Oral Answers to Questions
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Far too many people on short sentences—almost 35%—struggle to find suitable accommodation. That is why we are now focusing on a pilot in Bristol, Pentonville and Leeds. We not only want to get ex-offenders into accommodation, but are putting £6.4 million into ensuring that they have right kind of support, with up to five hours a week on life skills and financial management skills, and access the right services.
Matt Western
I thank the Minister for his response. A study done by the charity Revolving Doors estimates that there was a 25-fold increase between October 2016 and June 2018 in the number of prisoners sleeping rough who have served less than six months. Does that information embarrass the Government and the Minister?
Rory Stewart
First, I pay tribute to Revolving Doors, which is a very impressive charity. I am afraid those are not the figures we have in the MOJ, but I am very happy to sit down with Revolving Doors and understand how it is arriving as such figures. Broadly speaking, sadly, the level of homelessness among people on short sentences has remained, in our terms, relatively static over the past decade, but I respect Revolving Doors, and I am very happy to look at that evidence with it.
Kerry McCarthy
When prisoners fall on that fine line between being criminals and actually being victims of crime themselves—I am particularly thinking of young people who are caught up in gangs and county lines-type drug dealing—what support is being given to them to make sure that if they are rehoused, they are rehoused away from the scene from their offending, so they are in a safe place and do not get dragged back into gang activity?
Rory Stewart
This is a very good challenge. We can use licence conditions to try to ensure that somebody does not return to the scene of their offending. The problem, as the hon. Lady will be aware, is that we of course have to balance that against the importance of family relationships for rehabilitation. We want to try to locate someone in a place where they will not be tempting into further reoffending, but we do not want to locate them in a place where they lose all contact with family and community.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that it is wrong for local authorities to discriminate against ex-offenders by putting them at the bottom of the queue, sometimes saying they have no local connections—through no fault of their own, if they have been in prison—and that ex-offenders should be treated fairly and equally, along with everyone else?
Rory Stewart
I agree 100%. That has now become easier to enforce through recent legislation, but we continue to work very closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. There are local councils that are doing fantastic work in housing ex-offenders, but it is true that ex-offenders can fall through the gaps. In particular, the pilot in Bristol, Pentonville and Leeds is an opportunity to demonstrate how we can work better with local authorities.
Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)
I am proud to have become a trustee of Nacro recently. Will the Minister continue to work with me and Nacro to reduce the number of prisoners who are released at the end of the week, which thereby reduces the number of services available to them?
Rory Stewart
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done with Nacro. Indeed, we had an excellent hour-long session with Nacro on the issue of Friday releases. We are looking at this, but it is worth bearing it in mind that we cannot simply solve this by releasing people on Thursday. That would mean dealing with everybody who will otherwise come out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well, so we would have four times the workload on a Thursday. We are, however, looking for solutions to this problem.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), does the Minister recognise that housing allocation policies often mean it is difficult to remove an offender from an area where they have criminal connections, because they do not have local connections in the area to which it would be sensible to move them? What discussions is his Department having with the MHCLG about housing allocation policies supporting the relocation of those offenders?
Rory Stewart
The answer is that we have two formal mechanisms: we have a taskforce focused on housing and we have a taskforce focused particularly on rough sleeping. In both those scenarios, we are pushing very hard with the MHCLG to resolve many issues, of which that is an important one.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
Care after Combat’s mentoring scheme for 360 veterans has achieved a fivefold reduction in reoffending. Quite rightly, we are spending a small amount to save £20 million in the system. What are the Government doing further to support these sorts of mentoring initiatives to tackle both homelessness and reoffending?
Rory Stewart
I pay tribute to Care after Combat, which I have had the opportunity to meet, along with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who has responsibility for veterans. There is a great deal of support, particularly that provided by military charities, and I would like to pay tribute to SSAFA—the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association—the Royal British Legion and, of course, Help for Heroes, which has done incredible work on the issue of offenders who are also veterans. It is important to understand, however, that the issues faced by veterans are often a subset of the issues faced by many of our offenders, particularly in relation to mental health, addiction, housing and employment. We need to think about them, whether they are veterans or civilians, in a single act.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Preventing drones from going into prisons is, of course, a huge priority. First, that means working to identify and catch the criminal gangs who are flying them in; secondly, it means electronic measures to interrupt the drones and make it possible to interrogate those people; and, thirdly and most fundamentally, it means protective security. For example, Mr Speaker, if there is a good grille on the window, you cannot stick your hand out of the window and take the drugs from the drone.
Mr Speaker
That is a useful piece of practical advice from the Minister. I am deeply indebted to him.
Vicky Ford
Drug use in prisons frequently fuels serious violence, but those who fly the drones or throw the drugs over the walls often receive little more than a ticking off. What more can be done to dissuade people—especially young people— from such behaviour?
Rory Stewart
I know that my hon. Friend does wonderful work with the prison in her constituency. As she says, we need to take action, and we are taking action. There have been 40 convictions of people using drones, and we have imposed 140 years’-worth of prison sentences. No one should be in any doubt that importing drugs into prisons with a drone is a very serious crime, and I am pleased to say that, thanks to the Department’s work since 2015, we are getting on top of the problem.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned in July and re-emphasised today the importance of jamming equipment in prisons; how many prisons have that equipment?
Rory Stewart
First, that is classified information, but, secondly, the answer is not that many prisons. It is very expensive equipment to use, but we are looking at an electronic fencing technique which has been deployed in Guernsey. We can learn a lot from Guernsey prison: if that electronic fence in Guernsey works, it is a good cheap solution. We would need to check its technical specifications and then we could look at rolling it out.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Violence in prisons is fundamentally driven by three things: drugs, the conditions in the prison, and relationships between prison officers and prisoners. We are addressing all three. To cut down on drugs, we are putting much more perimeter security in place to make it more difficult to get drugs in. Secondly, we are investing a great deal in decency and cleanliness in prisons. But the most important thing is the training and support for our hard-working prison officers so they can develop the right relationships with prisoners—ones that are strict but also humane—in order to bring proper behaviour management into place.
Colin Clark
Clearly reducing violence in prisons does depend on effective training of prison officers, but what assessment has my hon. Friend made of improvements in the way violent offenders are handled?
Rory Stewart
We repeatedly survey this; we have a specialist team looking at it. We have a long study under the violence reduction strategy, and the real conclusion is that it is about training. It is about what happens at the cell door—about how we develop respectful relationships in the same way that a good teacher would. There are high expectations on prison officers and on prisoners, so that we can have a safe, humane relationship that also has boundaries in place to control behaviour.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
This challenge is absolutely right; we are focusing initially on 10 prisons, as it is difficult to achieve cultural change in 120 prisons simultaneously. The idea is to develop in those 10 prisons the right standard model on drugs, violence and decency, and if we are successful, as I believe we will be by August, to then roll that out across the rest of the estate.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
The Minister yet again comes to the House all gung-ho, even though he has absolutely no reason to be since safety in our prisons continues to be compromised and they remain in a state of emergency. One such example is HMP Birmingham, one of the most dangerous prisons in the country with conditions there found to be so bad by the prisons inspector that control was taken away from G4S. At the very minimum will the Minister give me assurances, or a guarantee, that this prison will not be returned to the private sector?
Rory Stewart
As I have said on a number of occasions, this is not fundamentally about private and public: there are good private prisons and good public prisons, and there are bad private prisons and bad public prisons. But I will give this assurance: unless G4S can demonstrate that it can take back that prison and run it both well and sustainably, we will not be returning the prison to G4S.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Fundamentally, a mobile phone needs to be moved by a person, it is a metal object and it transmits, which means that the three ways of dealing with a mobile telephone are to get intelligence on the organised criminal gangs that are moving them around, to use metal detectors to discover the devices, and to use electronic measures to identify where the devices are located within prisons, to jam the signals and to interrogate the calls.
Dr Offord
It has been reported that Anthony Russell, a contestant on “The X Factor”, used a mobile phone to communicate with a convicted prisoner by FaceTime from the ITV studios, of all places. Will the Minister consider making it a specific criminal offence for anyone knowingly to communicate with someone in the criminal justice system?
Rory Stewart
I am happy to sit down with my hon. Friend. It is absolutely a criminal offence to have a mobile telephone in prison, but the complexities of what my hon. Friend suggests go a long way beyond that. It is certainly not an offence to communicate with a prisoner. In fact, we encourage prisoners to continue family relations, which is important to prevent reoffending and protect the public.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
While we of course do not want prisoners using mobile phones, we are happy for prisoners to watch television. The Minister knows that I am unhappy about his decision to buy televisions from China instead of from Cello in my constituency. Will he look again at the criteria for such public contracts?
Rory Stewart
The hon. Lady powerfully represents her constituency’s interests. The issues around procurement are complex, but I will look carefully at the case. However, it is important to bear in mind that we also have a duty to get value for money for the taxpayer and ensure that we are purchasing affordable goods.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
First, I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he does in supporting the work of Nottingham Prison, which is one of the 10 priority prisons. We are therefore bringing scanners into those prisons. We are currently shipping those scanners over, but a range of different types of scanning will be taking place: X-ray scanners used on an intelligence-led basis, which can penetrate through the skin; metal detectors on a more regular basis as people go through; and additional dogs.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
The Minister responsible for rehabilitation will be aware of the great work that groups such as St Mary Magdalene church in Torquay do with ex-offenders. That work could be enhanced if such groups could use the old Torquay magistrates court, which is still empty. Will he agree to meet me and representatives of the church to discuss how, if they acquired the building, they could make a real difference?
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
The big legislative change that we are trying to introduce, and for which we would very much like to get cross-party support, is a provision to allow us to do proper testing on Spice—an endeavour that is in a private Member’s Bill that is currently trying to make its way through the House. As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, Spice is a real problem. It is provoking unbelievably aggressive behaviour and it is extremely bad for people’s health. We can search along the perimeter but yes, we also need to do more in the law.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Citing reputational reasons, one of my local authority employers failed to keep on a member of staff after a probation period because of a spent conviction that was known about. Would public sector employers not get a better reputation if they helped to turn people’s lives around when they want to put something back into society?
Rory Stewart
I could not agree more. One of the best ways to prevent reoffending and therefore protect the public is to help people into employment. Ex-prisoners can be some of the most loyal and hard-working employees one can find. We encourage all employers to take a realistic, pragmatic approach. Many convictions are absolutely irrelevant to the work that the person is doing or to public protection. The best way to protect the public is to provide a job.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
First, let me share our very sincere condolences. It is the most horrifying thing to lose a 22-month-old in that way. Secondly, we are currently consulting on changing the law to have a life sentence for causing death by dangerous driving or by careless driving under the influence. We can do an enormous amount more, both legally and in terms of road safety and driving tests. We must bring down the number of people who are killed. The hon. Gentleman raises a particularly tragic incident, and I would be delighted to meet him to discuss it.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Last week, the House passed the Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill, which is an important part of court modernisation. Does the Lord Chancellor accept that there remains a pressing need to introduce the remaining primary legislation necessary to underpin the rest of Sir Michael Briggs’ reforms?
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
We do an assessment whenever a prisoner comes in. In a prison such as Humber, for example, almost a quarter of the prisoners are currently on some form of drug rehabilitation treatment. Those are very high numbers. Drugs in prison are a big issue: nearly 50% of prisoners have alcohol or drug-related addiction issues. The NHS takes the lead on that; I would be happy to get back to the hon. Lady with the figures.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Will the Minister endorse the excellent work of Youth of Walsall and its campaign “Real Knives, Real Lives”, which seeks to educate young people on the dangers of carrying a knife?
