after that, and then there will be discussion. Therefore, even on the Minister’s timetable, we are talking about three years past the 2023 deadline that he indicated to the Committee a moment ago. He should reflect on that and table an amendment to his new clause on Report that brings forward the proposed date considerably.

[Rory Stewart]

The reason why I respectfully request that the Government amendments are supported and the Opposition amendments are withdrawn is that pushing for one-year rather than three-year reviews and attempting to price fix the result would leave the opposition amendments open to judicial review and create an enormous, unnecessary burden on the market. Our contention is that the market already operates—we have the Competition and Markets Authority to argue that that is the case—and, by introducing our new clause, we will be able to demonstrate that over time. It is a very serious thing.

I remain confident that, if insurance companies are compelled to produce such a degree of detail and information to the Financial Conduct Authority and the Treasury, they will pass on those savings to consumers because, were they not to, they would be taking a considerable legal risk. The industry initially resisted this move, and understands that it is a serious obligation.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

As the Minister said, the insurance companies have said that they will pass savings on to consumers, and the Government have been actively engaged in trying to ensure that all insurance companies sign up to a pledge to reduce premiums, which in itself is a way of fixing the market. However, if it will take insurance companies seven years from now to produce the information, from what date will premiums be reduced? When will consumers see payback from the policy?

[Rory Stewart]

We would expect, because of the nature of competition, for premiums to begin to reduce soon—almost immediately—as insurance companies anticipate the nature of the changes and move to drop premiums to compete with each other and attract new customers. In fact, following legislation in 2012, premiums dropped from £442 in 2012 to £388 in 2015.

[Ruth George]

If the Minister expects premiums to drop so soon, why can the Government not report to the House on those premiums dropping?

[Rory Stewart]

The premiums dropping will be assessed and published in the normal fashion. The requirement in new clause 2 is much more complex. The new clause requires a prodigious amount of information about all forms of income streams, the number of claims and the number of premium holders so the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority can develop a sophisticated and detailed picture in order accurately to address the concerns of Opposition Members that, over the period—particularly the three-year period that will be affected by the introduction of the Bill—insurance companies will not pass on savings to consumers. We believe they will, which is why we are comfortable pushing for this unprecedented step of gathering that information to demonstrate that the market works.

On that basis, I politely request that the Opposition withdraw their amendments and support Government new clause 2, which after all was brought together by Opposition Members of the House of Lords and others, and which achieves exactly the objectives that the Opposition have set out.

[Gloria De Piero]

The Minister talked a lot about where the Committee disagrees, but there are things we can all accept as fact—the facts that insurance profits are up massively and that these changes will save insurance companies £1.3 billion, for instance—and we all want premiums to come down. We believe only amendment 17 and new clause 6 will deliver that, so we seek to divide the Committee.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

Let us be clear what we are talking about with the discount rate: damages for people who have suffered catastrophic, life-changing injuries. The lump sum they receive is to last them their entire life and is to pay for urgent treatments, care, support, adaptations—a whole host of things. We need to be very careful how we deal with this, as very small variations in the discount rate can have serious impacts.

As an example, I have been advised by a leading law firm that it settled a claim in 2015 for a client in her 30s who suffered cardiac arrest and irreparable brain damage due to negligence. She was awarded £9.95 million when the discount rate was 2.5%. That award was to pay for extensive medical treatments, childcare and live-in carers for the rest of her life. Had the claim been settled in 2017, when the discount rate was changed to -0.75%, it would have resulted in a settlement of £20 million.

Such cases are relatively few in number, but when they do occur, we must make sure that they are dealt with as precisely as possible, without leaving such large fluctuations to chance. We would all agree that the time between the setting of the two discount rates was far too long. I very much support a shorter period of time for that to take place. Someone who receives such a lump sum would surely choose to invest it in as low risk a manner as possible—they would not want any risk if possible—because it has to last them their entire life. The discount rate should be set on the basis that the investment will be very low risk.

In setting the discount rate, the Lord Chancellor is given wide-ranging discretion. That opens up potential for other factors to influence the Lord Chancellor, which could adversely impact the compensation received by someone who has suffered catastrophic injuries. We need to be clear about the reasons why the Lord Chancellor will be setting the rate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge mentioned, the Justice Committee recommended setting up an independent panel of experts to advise the Lord Chancellor on setting the rate. It also recommended that the panel’s advice be published in full. The Bill has removed that transparency. I have grave concerns about the reasons for that and how the rate will be set. We need to know how the rate has been set. When the Bank of England sets interest rates, it has a panel of experts and it gives reasons why. A similar system should apply here.