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Ministers will be aware of the very low attainment in reading among prisoners. Is anything being done to try to improve the situation? I understand that the average reading age in a prison is 11.
Rory Stewart
It is a very serious problem. As my right hon. and learned Friend has pointed out, almost half the prisoners have a reading age of under 11. Perhaps 25% of prisoners have a reading age of six. There is an enormous amount that we can do and that is where the education and employment strategy comes in, which is about making sure that the education is relevant and leads to a job.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
Kayden Dunn
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) for securing this debate. This is a genuinely horrifying case, and I hope I will be able slightly to express our debt of gratitude to her and to Kayden Dunn’s family for bringing this case to the House.
It begins, of course, as a terrible personal story of a little boy. Anybody looking at the photographs or hearing the hon. Lady talk about Kayden on a trampoline or in his school play will feel the horror of what happened, which is something that has ramifications for all our lives, whether or not we are parents. I am the father of a four-year-old boy and an 18-month-old boy, and I think of such incidents every time I go to the road. All of us, in different ways, will reflect on this, and I hope that all of us will reflect on the justice system and on driving.
At the heart of this is the crime committed by a young man at the wheel of a car, which led to something so horrifying as the loss of a young life. It raises for us a couple of issues that I hope to touch on before I conclude. First, the Ministry of Justice must take some practical steps to learn from Kayden Dunn’s case. The hon. Lady specifically raised the case of the probation service and what we can do on restorative justice. Restorative justice is hugely important, and it can really help the business of healing and it can really help a family, like Kayden’s family, come to terms with somebody who has committed such a crime. There have been delays in this case and, as we have explained to Kayden’s mother, part of it is due to her personal family circumstances. I believe a meeting has now taken place—on 16 November—and we will now reach out to her again to see whether there is more we can do to facilitate this.
The broader question of law, moving from the probation service to sentencing, is very important. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, there is the broader issue of how we deal with people who cause death by their actions in a motor car. We all need to remember the fundamental fact that a motor car is, in effect, a lethal weapon: it is tonnes of metal, with a powerful engine, travelling at a very great speed.
The awful truth is that recent statistics suggest that 25% of young men aged between 17 and 21 have a car crash. That is 25% of young men aged between 17 and 21 at the wheel of this lethal weapon driving carelessly or dangerously.
Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)
My heart goes out to Kayden’s family. Sadly, what we have heard tonight is not an isolated incident. The Minister talks about a car being a lethal weapon, and anybody else killing somebody with a lethal weapon would be charged with murder. Will there be any steps to change the law to make the lethal weapon of a car being driven dangerously murder?
Rory Stewart
That is probably the central question in this whole debate. The answer, of course, is that, in terms of the loss of life, it is like murder. The act has killed someone, and that life can never be given back. The difference between murder and this, of course, is in the intention of the individual, which is a very difficult thing to talk about. English law traditionally distinguishes between somebody intentionally trying to kill someone, and somebody whose acts, through recklessness in this case, have resulted in a death. One reason why we are moving to increase the penalty for causing death by dangerous driving to a life sentence is that we believe strongly that this is, if not quite murder, indistinguishable in effect from manslaughter.
There are two types of manslaughter—illegal act manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter. We could argue that somebody at the wheel of a car killing somebody else either by speeding or drink-driving, which would be an unlawful act, or simply by driving dangerously, is breaching their duty of care to other road users. Their recklessness lies in the fact that they ought to be aware, or any reasonable person would be aware, that their actions had a high likelihood of resulting in death.
There are also things we need to do on the broader issue of road safety that do not relate directly to Kayden Dunn’s case but which are important for future cases. Some good campaigns have been run in this House drawing attention to how vulnerable cyclists and pedestrians can be. Tragically, Kayden is one of almost 440 pedestrians killed this year in the UK by motor cars.
Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)
I very much welcome the debate and the fact that causing death by dangerous driving will attract a life sentence. Will the Minister say more about what will happen in cases where the result is not death but serious injury? What sentence will that attract?
Rory Stewart
The case of serious injury is another thing we have been reviewing, and we are currently looking at that issue from different directions. We have been looking at increasing the penalty for causing death by dangerous driving. Secondly, we have been looking at increasing the penalty for causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs. We have been looking at the issue of causing injury and the position of vulnerable road users, in particular, cyclists, of whom more than 100 are killed a year, pedestrians, of whom about 450 are killed a year, and even people on horses, of whom nearly 40 are killed a year. My hon. Friend asked about injuries, and the answer is that such a case would attract a two or three-year maximum sentence, but that is something we are examining.
I do not wish to take up too much of the House’s time, because Kayden Dunn’s case is so horrifying, and so personal to Kayden’s family and to the community in Stoke, that I almost feel it is slightly inappropriate for me, as a Minister, to reduce it to the language of the Chamber or of a policy debate. However, the issue of road safety matters to us all, and Kayden Dunn’s case gives us an opportunity to reflect on that. The truth is that in 1926 4,800 people were killed in road traffic accidents in Britain. By 1966, the number had risen to 8,000, whereas this year 1,700 people were killed. So our roads are getting safer and fewer people are getting killed. Obviously, in 1926, when more than twice as many people were killed, there were far fewer cars on roads, but 1,700 people is still far, far too many. That needs not only a legal response—it needs proper judicial sentencing and punishment for people who break the law and kill people—but practical steps. It requires us to look closely at the driving test and at whether people should be re-tested. It requires us to look at the position of professional drivers, as, sadly, quite a lot of injuries are caused by people whose jobs lead them to drive unusual numbers of hours. It leads us to look at road design, what happens on the streets and the way we set out the markings. It leads us to think about road safety campaigns for children in schools. It leads us to think about road safety for cyclists, about protective gear for cyclists and, of course, about motorcyclists, who are currently probably the second most vulnerable group on the road.
None of that can take us away from the individual case, so let me finish by saying again that the case of Kayden Dunn has been an opportunity for us all in the House to reflect, over a serious half hour, on the horror and the tragedy that lies behind the language of our law. Too often, here, we have pieces of paper and talk in an abstract way. We forget the real people—the real victims—and the fact that when somebody is killed, there is not a single victim; the ripples of that death spread through an entire family and then through an entire community.
By courageously working with her Member of Parliament to bring this case to Parliament, Kayden’s mother has made several things happen. First, to learn from Kayden’s tragic death, we must improve road safety in any way we can. Secondly, we have to look at our justice system and think about the ways in which that system is fair and whether it addresses the question of the impact of a person’s act on a victim, and balances that with questions of loss and remorse. One question raised in the debate was whether the young man who was driving the car felt the appropriate remorse. It is right that in our legal system the showing of remorse or lack of remorse can act as a mitigating or aggravating factor in the determination of the length of a sentence. That leads us back to the broader issue around extending the maximum penalties.
In the end, the tribute has to go back to Kayden Dunn and his family—back to that little glimpse of a young boy on a trampoline, to a glimpse of a young boy at a school play. There was also a glimpse of another young man. God forbid that we judge another human being, but perhaps we can move on from the case and all reflect on this when we get behind the wheel of a car. The car is a weapon and, whenever we get into it, it could kill someone—it could kill a young child. If any of us thinks of speeding in a residential area or, God forbid, thinks of getting into a car uninsured or driving without a licence, we are acting with such gross negligence and such recklessness that it must be equated morally with the most criminal or grossly negligent acts that we commit.
I hope we can take away from this debate the beauty of that young man’s life and a strong sense from this Chamber going out to society that we will remember Kayden Dunn with enormous, sincere respect for him and his family and for the way they have reached out to Parliament. We should also take away the hope that in future, there will not be many more Kayden Dunns.
Question put and agreed to.
Justice
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rory Stewart
I want to emphasise that the phrase “minor injuries” is derived from Judicial College guidelines, not from the Government or any political party. It is simply a long-standing convention to refer to injuries of under two years’ duration as minor injuries, and that relates to Sentencing Council guidelines for injuries of under two years’ duration.
[Official Report, 23 October 2018, Vol. 648, c. 216.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, (Rory Stewart).
An error has been identified in a response I gave during the debate on the Report stage of the Civil Liability Bill [Lords].
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
I want to emphasise that the phrase “minor injuries” is derived from Judicial College guidelines, not from the Government or any political party. It is simply a long-standing convention to refer to injuries of under two years’ duration as minor injuries, and that relates to Judicial College guidelines for injuries of under two years’ duration.
On the arguments of the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the levels of the tariffs, we have attempted to achieve a reduction in the tariff at the lower end. For example, an individual who suffers an injury of under three months’ duration could receive damages considerably less than those in the current guidelines, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that, as we approach a duration of two years, the compensation offered begins to merge much more closely with the existing guidelines at a level of £3,600.
[Official Report, 23 October 2018, Vol. 648, c. 216.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, (Rory Stewart).
An error has been identified in a response I gave during the debate on the Report stage of the Civil Liability Bill [Lords].
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
On the arguments of the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the levels of the tariffs, we have attempted to achieve a reduction in the tariff at the lower end. For example, an individual who suffers an injury of under three months’ duration could receive damages considerably less than those in the current guidelines, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that, as we approach a duration of two years, the compensation offered begins to merge much more closely with the existing guidelines at a level of £3,910.
Justice
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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John Howell
Earlier this afternoon, the Minister will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) give an example of how he was approached—hassled, in fact—by a claims management company. I, too, have been in that situation for a fictitious accident and I still get calls about that. Is dealing with this not one of the real ways that we will be able to prevent our being the whiplash capital?
Rory Stewart
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which has been made by the shadow Front-Bench team and others: dealing with claims management companies is going to be a central part of this. Consultation has taken place on this, and measures have been taken against claims management companies. A significant issue remains, which we are consulting on and trying to resolve—to be honest with the House, it is the fact that many of these calls come from foreign jurisdictions, so the challenge is trying to work out the best way to deal with that.
[Official Report, 23 October 2018, Vol. 648, c. 228.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, (Rory Stewart).
An error has been identified in a response I gave during the Third Reading debate on the Civil Liability Bill [Lords].
The correct response should have been:
John Howell
Earlier this afternoon, the Minister will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) give an example of how he was approached—hassled, in fact—by a claims management company. I, too, have been in that situation for a fictitious accident and I still get calls about that. Is dealing with this not one of the real ways that we will be able to prevent our being the whiplash capital?
Rory Stewart
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which has been made by the shadow Front-Bench team and others: dealing with claims management companies is going to be a central part of this. Consultation has taken place on this, and measures have been taken against claims management companies. A significant issue remains, which we are trying to resolve—to be honest with the House, it is the fact that many of these calls come from foreign jurisdictions, so the challenge is trying to work out the best way to deal with that.
Rory Stewart
I have the following on a formal piece of paper here, so that I can make my Pepper v. Hart statement to make sure that this is clear for the judiciary. In subsection (3), therefore, we have excluded those soft tissue injuries in the neck, back or shoulder which are part of or connected to another injury, so long as the other injury is not covered by subsection (2). The effect of subsection (3) would be to exclude, for example, damage to soft tissue which results only from the fracture of an adjoining bone or the tearing of muscles arising from a penetrating injury, which would otherwise fall within subsection (2). It has been suggested that the words “connected to another injury” in subsection (3)(a) could mean an injury resulting from the same accident. There is therefore a concern that a number of soft tissue injuries that would otherwise fall under the definition of whiplash injury will be excluded, and so not subject to the tariff of damages, simply by reason of being suffered on the same occasion as a whiplash injury.
[Official Report, 23 October 2018, Vol. 648, c. 229.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, (Rory Stewart).
An error has been identified in a response I gave during the Third Reading debate on the Civil Liability Bill [Lords].
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
I have the following on a formal piece of paper here, so that I can make my Pepper v. Hart statement to make sure that this is clear for the judiciary. In subsection (3), therefore, we have excluded those soft tissue injuries in the neck, back or shoulder which are part of or connected to another injury, so long as the other injury is not covered by subsection (2). The effect of subsection (3) would be to exclude, for example, damage to soft tissue which results only from the fracture of an adjoining bone or the tearing of muscles arising from a penetrating injury, which would otherwise fall within subsection (2). It has been suggested that the words “connected to another injury” in subsection (3)(a) could mean an injury resulting from the same accident. There is therefore a concern that a number of soft tissue injuries that would otherwise fall under the definition of whiplash injury will be excluded, and so not subject to the tariff of damages, simply by reason of being suffered on the same occasion as a non-whiplash injury.
Prisons
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
At the Justice Select Committee on 26 June, I reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to building up to 10,000 modern and decent prison places to replace old, expensive and unsuitable accommodation, modernising parts of our prison estate.
Also at the Committee, I confirmed the intention to launch a competition to appoint a framework of prison operators from which we could select the operator for the new prisons including further prisons following expiry of current private sector contracts.
Today I can announce the launch of the prison operator services framework competition through a notice which will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) within the coming days.
Securing a framework of operators should reinvigorate the prison market by encouraging new providers to enter the custodial arena. It will also enable Ministry of Justice to more effectively and efficiently manage a pipeline of competition over the next decade. Once part of the framework, operators can choose to compete in shorter “call-off” competitions for the operation of individual prisons.
The first of these call-off competitions will be for the operation of the new-build resettlement prisons at Wellingborough and then Glen Parva. These are being built using public capital, with construction expected to begin in late 2018 and late 2019 respectively.
HMPPS will not bid in the competition but will provide a “public sector benchmark” against which operators’ bids will be rigorously assessed. If bids do not meet our expectations in terms of quality and cost, HMPPS will act as the provider.
This competition is not about the difference between the public and private sector. It is about driving quality and innovation across the system. I am clear that through this competition we expect bidders to provide high-quality, value for money bids that deliver effective regimes to meet the specific needs of prisoners. Our aim being to help them turn their lives around to prevent reoffending.
This Government remain committed to a role for the private sector in operating custodial services. The competition launched today will seek to build on the innovation and different ways of working that the private sector has previously introduced to the system. The sector has an important role to play, and currently runs some high-performing prisons, as part of a decent and secure prison estate.
We will ensure, through the procurement and contract management processes, that we have sufficient measures in place to have confidence in the delivery and maintenance of the contracted prisons over their lifetime.
A balanced approach to custodial services provision, which includes a mix of public, voluntary and private sector involvement has been shown to introduce improvements and deliver value for money for taxpayers.
The launch of the prison operator services framework underlines this Government’s commitment to reform the prison estate, build much needed prison places, improve standards of decency across the estate, and reduce reoffending.
[HCWS1123]
Road Safety and the Legal Framework
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
I will do, Mr Betts; it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is also a pleasure to take part in the debate. It is extraordinary; some of our most active and fittest colleagues are gathered in the Chamber to debate something that is very close to their hearts, and close to the hearts of millions of people up and down the country.
I will begin by reflecting on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), which was that, fundamentally, there is much more that we can do to protect cyclists, but we also need to reinforce the central message that immobility is much more dangerous for one’s health than walking or getting on a bicycle. In fact, the beginning of all this has to be our understanding of just how powerful and beneficial cycling and walking can be. Cycling is not only—as most of us who cycle know—the quickest way of getting to this place in the morning, it is also a way of moving that is much less damaging to the environment and much better for our health in the most astonishing range of ways. It is better for our weight, our bowels, our hearts, our skin, our sex lives—[Laughter.] Yes, much better for our sex lives; recent studies in the United States have shown that men who cycle regularly have the sex life of somebody five years younger than the average. Cycling is also much better for happiness. It should be greatly encouraged, and the more people we can get cycling and walking, the better.
The corollary is that if we are to encourage people to walk and cycle, we need to make sure that they can do so safely. Far too many people still are injured or killed while cycling. In any given year recently, more than 100 people on bicycles have been killed on the roads. We need to take that seriously, while also putting it in the context that, overall, we are making huge improvements in road safety.
Famously, for example, in 1926 when far fewer people owned motorcars, 5,000 people were killed on the roads. As recently as 1966, 8,000 people were killed in motor accidents in a year. Today, although still far too high, the number is 1,700—despite the fact that far more people own motorcars than in 1966 or, of course, 1926. We therefore should not be entirely gloomy. The second thing to put into context is that, as some right hon. and hon. Members have pointed out, it is not only cyclists whom we need to think about in terms of vulnerable road users.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) pointed out that 40 people a year on horses are killed on the roads, and far fewer people ride horses than bicycles, so proportionately someone is much more likely to be killed on a horse. About 400 or 450 people are killed walking and, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) reminded us, a similar number are killed on motorcycles—people are extremely vulnerable on a motorcycle on the road. Finally, of course, the largest number of people are killed in a motor vehicle. We should not suggest that anyone killed in a motor vehicle somehow deserves it because many are innocent victims, including children and families, who just happen to be travelling in that vehicle when it is hit.
Any approach to the subject therefore has to be comprehensive. I want to pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), the Member for the borders. They managed to provide a very comprehensive description of the range of things that need to happen if we are to protect cyclists. That begins right at the beginning in the way that we train people who drive motorcars, so with The Highway Code, and thinking about things such as the Dutch reach and how tests are conducted or professional drivers might be retested. It extends to road design and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) pointed out, questions of enforcement, not only sentencing but how the police conduct themselves, how evidence is gathered and how prosecutions are brought. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said, it also extends to thinking about rest periods for drivers, the potholes in the roads or, as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) pointed out, questions of a changing gig economy and the kind of people travelling in our vehicles.
All of that needs to be the context, which is why we argue strongly that any real response must take into account not just us in the Ministry of Justice but the Department for Transport and the Home Office. Nevertheless, I am a Minister from the Ministry of Justice, so I will touch briefly on some of the legal issues raised by right hon. and hon. Members.
My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk emphasised the serious issue of failure to stop. In examining it and making progress, we need to take into account the fact that there is a fundamental difference between the expectations of someone to report a driving offence, and of a burglar or murderer to report their offence: the premise, or presupposition, is that the driving offence is an accidental act. We therefore expect an individual of good will to have a duty of care and a responsibility to help the vulnerable victim in a way that the individual involved in other types of crime might not. That fundamental understanding of the difference between this type of crime and others should inform the approach that we take to the question of the failure to stop and the strong arguments made by my hon. Friend from the borders and others that we should increase the penalty.
The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) mentioned hardship, again a very serious point. There seems to be a serious discrepancy in the number of people able to claim extreme hardship. A small footnote to that, however, a caveat, is that it is important to remember that not all those claims of extreme hardship relate to the individual driving the motorcar; they often relate to the dependants of that individual—for example, a child with special needs who requires motorcar travel. Extreme hardship can therefore extend beyond the individual to the family. Nevertheless, I recognise that the number of people making such claims seems disproportionately large.
My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes mentioned restorative justice, but at the centre of everything is the question of careless or dangerous driving. That was discussed by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who reflected on those distinctions, and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who made some interesting jurisprudential points on culpability and consequence or, as she framed it, the objective test of the damage done compared with the subjective question of intent.
That is not something that should be trivialised or put aside—it is a fundamental principle of English law. On the one hand, we have the incredibly stark and horrifying impact on the victim and the victim’s family—the hon. Members for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about that eloquently and movingly. That death and its consequences are final, destroying a life and the families that surround it, with eddying ripples that extend into broader society. On the other hand, that has to be balanced, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield pointed out, with seriousness about the nature of what happened at that moment. Some situations are genuinely accidents, and in others some of us might feel, “There but for the grace of God go I.” There is an important distinction between a careless act and a dangerous act. All of that needs to be balanced with the impact on the victim.
We have therefore concluded that we must now extend the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving to a life sentence, and the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving under the influence of drink—alcohol—to a life sentence as well. That has been a difficult decision because of the question of balancing the impact on the victim with the culpability of the individual. However, in the end, the conclusion must be that someone who commits an extremely dangerous act in a vehicle is driving a weapon and committing an unlawful act. Ultimately, if a death results, that is morally equivalent to unlawful act manslaughter. Individuals under the influence of drink or drugs who get into a vehicle knowingly propel an extremely dangerous weapon, having consciously made a decision to incapacitate themselves. That is in direct contravention of their duty of care towards other road users and is therefore equivalent to gross negligence manslaughter. They should therefore face the penalty of a life sentence as a maximum.
In response to the questions asked by the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), therefore, we will be doing that. I will not delay people or waste their time with explanations about why, particularly in the middle of Brexit, parliamentary time has been limited, or why we feel that we need to take a comprehensive approach that brings in the Department for Transport and the Home Office, but we are determined to do it. That is because cycling is incredibly important for our health, our environment and our connections with landscape and society. We have a particular duty of care and obligation to vulnerable road users. With that, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to an extremely stimulating and important debate, which will change the law.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
I thank everyone for their co-operation on the timing. I ask Ruth Cadbury to wind up.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
The CRCs currently supervise just over 59% of all offenders and the National Probation Service supervises 41%.
Meg Hillier
The CRC contract has been a dog’s breakfast, so what is the Minister going to do to make sure that CRCs work better to support people, particularly those on shorter sentences?
Rory Stewart
First, I pay tribute to the Public Accounts Committee for its work in looking at exactly this subject. In order to work better, we are consulting on having a closer relationship between the National Probation Service and the CRCs. Secondly, we are making sure we put much more focus on the basics, by which we mean the risk assessment, the plan for probation and regular contact.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I recently visited the Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC to see the great work it is doing to support 9,000 low-risk and medium-risk offenders across three counties, including through an excellent partnership with Buckmore Park scouts for community payback. Will the Minister join me in congratulating it on its creative partnership and holistic approach to the offender, which is bringing about positive results in rehabilitation?
Rory Stewart
Yes, I would like to pay tribute to that CRC, which is performing well, and to other CRCs such as Cumbria’s. I also pay tribute to the London CRC for the innovative work it is doing on knife crime rehabilitation.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
There is a lack of information about, and confidence in, how CRCs are using rehabilitation activity requirements. Will the Minister look at how, in the negotiation of new contracts, there can be more precision about the expectations on CRCs as to how they administer RARs and, in particular, how they provide evidence that structured activity is taking place?
Rory Stewart
Very much so; a key part of the new consultation is taking some of the previous flexibility away and defining much more closely the requirements on regularity of contact, type of contact and the expectation on the offender.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that one of the keys to rehabilitation is to ensure manageable case loads for probation officers, so that more time and energy can be spent on each individual?
Rory Stewart
That is correct, which is why we are currently recruiting more than 1,000 new probation officers and probation support officers. But this is about not only the case load per prisoner but making sure we can focus most on the most risky prisoners and getting the right relationship between staff and risk.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
Does the Minister believe that charities such as YMCA and the Prince’s Trust have a vital role to play in community rehabilitation?