I support the amendments and new clause. It would be right and proper for the power to be taken away from the Lord Chancellor and for the rate to be set by an independent panel of experts, at regular periods.

[Rory Stewart]

I have enormous sympathy for the amendments, in particular the arguments on amendments 24, 22 and 23. As the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge and the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate have clarified, we are dealing here with people who have suffered catastrophic, life-changing injuries and we have a very particular responsibility, particularly since some of those people can be immensely vulnerable. They can include children who have catastrophic, life-changing injuries. We all have an obligation to ensure that the principle of 100% compensation is met.

The discount rate can seem a slightly technical mathematical formula. It is there to try to hedge effectively against inflation and the expected rate of investment returns in setting an award. As the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate pointed out, a shift in the discount rate could mean a difference between an award of £10 million and an award of £20 million—a very significant difference.

In setting the discount rate, our first obligation has to be to the very vulnerable individuals who have suffered a catastrophic or life-changing injury. We need to ensure that they are able to make an investment that does not carry substantial risk. We cannot guarantee everything because inflation and markets can move. Insofar as we can do so in advance, we should attempt to arrive at a rate that fairly reflects the likelihood of their getting the compensation that it was anticipated they would receive from the judge. That means that we should not aim to chase a median rate. We should aim to chase a rate on the basis of advice from the Government Actuary and later from the expert panel, to determine the fair rate of return.

In that case, why are the Government challenging amendments 24, 22 and 23? The answer is that amendments 22 and 23 reflect the original position of the Government on the Bill, so we are slightly going round in circles. We had originally suggested in the version of the Bill that we presented to the House of Lords that the Lord Chancellor should consult the expert panel before setting the rate. Under pressure from Opposition Members in the House of Lords, in particular Lord Sharkey, the Lords pushed us into a position where we agreed that, instead of an expert panel, it should be the Government Actuary, working with the Lord Chancellor, who set the first rate.

The argument made by the Lib Dem peer and backed by others, including Lord Beecham, was that the problems for the NHS caused by the discount rate are so extreme and the costs on the public purse so extreme, that the first change in the discount rate should happen relatively rapidly, on the advice of the Government Actuary. Were we now to reject that amendment, which we accepted after long negotiation in the House of Lords, we would have to go back to the drawing board and set up the expert panel again, leading to a very significant delay, which would impose costs on the NHS.

We are in the ironic position that the Opposition are now proposing as amendments the original Government position, which the Opposition struck down in the House of Lords. We are slightly in danger of going round in circles. We are where we are and, given the problems of time, I suggest that the pragmatic compromise is that the Government Actuary, who is an independent individual with enormous expertise, works with the Lord Chancellor on the first setting or the rate, and that for subsequent settings of the rate, the expert panel comes in, as the House of Lords recommended.

That brings us to the lengthy amendment 24, which the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge introduced with great eloquence. That essentially argues that the rate should be set by the expert panel alone and not by the Lord Chancellor. We disagree fundamentally with that because the expert panel and the Government Actuary would argue that it is not their position to set the rate. It is their position to provide actuarial advice on different investment decisions that could be made, the likely rates of inflation and the likely rates of return.

Ultimately, a Minister accountable to Parliament should set that rate, because they have to balance some very different issues: our obligation towards vulnerable people who have suffered catastrophic life-changing injuries and our obligation on the costs to the national health service, which run into billions of pounds, and balancing these different public goods.

It simply would not be fair to expect an actuary to make those kinds of political and social decisions. It is entirely appropriate to expect actuarial experts to provide the expert advice on what the range of options would be, and to reassure individuals that the Lord Chancellor is not likely to make a decision that would have a significant negative impact. It is only necessary to look at what the Lord Chancellor did two years ago in setting the rate of -0.75%. If it had been the case that the Lord Chancellor was fundamentally driven by Treasury calculations and was not interested in defending the vulnerable individual, they would not have moved the rate from 2.5% to -0.75%, effectively doubling the compensation paid. The Lord Chancellor, in setting this rate, on the advice of the expert panel, will be acting as the Lord Chancellor, not as the Secretary of State for Justice.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The Minister said there was a big change when a previous Lord Chancellor set the rate at -0.75%. I wonder what advice and from whom she received in setting that rate. Clearly, she would have had some advice, rather than plucking that figure out of the air. I wonder what the situation is now.