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. YMCA and the Prince’s Trust have a role to play, and indeed more than 15,000 charities in Britain have working with offenders as one of their objectives. The third sector has so much to offer, and, in renegotiating and redesigning probation contracts, we must make it much easier for charities and the third sector to engage in them and bring their skills and knowledge.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
I am delighted to say that we have been very successful and are well ahead of schedule. Instead of simply 2,500 extra prison officers, we have 3,653 more than we had in 2016, and job offers have gone out to a further 2,000 potential prison officers.
Henry Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer and welcome those additional prison officers. What protective equipment is being provided to prison officers to keep them and the prison population safer?
Rory Stewart
The use of body-worn cameras and CCTV cameras, which we have rolled out, makes it much easier to monitor what is happening in prisons. For extreme situations, we are rolling out the ability to use pepper spray. The key will be not the protective equipment but having in place the right support and training for prison officers, to make sure that their behaviour to a prisoner is appropriate, both to challenge and to reform. That involves investing in our senior staff to provide that model.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Data shows that a third of new prison officers leave the service within the first two years, so even if the Government meet their 2,500 recruitment target, nearly 800 officers will leave within the first 24 months. What steps will the Minister take to address the shockingly low level of staff retention in the Prison Service?
Rory Stewart
I am glad to say that attrition rates are beginning to stabilise, but they are of course a massive concern. More decent, cleaner, less drug-filled and violent prisons will be important for staff morale, and the right training—we are transforming training courses—will be central for prison officers. We have a huge opportunity. These are young, idealistic people, often with fantastic communication skills. We need to invest in them, because they are the foundation for the future of the Prison Service.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Central to the welcome drive to recruit more prison officers is the need to ensure that they can work safely. Prison officers at HMP Gartree in my constituency are concerned that sometimes, as a result of local police and Crown Prosecution Service decisions, assaults on staff are not prosecuted. Will the Minister assure me that he will look into the matter if I write to him, and that any act of violence against our brave prison officers is unacceptable?
Rory Stewart
This point is central. We need to make sure that prisoners are appropriately challenged and punished, particularly if they assault prison officers. Far too many prison officers who are protecting us —protecting the public—are being assaulted. We are therefore piloting in HMP Isis in London a system whereby the Metropolitan police is putting officers into prisons to follow up and increase the chance of prosecution. That is also why we pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has worked with us to double the maximum sentence for assaults on prison officers, and that comes into effect today.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Minister would not need to be talking about training for new officers had the Government not got rid of 7,000 experienced prison officers to start with. Does he now accept that that was a massive mistake and has contributed to disorder, the rising drug use and assaults on prison staff within our prisons?
Rory Stewart
To agree with the hon. Lady to some extent, clearly the fact that we are recruiting 2,500 more officers reflects the fact that we think we need 2,500 more officers. Looking forward, the key is to make sure that people are supported both in college and on the landings to have the skill and experience they need. The challenge now is not numbers, but training and the estate.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
In order to deal with drones, we need to focus on electronic interference with and electronic interrogation of drones. We also need better intelligence systems, but in the end, a drone is just a delivery system; it is a way of getting things into a prison. Better grilles, better netting and better processes with prison officers to ensure that we inspect the yards will be central, whether we are talking about drones or throw-overs.
Alex Burghart
I thank the Minister for that advice. Drones are undermining the effectiveness of a number of our prisons. Does he agree that on top of what he suggests, we should be working with the manufacturers of drones, to ensure that they are helping to keep criminals under control?
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. There is much more that we could do with the manufacturers of drones. Drones contain geo-fencing equipment, which prohibits them going over civil aviation space, for example. We can do more there, but we cannot just rely on software. In the end, good intelligence and good processes and procedures in prisons are the real guarantee against drones bringing in drugs.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Reducing reoffending is essentially about many things, but the three most important are making sure that someone has a job, that their addiction problems are addressed and that they have accommodation. We are addressing accommodation in Bristol, Pentonville and Leeds, through new wraparound support to help people into accommodation. We have a new education and employment strategy, and we are working with the NHS on addiction. It is possible to reduce reoffending but, as we learn internationally, it is never easy.
Tom Brake
May I commend to the Minister the report of the all-party parliamentary group on mental health, ably led by its chair, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately)? It focuses on the issue of mental health and the support required for people who have left prison. Will the Minister say more about the work he does with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that that support is available?
Rory Stewart
That is absolutely essential. More than half of our prisoners are currently presenting with mental health issues. When I shadowed a prison officer in Wormwood Scrubs last week, I had a long conversation with somebody who had attempted to kill themselves and had been hearing voices. That is not unusual. We have to work much more closely with the NHS. I am very pleased at the progress that the NHS is making, and I hope that future investment in the NHS and mental health will go directly into prisons.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The work being done by the Minister is very welcome, but will he also recollect that we need to start on preparation for release much earlier than the 12 or so weeks currently built into the contractual arrangements?
Rory Stewart
That is absolutely right. The key worker scheme that we are rolling out allows the prison officer to develop a relationship with an individual prisoner, to work with them on their sentence plan and education plan. One reason why it is so important is that it will help us to settle people into the community much earlier in their sentence.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Between April and December 2017, National Careers Service advisers aided almost 4,000 prisoners into employment or non-OLASS—offender learning and skills service—learning. How many prisoners have been referred to employment or education since the Government scrapped those advisers in March? The Minister has rightly said that this is important for rehabilitation.
Rory Stewart
First, I pay tribute to the work of the National Careers Service, but there are many other providers working within the prison estate. The New Futures Network, which we are now rolling out, is doing things that were not done by the National Careers Service, in particular bringing more employers into prison to develop those relationships. There is a great deal we could learn, but we believe the current system will deliver better results and our employment figures for prisoners are looking very promising.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The work of Care after Combat with veterans on rehabilitation is making a real difference and meets the needs of the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Defence. Will the Minister congratulate Jim Davidson and his team on the remarkable work they are doing on this agenda, and help to take a lead across government to ensure that that wonderful charity can access the funding it needs to continue and expand this important work?
Rory Stewart
Care after Combat does terrific work. I was lucky enough to meet Jim Davidson and his team—indeed, I did so with a Defence Minister. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), will meet Mr Davidson again shortly. It is a great example of the way a proper wraparound service that addresses mental health, accommodation and employment can really help to prevent reoffending.
Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
The issues in HMP Liverpool were of course shocking. It was a very challenged prison and some challenges still remain, in particular around the issue of self-harm. Nevertheless, Governor Pia Sinha and her team have effected a real transformation. I hope the hon. Gentleman will recognise, from visiting Liverpool prison, that over 100 cells have now been fully refurbished. We have reduced the population and, above all, there is a sense of a much safer, more orderly prison. This is real progress in 11 months. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Pia Sinha and her team.
Dan Carden
I join the Minister in those comments. In August, he announced the 10 prisons strategy to tackle violence and drugs in 10 of the worst prisons in the country. I am wondering why HMP Liverpool was not included in that project. As the Minister offered to resign should he not be able to reduce the levels of drugs and violence in those prisons, what promise will he make to HMP Liverpool?
Rory Stewart
I will resist the temptation to offer to resign on every single issue within my Department, but I repeat that I will resign if I do not turn around those 10 prisons by August. Why were those 10 prisons chosen? They largely focus on Yorkshire and London. There are many other challenged prisons in the system. Which is challenged day by day alternates a great deal—it depends on the particular population—but I do not think that anybody would suggest that prisons such as Wormwood Scrubs, Nottingham and Leeds, which are among the 10 prisons, are not very seriously challenged prisons.
David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
I am pleased to say that, at the most recent Budget—I do not wish to get involved in the next Budget and the spending review, on which I am confident—we got a great deal of investment into the prison estate, which makes a huge difference. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the issue of the future budget, but watch this space and see how our negotiation goes.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Privatised provision of maintenance at HMP Liverpool was to blame for a lot of the appalling conditions there. Despite that, the Government plan to run two new prisons for private profit. I do not expect the Government to agree with me that the privatisation of justice is wrong, but surely we can get a consensus that companies engaging in fraudulent activity should not be able to profit from the public purse. Will the Secretary of State today commit to G4S and Serco not being allowed to run those two new privately run prisons while they remain under a Serious Fraud Office investigation for ripping off the Ministry of Justice?
Rory Stewart
There is of course one important point here, which is that we need to make very sure that the people we work with are reliable and trustworthy. I absolutely agree on that. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that G4S is running some good prisons in places such as Parc and Liverpool. We need to get the balance right between making sure that these are reliable providers and making sure that they protect the public.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
We know they’re dodgy.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Focusing on education is about getting employers into prisons and making sure that the education that we provide is relevant not just to employment, but to local employment. If there is a shortage, for example, of window cleaners in an area, it is about making sure that prisoners can get education in window cleaning. We have launched the New Futures Network, which helps to settle employers into employing prisoners. Getting this right will mean employers learning, as Timpson has in the past, that prisoners can be among an employer’s most loyal, dedicated employees, changing their lives and ultimately protecting the public.
Helen Whately
Women in East Sutton Park Prison in my constituency get to gain qualifications and work while they are in prison, but the nearest parole hostel is in Reading, so some have to quit their jobs after they leave prison. Could my hon. Friend look into this and see whether something can be done?
Rory Stewart
There is a big challenge about where prisons are located, as the whole House understands. It is often very helpful to have prisoners located near the place where they are eventually going to be settled. We are not able to do that in every case, but the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), is leading an investigation into new forms of women’s centres to provide rehabilitation and resettlement for exactly those women prisoners.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Minister consider introducing a Queen’s award for offender rehabilitation to encourage employers to employ ex-offenders?
Rory Stewart
I think that is a very, very good idea. We need to recognise and honour employers who do this. A Queen’s award is a fantastic idea. I would like to give credit to my hon. Friend for coming up with it and would like his permission to pursue it.
Mr Speaker
Well, that really is a quick and easy win for the hon. Gentleman. I have a feeling that it will appear in the Kettering media ere long.
I call Matt Western—not here. Where is the chappie? What is happening this morning?
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden) (Con)
Will the Minister update the House on the progress of the refurbishment of the prisons estate?
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
As the Secretary of State has pointed out, £58 million more has come in the Budget. In individual prisons, we have now invested more than £16 million, which has been spent particularly on replacing windows and refurbishing cells. In Wormwood Scrubs, for example, as I have seen, the whole of the fourth landing on Delta wing has been refurbished. That is good progress, but there is more to do.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Rory Stewart
It is the responsibility of the police primarily to work on supporting the Prison Service. Our responsibility at the Ministry of Justice extends to what happens within the prison walls. It is true, of course, that with prisons—regardless of whether they are in north Wales or London—there is additional work, particularly on prosecution, but we do not feel that the imposition of Berwyn leads to the kind of financial pressures that would require a rethinking of the entire settlement.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s confirmation that the female offender strategy signals a shift from custody to rehabilitation. I am also grateful, as it will be, for the award to the Nelson Trust. Would the Minister like to come and see the astonishing work of the Nelson Trust in Gloucester to help former female offenders?
Rory Stewart
These beat-the-boss phones are designed explicitly to be concealed. We must crack down on the people who are selling them but, more than that, we have to get processes right in prison. This includes investing in more sniffer dogs to pick up the phones and in better scanners, and the staff having the morale, the confidence and the training to challenge prisoners, inspect cells and stop this stuff being smuggled in.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
Police and crime commissioners play a central role in the system, so we are consulting and redesigning it to make that role more influential. It will not be possible to devolve fully to the PCCs, but we will design the system so that the National Probation Service chief in each region works closely with the PCC to ensure that their views determine how the system is run.
Several hon. Members rose—
Prison Service Pay Review Body: Interim Chair
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
I am pleased to announce that the Prime Minister has appointed Mr Jerry Cope as interim chair of the Prison Service Pay Review Body for a period of one year which commenced on 10 September 2018 and which ends on 9 September 2019. The appointment has been made in accordance with the governance code on public appointments.
Mr Cope will ensure that the Pay Review Body has the necessary leadership while a recruitment campaign takes place to identify a permanent chair.
[HCWS1025]
Civil Liability Bill [Lords]
Rory Stewart ExcerptsTuesday 23rd October 2018
(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Civil Liability Act 2018 View all Civil Liability Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 23 October 2018 - (23 Oct 2018)
Ruth George
I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend’s point, which I raised with the Health and Safety Executive, whose laboratory is in my constituency. It concurred that one of its major concerns is that without claims being made against employers they will cease to militate against risk in the workplace. That is just one of the many problems the Bill will cause, both for victims of accidents and for all other employees in the workplace.
The Minister has heard many examples this afternoon of how the Government could crack down on fraud and on the costs of insurance without cracking down on innocent victims of accidents. The requirement in the Bill for medical reports prior to offers being made is an important one, which all sides are supporting. We hope that the Government would seek to assess the impact of that change before impacting on victims. We have also heard many calls from Members on both sides of the House for claims management companies to be acted against because they are obviously playing the system and we need to make sure that that cannot continue.
This Bill is seeking to make the innocent victims of accidents pay for the fact that insurance companies are not prepared to crack down on fraud and so have come to this Government seeking their help. We have no guarantee that insurance costs will fall, but we do know that insurance companies will make £1.3 billion more a year out of this legislation and that innocent victims of accidents will suffer. I very much hope that the Minister has listened to the arguments being made on both sides of the House today and will accept the new clause.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Rory Stewart)
Let me begin by paying tribute to the high quality of debate today from hon. and right hon. Members on all sides of the House. This has been a serious business. The consultation on the issue began in 2012 and the detailed measures we are debating today were announced in the Budget in autumn 2015. There are disagreements on every side of the House, which are expressed in new clauses 1 and 2, but, more generally, I hope that everybody in the House will recognise that the Bill has been adapted as we have listened a great deal to suggestions made by the Opposition and others. I pay tribute to the hon. and right hon. Members on all sides who pushed for the changes we have introduced on vulnerable road users, on the new role of the consultation with the Lord Chief Justice and on definitions, particularly in respect of whiplash. I also pay tribute to what happened in the other House, where this legislation was considerably revised and improved by efforts from Cross-Bench peers, as well as Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative peers.
Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that claims against employers above £2,000 are taken outside the scope of this? It is right in those circumstances, where it can be difficult to make the claim stick, that people should be entitled to recover their costs in the event of a successful claim. Does he agree that making that change was a critical improvement to this Bill?
Rory Stewart
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, which should, to some extent, reassure the hon. Member for High Peak, some of whose arguments rested on damages in the workplace. The rise to £5,000 does not relate to damages in the workplace. As has been pointed out, it relates only to whiplash injuries suffered in a vehicle.
Robert Neill
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I take on board his point that the appropriate test for a small claims regime is complexity or otherwise, but will he recognise that there is a risk that perceived complexity might make claimants vulnerable to the operations of claims management companies, which do not have the high standards and good regulation of personal injury lawyers, as he rightly recognises? What safeguards do the Government intend to put in place beyond this Bill and more generally to make sure that we do not have a displacement effect from well-regulated personal injuries lawyers to unregulated, unscrupulous claims managers of the kind to which my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and others referred? What more can we do to safeguard against that unintended consequence?
Rory Stewart
This is an issue on which my hon. Friend has been very thoughtful in his role as Chair of the Justice Committee. There are obviously three things that we are endeavouring to do and we are open to more ideas. One of them, of course, is that, through this package of measures, we disincentivise claims management companies from having a significant financial interest in pursuing this type of case. The second, as my hon. Friend pointed out, is the setting up of an online portal to reassure individuals that they will have a more predictable, more transparent and more straightforward system for pursuing their claims in person. Finally, through consultation with the judiciary, we are looking at the issue of paid McKenzie friends. We are waiting for the judiciary to report back so that we can take action on that issue.
Ruth George
The Minister claimed that raising the limit for workplace accidents to £2,000 would allay my fears, but given that USDAW and other unions have said that this will actually increase the numbers needing to go to the small claims court by five times, it certainly does not. There are still wide concerns around taking cases against employers, as he will know. Will he make any assurance that the portal will be tested, and that it will be ensured that an ordinary layperson can use it before any claims are implemented?
Rory Stewart
Clearly two different cases are being made here. On the question of the online portal, a very serious group of people, which includes insurers and lawyers, is testing it. One of the concessions that was made in the House of Lords—I think it is a good one—is to extend the time before this is rolled out by 12 months so that we have more time to make sure that the testing is done and that the portal operates properly. That is a good challenge.
The point about injuries in the workplace is that that, I am afraid, is outside the scope of the Bill, which is very narrowly defined to deal with whiplash injuries. Indeed, new clause 1 is also very narrowly defined as it deals with only the question of a “relevant injury”, which, in this case, is a whiplash injury. Therefore, while arguments about other forms of injury and employment are very interesting, they are not relevant to the debate on new clauses 1 or 2.
Moving on to the next question about simplicity and inflation, I just wish to point out that the previous Labour Government accepted the principle that inflation was not the only determinant of the levels that the small claims court should meet, because, of course, the small claims limit was raised from £1,000 in 1991 to £3,000 in 1996, and then to £5,000 in 1999 under the Labour Government before it was raised to £10,000 in 2013. Quite clearly those rises were well in advance of inflation and were driven, as indeed was the case for European small claims, by the notion of the simplicity of claims, not a change in either the CPI or the RPI.
Even if one were to accept that there should be a relationship to inflation, the mechanism proposed in new clause 1 seems to be a recipe for falling behind inflation. In effect, the proposal is that an increase should only take place if there had been a rise of at least £500, and should then be limited to £500. It would not take many years of slightly higher inflation than we have now to end up in a situation where, over a five and 10-year period, the increase would be considerably in excess of £1,000, which would then allow for a rise, but we would then find a syncopated system that, very rapidly, would be falling behind inflation.
The more fundamental point is a constitutional one. This is not an issue that is traditionally dealt with through primary legislation, and it is not an issue that is dealt with in the Bill. That is because increases to the small claims limit are properly an issue for the Civil Procedure Rules Committee, on which the Master of the Rolls, district judges, senior judges, personal injury lawyers—barristers and solicitors, including the president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers—and representatives for consumer bodies such as Which? sit. That is a better way of looking at the proper limits than trying take forward primary legislation on the Floor of the House. Technically, there is also another issue with the new clause, which is that subsection (4) should include paragraphs (a), (b) and (c).
That brings me to new clause 2. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) quite rightly drew our attention to potentially vulnerable litigants, such as infants, children and other protected parties. He argues—on this we absolutely agree—that they suffer the same forms of injuries as any other human, and are entitled to fair compensation and the same degree of representation that would be afforded to any adult. At the moment, that is, of course, provided by the allocation of a litigation partner by the judge concerned.
The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Ashfield asked what happens if that does not work and whether an increase in the number of cases would undermine that system. We have looked at this carefully, because the hon. Gentleman raised the matter in Committee. Our conclusion, having consulted a wide range of individuals, is that we do not believe that that would occur, but a number of safeguards are in place in the worst-case scenario. In most cases, an individual who is in that situation, such as an infant, would be represented by their parents. In a situation in which they were suing their parents, because the parents were, for example, driving the car, a litigation friend would be appointed by the court. In the case that they would be unable to find a competent adult who met all the criteria stated by the hon. Gentleman, including there not being a conflict of interest from that individual, it would be possible to appoint the official solicitor. In a case in which that, too, failed, judicial discretion remains to move the case of the infant out of the small claims track into the fast track, where the legal costs would be recoverable. Of course, judges would still have a very serious role to play in approving any settlement made to an infant or any protected party. That was why Lord Justice Patten made this ruling in the case of Dockerill v. Tullet:
“I can see no reason in principle why a small damages claim made by an infant should be taken out of the small claims track merely because of the age of the claimant. It is also clear that the premise on which CPR 45.7 operates is that the normal track for damages by infants will be the small claims track.”
That brings me to my conclusion. This very impressive piece of legislation has involved the upper House, the Opposition and civil society members throughout its Committee stages. The Government have made a number of very serious concessions to make the process more workable. I pay particular tribute to the Justice Committee for the pressure that it has put on us in relation to a very large number of issues, ranging from the online portal to paid McKenzie friends and vulnerable road users. We have now ended up with a Bill that does not do everything that was set out when the Lord Chancellor initially announced it in autumn 2015. Instead, with a series of realistic, focused and pragmatic compromises, we have struck the right balance between the protection of genuine claimants who have suffered genuine injuries, and the protection of different forms of public interest—in particular, the public interest of people, especially in rural areas, who need to be able to afford their motor insurance in order to move around. This Bill will remove unnecessary complexity, unnecessary costs and, in particular, the moral damage and hazard that currently exist in the form of claims management companies and a few unscrupulous individuals.
As Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood—the previous president of the Supreme Court—pointed out in the upper House, this country is now known throughout the world as a haven for unnecessary whiplash claims. Despite a significant reduction in the number of car accidents and an increase in vehicle safety measures over the past 15 years, if not over the last three, we have seen a significant increase in the number of whiplash claims, which can be accounted for only on the basis of fraudulent and exaggerated claims.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Kwasi Kwarteng
If the hon. Gentleman were an insurer, managing a business on a daily basis, he would have to make a call every single day on which claims to fight and which not to fight. Often, for reasons of cost, the insurer will simply pay the money, without regard to the veracity or otherwise of the claim.
Rory Stewart
Does my hon. Friend accept that there is also the serious issue of asymmetry of information? In the case of injuries lasting less than six months, it is very difficult to prove through any medical means whether or not the injuries occurred, and therefore very difficult to defend against the claim.
Rory Stewart
Does my hon. Friend agree that these discrepancies already exist, because the criminal injuries compensation scheme is, in fact, already an example of a tariff-based system? As those discrepancies have existed since 1962, nothing in the Bill changes their basic nature.
Mike Wood
The Minister, as ever, speaks straight to the point that bringing this system in line with the criminal injuries compensation scheme is actually making parallel systems more consistent, and it is entirely logical that they should operate on similar tariff-based systems. One of the flaws in the current system is that, as the Judicial College is setting its guidelines, the awards it uses for deciding the amounts in the guidelines are not the overall amounts that are payable in the event of a road traffic accident leading to personal injury, but are based on the awards made by the court in the relatively small proportion of claims that proceed to trial and are then adjudicated by a judge. The system does not consider the very large number of claims that are settled at an earlier date when the figure would tend to be lower.
Clearly, cases that proceed to full trial are more likely to be the more complex ones. This has the effect of institutionalising an inflationary element within the guidelines as they are reviewed, because the review is only ever based on those types of claim that actually end up being the higher awards anyway. It can only ever lead to an increasing amount. The impact of that falls clearly on our constituents. We rightly insist on mandatory motor insurance. As hon. Members have said, motor insurance premiums increase rapidly. One reason why they increase rapidly is that there has recently been a large increase in the average amounts paid out for personal injury claims. If we fail to take this sensible action, those amounts can only increase, and we can expect premiums to continue to increase at around 10% annually, quickly putting them out of reach.