[Rory Stewart]

At the moment, the advice received would be from actuaries. Ultimately, we commission the Government Actuary’s Department voluntarily to provide the best advice on what the rate should be. It then arrives at a gilt rate, which drove us towards -0.75%. The Bill puts the role of the Government Actuary into law, so it is no longer voluntary but compulsory. It will be obligatory for the Lord Chancellor to consult, and in future there will be a broader expert panel around the Government Actuary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gloria De Piero]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 1 deals with one of the most important effects of this package of measures. It says that the whiplash small claims limit can increase only in line with inflation based on the consumer prices index. It specifies that the limit can increase only when inflation has increased the existing rate by £500 since it was last set.

The Government have been disingenuous in trying to sneak through these changes to the small claims track limit by using delegated legislation, which restricts the proper scrutiny that such significant changes deserve. With the new clause, we ask the Government to do the right thing and to put it on the face of the Bill, enshrining the terms that a plethora of experts agree on: the use of CPI over the retail prices index when it, and using 1999 as a start date for any recalculation of the limit for a small claims track.

The White Book that I showed the Minister shows that there was a 20% increase in the small claims limit in 1999 when special damages were removed from the calculation of the limit. Lord Justice Jackson, in his “Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Final Report” said that the only reason to increase the personal injury small claims limit would be to

“reflect inflation since 1999. As series of small rises in the limit would be confusing for practitioners and judges alike.”

He made it crystal clear that the limit should remain at £1,000 until inflation warrants an increase to £1,500.

The Government admitted to me this morning that there is a difference of opinion in their own ranks about which of these years should be the benchmark. We say again that they must listen to the Lord Justice Jackson and the Justice Committee chaired by one of their own, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who agrees with him. We should state on the face of the Bill that 1999 must be the start date for any recalculation of the small claims limit, not 1991. The Government accepted all the key recommendations in the Jackson report save the recommendation that there should be an increase in the small claims limit to £1,500 only when inflation justifies it.

To turn to another aspect—the Government have admitted that it has caused a dispute among Ministers—I want to make the case, as I have done before, that CPI and not the RPI is the correct measure to apply for inflation. It seems that the Government use RPI when it suits and use CPI when it suits. CPI is what we use for the pensions and benefits paid to injured workers while they are pursuing justice for that injury through the claim. Even the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agrees with me. When asked at the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee whether she agreed that RPI was an inadequate measure, she said:

“We certainly agree that it is not the preferred measure of inflation. CPI is a much better measure of inflation… we agree that it is not the preferred method, and we are seeking to move away from RPI”.

Why are we moving towards it here? The Government say they wish to apply RPI to the small claims limit because RPI is applied to updating damages—the same damages that they are taking an axe to with the new tariff.

Perhaps some in the Conservative party are persuaded, like me, that CPI is the best option, because of yet another expert who has lined up to say so. On 30 January 2018, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said:

“At the moment, we have RPI, which most would acknowledge has known errors. We have CPI, which is what virtually everyone recognises and is in our remit.”

It is perfectly clear that we need to enshrine CPI as the key measure on the face of the Bill. The amount of £1,000 from 1999 would now be worth either £1,440 if CPI is applied, or £1,620 if RPI is applied. Lord Jackson said that it should not go up to £2,000, as the Government suggests, until inflation warrants it.

I trust the Minister will not be as dismissive as Lord Keen was when he said in his evidence to the Justice Committee:

“We do not feel that there is a material difference between setting it at £1,700 today and seeing it drop behind inflation next year, and setting it at £2,000 without the need to review it again for a number of years.”

Try telling the nurse, the caretaker or the bus driver that there is no material difference between £1,700 and £2,000. For those on real wages, that has a real impact.

[Rory Stewart]

Relatively rapidly, I would say that we have five types of disagreement with the amendments. Broadly speaking, those are political, philosophical, economic, financial and constitutional. The political disagreement is that the amendment would go to the heart of the Bill. The entire concept of the Bill is to try to effect a change in the current practice and process around whiplash claims by moving the claim limit to £5,000. That is part of the entire package—the tariffs and small claims limits are related to that.

Philosophically and fundamentally, we are not arguing that the shift to £5,000 is fundamentally a question of inflation. There are many other reasons why the small claims limit has been moved in the past. Indeed, in relation to some types of claim, as you will be aware Sir Henry, as one of our learned friends, some of the claims have been moved to £10,000, which goes a long way beyond inflation.