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.
Rory Stewart
I am interested by my hon. Friend’s speech. She said that she would be entitled to compensation amounting to £338 for a two-hour delay. Is that compensation for the ticket that was purchased? What is the nature of the compensation?
Mary Robinson
I am talking about the compensation that would normally be paid by train operators.
It is important that we tackle whiplash fraud, but it is hard to explain to those who are injured that the same injuries sustained in different circumstances—for example, a comparable injury at work—should be compensated differently. Under the reform proposals, someone who had been involved in a road accident would be entitled to £3,910 for a whiplash injury lasting up to two years, but would be unable to recover the cost of paying a lawyer to assert their rights. Someone who suffered an identical injury at work would be entitled to £6,500, and would be able to recover costs. For many people, it goes to the heart of ensuring fairness that comparable injuries should attract comparable awards—if awards are indeed to be given—whether those injuries were sustained in a road traffic accident or incurred at a place of work.
If, as is hoped and predicted, these changes result in savings to the insurance industry, it is important for members of the public to see that the savings are passed on via reduced premiums. Concerns were raised about that in Committee, and I am encouraged that the Government accepted amendments that will hold insurers to account. As amended, the Bill places a statutory requirement on insurers to provide the Financial Conduct Authority with certain information to enable Treasury Ministers to report to Parliament on whether the insurers have upheld their public commitments by passing on savings. The Government have estimated that these measures would lead to a reduction in motor insurance premiums of approximately £40 per customer per year. I expect the industry to demonstrate that savings are being appropriately passed on, so that consumers can see fairness in the insurance system.
Mary Robinson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. That should be explored and people would welcome it because they would see that we were being positive in addressing this.
Throughout the Bill’s passage, I have met regularly in my weekly surgeries with solicitors and law firms that have been engaged in this process. They have impressed me, and impressed upon me their pursuit to help the vulnerable who are injured and to ensure that we have a justice system that works, is fair and protects people.
I thank the Minister for his continued engagement and openness with me and colleagues as the Bill has progressed through both Houses. He has been open to all my questions and I am grateful for the way he has dealt with them. I look forward to this Bill progressing. I know that there will be a spirit of openness and transparency as it does.
Rory Stewart
I again thank all Members who have participated.
Amendment 2 relates centrally to the core of this Bill, which is about the question of the setting of tariffs. We have discussed this with great verve and vigour from many different sides. The first debate that has taken place in the last hour and a half has been about the purpose of these tariffs: why we are introducing them in the first place. The reason why comes out of a perception of an anomaly. That anomaly can be seen either, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) pointed out, in terms of the fact that the number of car crashes is coming down and cars are getting safer, but at the same time the number of whiplash claims over the same period has increased dramatically; or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) pointed out, in terms of national differences. There are many more whiplash claims from Britain per head of population compared with Germany or France, leading to my hon. Friend speculating on biological differences.
The second debate has been about proportionality. That argument was made by, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke). He was essentially arguing, along with the former president of the Supreme Court, Lord Brown, that there needs to be a closer relationship between the amount of compensation paid and the nature of the injury suffered. As Lord Brown said in the House of Lords:
“lesser injuries were altogether too generously compensated, certainly in comparison to the graver injuries”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 2018; Vol. 791, c. 306.]
The idea of proportional compensation for a type of injury was central to the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) reminded us that the former Labour Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, had serious concerns about compensation for soft tissue injury and that this form of car insurance is mandatory, putting a particular obligation on the House of Commons when it considers it. But, characteristically, the most “sensible, proportionate and calibrated” speech came from my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who, by using those three adjectives to define the nature of the tariffs, brought us, in a huge move, from jurisprudential reflections on the nature of tariff systems to a disquisition on rural transport in Cheltenham. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) brought it down to earth with a good focus on safety in vehicles.
Robert Neill
I cannot let the Minister move on from the important and significant points of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) without observing that he emphasised the role of the Lord Chancellor in consulting with the Lord Chief Justice in the setting of the tariffs. That is an important safeguard. Can the Minister tell us a little more about how it is envisaged that that will work?
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. This is a concession that we have inserted into the Bill partly due to pressure from my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Justice Committee, and from other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson). It means that the Lord Chancellor, when reflecting on the nature of the tariff in a judicial capacity, will consult the Lord Chief Justice. That concession in the Bill, combined with the strong emphasis on judicial discretion allowing the tariffs to be uplifted, will be central to our attempt to reconcile a tariff-based system with the tradition of English common law. Through it, we hope to address some of the concerns raised by Lord Woolf.
We have discussed the purpose of the Bill, and the way in which getting rid of the tariffs as suggested in amendment 2 would undermine the central purpose of getting a more affordable system into place. We have made a number of concessions in order to meet concerns raised by many distinguished colleagues around the House, including individuals with experience of personal injury law and those with experience as constituency MPs of the honourable and serious work done by personal injury lawyers. I shall show respect to the House and touch on some of those concessions.
In the initial proposals put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the autumn of 2015, the suggestion was that there would be no general damages payable at all. That was roughly the argument made by the former Labour Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw. We have moved away from that position and accepted that general damages should be paid, but we have suggested that there should be a tariff for those damages. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has said, we will consult the Lord Chief Justice on that tariff and there will be judicial discretion. There is a precedent on tariffs—they exist in Italy and Spain—and there is even a precedent in English common law in the criminal injuries compensation scheme.
The benefits that we believe a tariff system will deliver include a reduction in the cost of this form of transaction and, hopefully, through that, a reduction in the number of potentially exaggerated or fraudulent claims. That would have an advantage for general public policy in that people would not be encouraged to make fraudulent claims. We believe that the system will also provide certainty and predictability to claimants, especially when they are connected to an online portal that will ensure that they follow a particular sequence. They will proceed to the online portal, then, for the first time, they will be required to go to a medical practitioner specialising in whiplash claims who would give them a prognosis of, for example, six months, 12 months or 24 months. On the basis of that prognosis, through the portal, a fixed tariff would then tell them exactly how much they would be given. This should mean that in the overwhelming majority of cases there would be absolutely no requirement to proceed to court. In any cases where we did proceed to court, we would rely on the small claims process in order to settle the claim, using the tariffs to reinforce the process.
The speeches so far have not touched on Government amendment 1, which I hope all Members, including Opposition Members, will be happy to accept. Clause 5(7)(a) states that the term “tariff amount” means
“in relation to one or more whiplash injuries, the amount specified in respect of the injury by regulations under section 3(2)”.
Clause 3(2) refers to the
“amount of damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity payable in respect of the whiplash injury or injuries”.
In other words, clause 3 refers to “injury or injuries”, whereas clause 5 refers simply to “the injury”. The proposal in Government amendment 1, recommended by parliamentary counsel, is that we deal with the discrepancy by inserting “or injuries” after “the injury” in clause 5(7)(a). I hope that the Opposition will be happy to accept that suggestion.
That brings us back to the central issue of the way in which tariffs are set. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) focused a great deal on the notion that the tariffs were somehow inequitable in terms of the damage that individuals have suffered. The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) said several times that we should not refer to these types of injuries as minor. I want to emphasise that the phrase “minor injuries” is derived from Judicial College guidelines, not from the Government or any political party. It is simply a long-standing convention to refer to injuries of under two years’ duration as minor injuries, and that relates to Sentencing Council guidelines for injuries of under two years’ duration.[Official Report, 3 December 2018, Vol. 650, c. 6MC.]
As hon. Members have pointed out, people who suffer, particularly from whiplash injuries of longer duration, might also lose earnings, have considerable medical costs, have to go to a physiotherapist and so on. Although those arguments were well made, for example by the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on Second Reading, they overlook the central fact that the tariffs will apply only to general damages. An individual who has suffered loss of earnings or who needs extra care costs can apply for special damages in the normal way. The Government propose no change to special damages.
On the arguments of the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the levels of the tariffs, we have attempted to achieve a reduction in the tariff at the lower end. For example, an individual who suffers an injury of under three months’ duration could receive damages considerably less than those in the current guidelines, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that, as we approach a duration of two years, the compensation offered begins to merge much more closely with the existing guidelines at a level of £3,600.[Official Report, 3 December 2018, Vol. 650, c. 6MC.]
In addition, as the Chairman of the Justice Committee pointed out, the levels of the tariffs are currently proposals about which the Lord Chancellor will consult the Lord Chief Justice. He will do that not just once but regularly, on a three-yearly basis, to ensure that our calculations on pain, suffering and loss of amenity reflect judges’ views.
It must be remembered that, ultimately, judgments on pain, suffering and loss of amenity are difficult. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) pointed out, the question of how much compensation somebody receives for a loss of earnings is relatively easy to calculate, because the figure can be derived from the earnings. The amount of money to which someone is entitled for medical costs is, of course, directly derived from the cost of medical care provided. However, in the case of general damages, a judge must attempt to decide the subjective impact of pain on the individual and assign a financial cost to it. That cannot be anything other than a subjective judgment. There is no objective scientific formula for comparing pain with cash, because the cash is designed not to eliminate that pain, but in some way to acknowledge it. Whether we are talking about the criminal injuries compensation scheme, under which our constituents frequently come forward with examples of what they rightly and subjectively experience as a huge discrepancy between the depth of horror they have suffered at the hands of criminals and the amount of compensation offered, or the tariffs for pain, suffering and loss of amenity under the Bill, in the end the compensation provided cannot constitute anything other than a symbolic judgment, with the court or the Government acknowledging that no amount of money can remove the pain, but with the amount designed to be a public recognition that that pain exists.
The former Justice of the Supreme Court, Lord Brown, is an important guide, and his statements in the House of Lords give us all a sense of reassurance on a tricky bit of law. He feels that two important principles are at stake. The first is that there is a moral hazard and societal issue taking place, in that both the incidence of car crashes and, on a national comparison with Germany and France, the disproportionate number of whiplash claims compared with what would be expected both in terms of automobile design and the biology of the human body, need to be addressed—in other words, fraud needs to be addressed. The second is that there has been an anomaly in law whereby some of the graver injustices, and graver injuries and suffering, have been proportionally undercompensated compared with cases of suffering minor whiplash injuries—the majority of cases before the courts—which involve a duration of only three or six months.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I can now inform the House that I have completed certification of the Bill, as required by the Standing Order. I have confirmed the view expressed in the Speaker’s provisional certificate issued yesterday. Copies of the final certificate will be made available in the Vote Office and on the parliamentary website. Under Standing Order No. 83M, a consent motion is therefore required for the Bill to proceed. Copies of the motion are available in the Vote Office and on the parliamentary website, and have been made available to Members in the Chamber. Does the Minister intend to move the consent motion?
Rory Stewart
indicated assent.
The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England and Wales) (Standing Order No. 83M).
[Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]
Pete Wishart
I give way to the Minister first, because I am particularly interested in his views about this.
Rory Stewart
I would be grateful to know how Union issues of foreign affairs and defence, which the people of Scotland voted in a referendum should continue to be dealt with by the United Kingdom, would be covered by the hon. Gentleman’s proposal.
Rory Stewart
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak on Third Reading. This Bill has been a long time coming. The first suggestions of the Bill’s introduction date back to 2012, six years ago, and the precise measures in the Bill were proposed by the Chancellor in an autumn statement in 2015, more than three years ago. Since then, there has been a series of detailed consultations. I would like to pay tribute to the Justice Committee for its prelegislative scrutiny, particularly on the issue of discount rates. Perhaps the biggest tribute must be paid to all Members of the other House, who undertook a very serious series of debates, which led to a number of significant changes to the Bill that I hope all Members of the House agree are significant improvements.
Perhaps the most dramatic improvement is the Government amendment that ensures insurers pass on savings to their customers. A number of learned, hon. and right hon. Friends have expressed concerns that were we to achieve a situation in which the insurance companies paid out less to claimants, that would simply go into the insurance companies’ bottom line. We have therefore introduced through an amendment perhaps the most detailed and unprecedented reporting requirements incumbent on the insurance companies to the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Rory Stewart
I will give way in one moment. To clarify, the intention is that the companies not just may but will pass this information to the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, and the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority not just may but will request that information, so that we can accurately explain to Parliament and the people how much money the insurance companies are making from their premiums, how much they are paying out to claimants, how much savings they are making and how much of those savings they are passing on to their customers.
Julian Knight
Will the Minister confirm that this is an unprecedented level of oversight, in terms of what the Government are challenging the insurance industry to perform for its customers?
Rory Stewart
Absolutely. It is an unprecedented move. The fundamental idea is that the insurance companies are operating in a competitive market, so this is not simply a question of how much money they take in premiums or how much money they pay out; it is also about attracting customers, and in order to attract customers, they need to compete with one another on price. If they were not to do so, they would in effect be running a cartel, and the information they give to the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority would provide exactly the evidence to display that kind of unfair practice. We are therefore guaranteeing that the commitment made by 85% of the insurance industry to pass on these savings to customers will be upheld. I give way to the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly). [Interruption.] Oh, no, she was not intervening on me. I apologise.
Simon Hoare
I must say that I have been confused with many things, but to be confused with an hon. Lady from the DUP is a first.
My hon. Friend the Minister, perfectly properly and quite rightly, is placing very important obligations on the insurance industry. The FCA has a raft of things of which it has oversight. How is he proposing, alongside the Treasury, to communicate to the FCA that this House has the legitimate expectation that the FCA should be robust in seeking that information from the insurers?
Rory Stewart
This is a very good challenge, and we will reinforce that duty on the FCA through both the legislation and the statements within the amendment proposed by the Government. We will also reinforce it through this statement from the Dispatch Box: we will require the insurers to pass this information on and we will require the Treasury and the FCA to request it. The purpose of requesting that information is rigorously to hold the insurance industry to account and ensure that the savings are passed on to customers.
I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the personal injury lawyers. One of the problems in this debate has been the suggestion that it is a black-and-white, sometimes Manichean dispute, with the press and civil society sometimes unfairly implying that the personal injury lawyers are somehow to blame. We must put on the record very clearly our respect for the personal injury lawyers and the work they do.
In addition, we must send a very strong message of respect towards people who are genuine victims of whiplash injuries, or indeed of any other form of personal injury. They are entitled to a fair level of compensation and to an adequate level of representation. We believe very strongly that the measures in the Bill strike a proportionate and reasonable balance between fair compensation, reasonable representation and the costs imposed on the rest of society.
Kevin Hollinrake
My hon. Friend makes a very good point about the personal injury lawyers. One of the provisions in the Bill—I think it is clause 8—states that claims management companies will be regulated by the FCA. We already regulate the insurance industry, so how do we make sure there is no conflict of interest in the regulation of both those parties, which often have competing interests?
Rory Stewart
This is a very interesting point, and I am very happy to follow up on it in more detail. The nature of the regulation in each case is quite distinct. In relation to the insurance industry, the regulation proposed is to ensure that we have the financial information to prove that the savings the insurance industry has derived from these reforms are passed on to customers. In the case of the claims management companies, the regulation is to ensure that they comply with the law, particularly the legal changes introduced by previous legislation. In accordance with the suggestions from the Justice Committee, we are also looking at the advice forthcoming from the judiciary to ensure that we can deal with other issues involving claims management companies.
If I may, I will come back to the core of the Bill. We are dealing with a perfect storm of three things. First, at the minor end of whiplash injuries—the three-to-six-month end—this is a condition that, in effect, is unverifiable and difficult to disprove. The polite way of expressing this is to say that there is an asymmetry of information. Somebody suffering a whiplash injury will experience genuine and sincere pain, but that pain cannot be detected at the minor end through any medical instruments. That is the first challenge involved in this type of injury.
The second challenge is of course the level of payments offered to individuals suffering these injuries. The third is the level of recoverable costs which meant, in effect, that a no win, no fee process was operating in which people could apply to a lawyer to represent them and be confident that the legal costs would be recoverable from the defendant. When that is connected to the fact that for all the reasons I have given—particularly the first, asymmetry of information—the insurance companies are not contesting claims, we end up with a discrepancy rapidly emerging between the number of motor vehicle accidents and the number of claims, and between the number of claims made in the United Kingdom and the number made in other jurisdictions.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, a former justice of the Supreme Court, stated that he was
“reluctantly persuaded that this provision is justified: it is surely intolerable that we are known as the whiplash capital of the world, so I have concluded that it is open to government, as a matter of policy, to seek to deter dishonest claims in this way.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 June 2018; Vol. 791, c. 1603.]
Kwasi Kwarteng
Does my hon. Friend have any idea why the situation has developed in which we are the whiplash capital of the world, as the noble Lord put it?
Rory Stewart
It is a sensitive issue, because of course many individuals who have even quite a minor road accident experience a whiplash injury and have significant pain, particularly in the soft tissue of the neck and shoulders, which can last three to six months in the majority of cases or longer in a minority of cases. However, the New England Journal of Medicine, which conducted a significant study across various countries, concluded that the prognosis for a whiplash injury was significantly worse in countries in which compensation existed. In other words, there appears to be some form of medical relationship between the compensation offered and the prognosis for the whiplash injury.
How that relationship operates is a matter of speculation, but the following things may explain it. First, compensation payments and the encouragement provided by claims management companies, particularly on the telephone—we have heard a great deal of anecdotal evidence about that today—could encourage individuals to make claims that they may not themselves feel are as justified as the claims management companies imply. That leads to serious problems, the first of which is moral. It is a problem of dishonesty. In effect, it appears that some people—we do not know how many, but certainly a significant minority—are being encouraged to make dishonest insurance claims. As hon. Members have pointed out, that is potentially morally corrosive to our society. We do not want to encourage a system in which people feel that they can make such claims.
The second problem is that the situation has had a disproportionate impact on court time. Lord Faulks has said:
“If there was to be a reduction for really serious injuries, I can imagine why noble Lords would baulk at the imposition of a tariff. However, we are for the most part talking about pain and discomfort of a relatively transient nature…So these reforms—quite modest though they are—are a proper response to what I would describe as a racket.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 June 2018; Vol. 791, c. 1607.]
The cost to society imposed by this compensation is disproportionate to the severity of injury.
Eddie Hughes
This might sound like an unrelated point, but surely the best way to deal with whiplash is to prevent it from happening in the first place. I believe that in 2015, the Government committed to spending £1.5 billion on 10 smart motorway schemes, the idea of which is to keep traffic flowing at a constant speed. If people are stopping and starting all the time, they lose concentration and are more likely to drive into the car in front of them, resulting in a possible claim for whiplash. The Government are dealing not just with the problem itself but with the root cause.
Rory Stewart
That is a very good point. Fundamentally, our prime obligation must be to improve road safety. Both the Labour Government and our own Government have made progress in that regard. In fact, over the past 15 years we have seen a 35% reduction in road traffic accidents, and, as we have heard, the safety equipment in vehicles has improved dramatically. Whereas 15 years ago only 15% of vehicles were fitted with equipment that can protect someone from whiplash, 85% now are, so people are safer in their car and less likely to have an accident. However, my hon. Friend’s central point is absolutely right. Very tragically—I have experience of this through my constituents, as will other hon. and right hon. Members—if someone who was killed in a motor car did not have a dependant, their family would be entitled to almost no compensation at all. Our obligation must be to prevent the accident from happening in the first place.
John Howell
Earlier this afternoon, the Minister will have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) give an example of how he was approached—hassled, in fact—by a claims management company. I, too, have been in that situation for a fictitious accident and I still get calls about that. Is dealing with this not one of the real ways that we will be able to prevent our being the whiplash capital?
Rory Stewart
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which has been made by the shadow Front-Bench team and others: dealing with claims management companies is going to be a central part of this. Consultation has taken place on this, and measures have been taken against claims management companies. A significant issue remains, which we are consulting on and trying to resolve—to be honest with the House, it is the fact that many of these calls come from foreign jurisdictions, so the challenge is trying to work out the best way to deal with that.[Official Report, 3 December 2018, Vol. 650, c. 7MC.] On my way into the Second Reading debate, I received exactly that kind of call, encouraging me to make a whiplash claim for a car accident that I had suffered. For a moment, I wondered whether somebody had not put somebody else up to calling me in this fashion and whether this was not some kind of fuss. Sure enough, however, this is continuing to happen.
Julian Knight
Perhaps the company in question knew that the Minister was in for a bruising time in that debate. The absolute key to this whole debate is that this is about confidence in our legal system and in justice in compensation. The reality is that these phone calls and companies, which try to encourage people to make claims for any particular reason, are destroying confidence in that system. That is why the Bill is so necessary.
Rory Stewart
This is a really important point. At the core of our legal system there needs to be public trust and confidence in that system, and having an honest, proportionate, credible and calibrated system is absolutely central to the public continuing to have confidence.
With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to make one slightly technical point relating to the Bill, and in particular to the injuries mentioned in clause 1(2) and (3). Subsection (2) states:
“An injury falls within this subsection if it is—
(a) a sprain, strain, tear, rupture or lesser damage of a muscle, tendon or ligament in the neck, back or shoulder, or
(b) an injury of soft tissue associated with a muscle, tendon or ligament in the neck, back or shoulder.”
Subsection (3) states:
“An injury is excepted by this subsection if—
(a) it is an injury of soft tissue which is a part of or connected to another injury”.
I wish to pause on that point for a second, because we wish to make it clear, as the Government, that when we refer to the question of something being “connected”, we are not referring to it being connected simply by virtue of it taking place within the same accident.
I have the following on a formal piece of paper here, so that I can make my Pepper v. Hart statement to make sure that this is clear for the judiciary. In subsection (3), therefore, we have excluded those soft tissue injuries in the neck, back or shoulder which are part of or connected to another injury, so long as the other injury is not covered by subsection (2). The effect of subsection (3) would be to exclude, for example, damage to soft tissue which results only from the fracture of an adjoining bone or the tearing of muscles arising from a penetrating injury, which would otherwise fall within subsection (2). It has been suggested that the words “connected to another injury” in subsection (3)(a) could mean an injury resulting from the same accident. There is therefore a concern that a number of soft tissue injuries that would otherwise fall under the definition of whiplash injury will be excluded, and so not subject to the tariff of damages, simply by reason of being suffered on the same occasion as a whiplash injury.[Official Report, 3 December 2018, Vol. 650, c. 8MC.]
This is absolutely not the intention behind subsection (3). Nor is it an interpretation that stands scrutiny. The effect of that interpretation would be to significantly limit the scope of clause 1, in a quite arbitrary way, based on whether a person happened to have incurred any other injury in the same road traffic accident. That is not the intended effect, and nor do we believe that the clause will be interpreted by the courts in this way, as it would not be the normal meaning of the word “connected” in this context. To clarify then: the words “connected to” do not, and are not intended to, extend to situations where two or more injuries are connected solely by their cause—for example, a road traffic accident.