Largely, the driver of whether or not something is on a small claims track is to do with the nature of the claim, not the nature of inflation. However, if we worked on the narrow question of inflation, the Judicial College guidelines are currently on RPI as opposed to CPI. I respect the arguments that the hon. Member for Ashfield made but that is not the fundamental argument the Government are making.

The amendment would have curious financial implications. It would create a strange syncopated rhythm, whereby movements in CPI are not necessarily reflected in the triennial review except in £500 increments which, over time, mathematically will lead to peculiar results.

The fundamental reason we oppose the amendment is the final argument I mentioned, which is constitutional. This is business for the Civil Procedure Rule Committee, as it always has been, and it is not suitable to put in the Bill. On the basis of those political, philosophical, economic, financial and constitutional arguments, I respectfully request that the amendments be withdrawn.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

I want to make a few brief comments. I entirely understand the force of the comments made. As someone who started his practice in the small claims court before progressing to other courts, I have seen how they work. I have a couple of pertinent points—the Minister alluded to the first. For some very complicated cases, particularly commercial ones, there are already limits of £10,000. As other Members who have practised will realise, the fact that someone is in a small claims court and not represented does not mean that they are completely unassisted. The district judges who hear those claims are solicitors or barristers and are extremely competent and experienced in their own right. Therefore, there is every reason to believe that they will be able to hear those claims, which will have justice as their case is heard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ellie Reeves]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

To understand the importance of new clause 4, we must understand the significance of the use of periodical payments to compensate those who have been injured through negligence, often catastrophically, with little or no capacity for work and with considerable care costs.

More often than not, successful claimants are paid a lump sum, which is intended to compensate them for the rest of their life. However, the benefits of periodical payments, rather than a lump sum, are threefold. First, periodical payments are index-linked so they go up in accordance with rising costs of living or care. Secondly, in such cases, there are often arguments about life expectancy. If the court accepts that a victim of a catastrophic injury is likely to live until 42 but medical advances mean that they actually live until 80, a lump sum will run out many years earlier. With periodical payments, the injured person is compensated every year for the rest of their life. Thirdly, receiving an annual periodical payment rather than a lump sum means that injured people do not have to make difficult investment decisions and, equally, it removes the risk that they will spend the money all at once.

The setting of the discount rate is highly relevant to periodical payments. When the rate stood at 2.5%, it was far more attractive for defendants to pay a lump sum that was discounted by 2.5% than to pay index-linked annual payments. That meant that in all but the most serious cases, periodical payments often met huge resistance from defendants. A rate that assumes a much lower level of investment risk by injured people may well result in an increase in the use of periodical payments, particularly in cases not at the most catastrophic level where resistance from defendants has been greatest. The benefits to the injured person are clear, and the benefits to the state of not having to pick up the bill for care or housing, if and when the money runs out, are obvious.

On Second Reading, the Minister said that he welcomed the use of periodical payments. Can he tell us the percentage of personal injury claims in which they are used? It is my understanding that the figures are astoundingly low, often due to resistance from defendant insurers. New clause 4 makes it incumbent on the Civil Justice Council, with its expert knowledge, to review the impact of part 2 and the discount rate on the prevalence of periodical payments being awarded. If we agree that periodical payments are a good thing, surely we can agree that their use must be monitored so that appropriate and evidence-based action can be taken where necessary. This would benefit injured people and the Treasury alike.

[Rory Stewart]

Once again, I want to take this opportunity to praise the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge. The arguments for PPO are very strong. It is absolutely correct that the ideal thing is to give someone a PPO. The problem at the moment with receiving a large sum with a discount rate is that one could end up overcompensated or undercompensated. Overcompensation means a huge cost to the NHS and the taxpayer. Undercompensation can be catastrophic for one’s lifetime care costs. Rather than taking a lump sum, the PPO ensures that one gets the amount of money required to look after one’s costs. Therefore, we agree with the nature of this argument.

The disagreements with this amendment are technical. The 18-month period from Royal Assent is too short to take real effect. Regarding the basic question the hon. Lady has raised—whether the Civil Justice Council should look at the use of PPOs and the impact of discount rates on PPOs—we have written directly to the Master of the Rolls to request that the Civil Justice Council look at the use of PPOs. We remain open to doing that again, once the new review of discount rate is introduced.

It is absolutely right that we should encourage more uptake and challenge the insurance companies, which have said publicly that they want more use of PPOs, to ensure that more PPOs are given out. That is the best way to protect an injured person. There are some narrow cases where it is not appropriate—somebody may not have sufficient insurance or the financial weight to deliver a PPO—but when it is paid out, it ought to be paid and that is why we are grateful that, for example, the NHS continues to use the PPOs in the case of catastrophically injured children. I request that the hon. Lady withdraw the amendment.

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank the Minister for that response and, to some extent, his assurances. However, given that the Bill seeks to make big changes, if we are committed to periodical payments and their use, there should be a mechanism for review built into the legislation. I shall press the new clause to a Division.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gloria De Piero]

The Government have refused to allow the small claims changes, which will have a fundamental impact on access to justice for hundreds and thousands of injured people every year, into the Bill. New clause 7 is designed to ensure that vulnerable road users are exempted as the Minister has promised. New clause 8 would do little more than reflect the recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson in his civil justice review. The Minister agreed this morning that there had been a change to the small claims limit in 1999. New clause 8 says that 1999 is the date from which any change to the small claims limit should be calculated and that the increase should be by no more than £500 at any one time. As I have said, that reflects the recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson.

There is a difference between us on the appropriate level of inflation. We say CPI—the consumer prices index. There is absolute logic in that because that is the inflation rate applied by the Government to benefits paid to injured people. It is also, of course, the rate that the Governor of the Bank of England recommends.

[Rory Stewart]

Given that we are coming towards the end of the proceedings, I again pay tribute to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for the quality of debate. It has been quite testing personally: a lot of very learned friends have asked a lot of fundamental questions, ranging from inflation rates to the good challenges from my friend the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), who keeps me on my toes. I thank them very much for their various contributions.

With the final group of amendments, we come to questions that relate to some of the debates that we have had already, in different forms. This in effect is a subset of the arguments made on new clause 1. As right hon. and hon. Members will remember, new clause 1 involved an argument that the reductions should be made in relation to all personal injury claims. These proposals take the same arguments and apply them to two subsets of people who are injured: vulnerable road users and people injured in the course of employment. On both those things, there are some differences between us, again, on the correct level at which to set the rate, but there are also some important concessions that are worth bearing in mind. They were made in the House of Lords and in the subsequent process.

In relation, first, to people injured in the course of employment, personal injury claims that are not as a result of whiplash, we have listened very carefully to right hon. and hon. Members. They will remember that in the initial consultations there were suggestions about raising the limit to £10,000 or £5,000. The agreement has been that for non-whiplash-related injuries, it is kept at £2,000.

There is some discussion about whether it is correct to see that in terms of CPI or RPI—the retail prices index—but broadly speaking, it is not very significantly different from the rates that were set in the 1990s when inflation was applied, although there is some disagreement between the two sides of the House, to the extent of a few hundred pounds, on the extent of headroom put on top of inflation. There could be a broader argument, which was raised earlier, about the fundamental principle that compensation should be paid for the injury rather than on the basis of why somebody was present on the scene, whether in the course of employment or another activity. However, that goes beyond the scope of the amendment.

The real concession has been made in relation to vulnerable road users, which I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome. We listened carefully to representations made primarily not by people who own horses—although I remind hon. Members that there are more than a million horses in the United Kingdom, so it is not quite as much of a minority pursuit as some might like—but by cyclists, who led a strong campaign arguing that they are particularly vulnerable on the roads. They are: they are not encased in a sheet of metal. We accept that the same argument also applies in spades to pedestrians—as a proud pedestrian, I feel that very strongly—and to people on motorcycles, who are not encased in metal either.

We are delighted to confirm that vulnerable road users will be excluded in respect of the small claims limit and the Bill. On that basis, with many thanks to everybody for their prodigious and learned contributions, I politely ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Gloria De Piero]

I will disquiet the Minister one more time and press the new clause to a Division.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

Short title

[Rory Stewart]

I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 14, page 16, line 6, leave out subsection (2).

This amendment removes the privilege amendment inserted by the Lords.

The amendment is procedural. It is a privilege amendment that changes subsection (2) of the short title. The House of Lords has said that nothing in the Act shall impose any charge on the people or on the public funds. Bringing it to the House of Commons means the Ministry of Justice should be liable for any charges to the funds. The House of Commons is able to take on the terms of the fund. This is a normal procedural amendment for when something comes from the House of Lords to the House of Commons, so we ask that Government amendment 7 is accepted.

Amendment 7 agreed to.

Clause 14, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill, as amended, to be reported.