Stephen Kerr
Since the Minister was taking interventions, I thought I would chance my arm and intervene to ask, as a Scottish Member, what discussions he has had with his Scottish counterpart. The Scottish Government committed to introducing draft legislation mirroring this Bill, which is for England and Wales only. Where is that Bill? I understand that it has not even begun to make progress in the Scottish Parliament. What has the conversation been like with the Scottish Minister?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. That is not the issue before us.
Rory Stewart
Unfortunately, tempted though I am to respond, as you point out, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am not entitled, particularly following some of the comic interventions from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), to speculate on what the Scottish Government think they are doing. My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, however, that they chose to withdraw from this Bill.
We have talked a great deal about whiplash injuries and how we have attempted to address them, and I am happy for others to return to that question in interventions if they wish to do so, but we have perhaps had less time to address another central issue, which is the second part of the Bill, on the discount rate.
Robert Neill
I am pleased the Minister is mentioning that, because although we have concentrated on some controversial areas, putting the discount rate on a more modern footing is important and largely welcome, as is of course the prohibition on settlement without medical reports, which again has not been touched on but is very significant and an advance.
I want to use this opportunity to thank the Minister for what he said about the Justice Committee and the way he engaged with us and me personally. We have raised caveats with some of the objectives, and he has met us on a number of issues, if not all of them, which has enabled those of us who want to keep an eye on this and hold the Government and the industry’s feet to the fire to adopt Lord Brown of, um, Eaton, um—
Robert Neill
That one. I ought to know him, as a fellow bencher of Middle Temple, and to get his title right. The noble Lord Brown has said that with some reluctance—because it is a balancing act—he can accept the Government’s intentions in this regard. The way the Minister has handled this difficult balancing act in the Bill has made it much easier for a number of hon. Members to do the same.
Rory Stewart
I am tempted to reflect on the question from my hon. Friend the Chair of the Justice Committee. There is a central issue and challenge at the heart of the Bill. Dealing with this perfect storm of problems—unprovable conditions, high payments, recoverable costs and the actions of the insurance industry—is not easily done through primary legislation, so I pay tribute to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides for their focus on not just the primary legislation but elements of secondary legislation and some of the requirements around it.
The only way this reform will work—the only way to prevent excessive whiplash claims—is by being very nimble in anticipating exactly how claims management companies will operate and predicting how this phenomenon could change in the future. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, that means putting in place an absolute insistence that someone must have a medical examination. At the moment, many of these claims are settled without anybody having any medical examination at all. There must be a medical examination, and it must be conducted by a qualified GP, who is currently allocated through the portal in a random fashion so that people are not in a position to be able to conspire in any way as a result of the kind of doctor whom they are given. An approved GP with the right kind of training, or a medical specialist of another sort, will then give a prognosis that will allow them to proceed in a much more straightforward way.
That brings us to the second aspect, which, again, is not primarily a question of primary legislation. I refer to the design of the online portal. It is important to ensure that, as cases move to the small claims court, people have a straightforward, intuitive way of logging claims. One of the things that we will be doing over the next year is testing and retesting the portal in as many ways as we can to ensure that it actually works.
John Howell
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. He is being most generous.
I have been a great champion of the online work that is being done in the judiciary. I have spoken to Lord Briggs, and in my time in the courts, sitting with judges, I have championed it there. Does my hon. Friend agree that a very important element of the online system is the dramatic improvement in access to justice for people who are making claims? I know that a great deal of testing is involved, but does he also agree that the delay in its introduction is regrettable because it deprives people of that access to justice?
Rory Stewart
My hon. Friend has made a good point, but there is, of course, a delicate balance to be achieved. It is absolutely true that really good online systems can transform people’s lives and make access to justice much easier for them, but, equally, the Government do not always have an unblemished record when it comes to the delivery of IT systems. It is important to ensure that the system really works and that we have tested it again and again before rolling it out, because otherwise a system designed to increase access to justice may inadvertently decrease that access through the malfunctioning of the online portal.
Robert Neill
I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s generosity.
Some of the powerful evidence given to the Justice Committee came from two members of the judiciary who spoke about the potential unintended consequences and adverse impacts on the courts of the inability of an increasing number of litigants in person to work their way through the portal. Will my hon. Friend undertake to ensure that throughout the ongoing work on its design, the issues raised by members of the judiciary will remain central to the discussions, and that they will have a full role in the testing and roll-out?
Rory Stewart
The answer to both those questions is yes. An important concession was made in the House of Lords to extend the amount of time for testing, so that there is more time in which to make sure that the portal has been properly tested by, among others, the judiciary.
Part 2 of the Bill relates to the discount rate, and results from a very sudden change in the way in which compensation was paid to catastrophically injured victims. After 16 years in which the discount rate was set at a positive 2.5%, the last Lord Chancellor but one decided to reduce it to minus 0.75%, which radically changed what happens when someone is allocated a lump sum.
Let me remind the House of the formula that is applied. If, Mr Deputy Speaker, you were attempting to receive compensation for a projected 10 years of life, you were seeking £100,000 of care costs for each of those years, and inflation was, for the sake of argument, zero, you would receive only £1 million to cover you for your 10 years of projected life. Obviously, if inflation was higher, the real-terms increase in your care costs would mean that you would have to be afforded more, and the calculation that would need to be made in the awarding of the money would be how much of a return you could reasonably expect to receive for your money. If you could reasonably expect to receive a higher return for your £1 million, it might be possible to cover you for more years, and vice versa: fewer years would mean a lower return. The discount rate has been applied since the 1970s by the judiciary, and since 2001 by the Lord Chancellor, to enable the courts to calculate the fair rate to apply to a lump sum in the case of catastrophic injury. That sudden change from 2.5% to minus 0.75% meant that in the single year 2017-18 the NHS faced £404 million of costs. Projected forward at that rate, there are potentially not just hundreds of millions, but billions, of pounds of costs attached to the public Exchequer and through insurance premiums on the public themselves. Therefore, through the pre-legislative scrutiny conducted by the Justice Committee and the Government Actuary’s Department we have attempted to strike a proportional balance between the interests of often very vulnerable, catastrophically injured victims and those of society as a whole.
Julian Knight
Is it not the case that the mechanics of the discount rate as it was constituted by the Lord Chancellor before the previous one effectively mean that claimants are estimated to be receiving substantially more than 100% entitlement, and that is not what the system is about? We need a system that reflects current investment strategies and current investment returns.
Rory Stewart
This is a serious issue. The intention of the award made by the court is to provide 100% compensation. In other words, the intent of the court is to make sure that catastrophically injured victims receive the sum of money required to cover their lifetime care costs or loss of earnings. The best way of doing this is through a periodic payment order, which is why we have asked the Master of the Rolls and his committee to look at the use of PPOs. Under such orders, the real costs of people’s care year on year to the moment of their death will be covered; that is how the PPO operates. There is no need to give people a lump sum and speculate somehow on how long they are going to live.
In all cases we would encourage people to make much more use of PPOs. It is true that victims often do not want to accept PPOs. They would rather accept a lump sum either because they believe they can invest it and potentially generate more money or because they feel that were they to die prematurely they could pass on that lump sum to their relatives, but that is not the intention of the award. The award is designed to produce 100% compensation for their care costs.
Mary Robinson
We must get this right for people who have had those catastrophic injuries; their lives are changed forever. Getting this discount rate right is also important because it will affect how they will invest. What more can we do to ensure that they are not forced into, or tempted to, make riskier investments over the course of their lifetime, which will affect their care?
Rory Stewart
That is absolutely right. First, we must bear it in mind that when looking at compensation for somebody in terms of their lifetime care costs, there are a number of uncertainties. First, the court has to make a judgment as to how long they believe that catastrophically injured victim will live, which is very difficult. Secondly, they have to make some kind of judgment of the future performance of the financial markets in order to work out what a reasonable rate of return would be to cover those lifetime care costs. For that reason, the PPO is a much more reliable mechanism. However, in relation to the question of the risks taken by the individual, we have made it clear both in the Bill and subsequent statements what we intend in the decision of the Lord Chancellor. This will be a decision of the Lord Chancellor acting in a quasi-judicial role; this is not the Lord Chancellor acting on behalf of the Treasury, which is why the Lord Chancellor before the previous one ended up at a minus 0.75% rate, which would not have been the preferred Treasury rate. The Lord Chancellor is to make that decision on the basis that the individual concerned is a low-risk investor, and we would expect that individual to be taking less risk than would be taken by a traditional widows and orphans fund. In other words, because of the vulnerability of the investor and the importance of the return in covering things such as their lifetime care costs, we would be conservative in setting this rate.
We are confident that the rate that would be set would be better than the current rate, which imagines simply a gilt return, which does not reflect the actual nature of investing or of returns.
We are also clear that we are aiming for 100% compensation. We are not chasing a median compensation in which 50% would be under-compensated and 50% over-compensated. In fact, the Lord Chancellor would retain the discretion, on the advice of the expert committee and the Government Actuary’s Department, to be able to vary that rate. The judiciary would have the possibility of varying the rate in exceptional circumstances. Let us be in no doubt that we have an obligation to the public purse, to the NHS and to the public as a whole to control the costs. We have a moral responsibility to ensure that the compensation paid is 100% and not 125%, but we also have a moral obligation to ensure that vulnerable individuals who have suffered catastrophic injuries are properly compensated.
The Bill contains measures to reform whiplash claims and the discount rate, and it is the result of an admirable exercise in serious discussion in the upper House, in Committee, with the Justice Committee and through engagement with civil society since 2012. It contains a pragmatic, nuanced and calibrated set of measures that will deal with the excessive costs of whiplash and ensure that the discount rate is set in a way that balances the needs of our most vulnerable victims with the needs of the public purse. On the basis of that, and with great thanks to right hon. and hon. Members, I commend the Bill to the House.
Justice
Rory Stewart Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/ Co-op)
Rory Stewart
We take the report very seriously, as we take all reports, including the recent report on domestic violence. It is absolutely right to say that we need to improve the risk assessment, the programme plans and the frequency of meeting. We are doing a consultation at the moment, to which we invite the hon. Lady to make a submission, on exactly what we can do to tighten up procedures for the CRCs. They have reduced reoffending by 2%, but there is much more that we can do on the quality of delivery.
[Official Report, 9 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 22.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart):
An error has been identified in the response that I gave to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger).
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
We take the report very seriously, as we take all reports, including the recent report on domestic violence. It is absolutely right to say that we need to improve the risk assessment, the programme plans and the frequency of meeting. We have recently conducted a consultation on exactly what we can do to tighten up procedures for the CRCs. They have reduced reoffending by 2%, but there is much more that we can do on the quality of delivery.
Topical Questions
The following is an extract from topical questions to the Secretary of State for Justice on 9 October 2018.
Laura Smith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
Rory Stewart
As I have said, we have looked very seriously at the inspectorate’s domestic violence report. It is worth bearing in mind that this has been a problem in many probation services across the world, and that it was, in fact, a problem before the CRCs were introduced. We are looking closely at the question of qualification during the current consultation, which will run for a further six months.
[Official Report, 9 October 2018, Vol. 647, c. 23.]
Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart):
An error has been identified in the response that I gave to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith).
The correct response should have been:
Rory Stewart
As I have said, we have looked very seriously at the inspectorate’s domestic violence report. It is worth bearing in mind that this has been a problem in many probation services across the world, and that it was, in fact, a problem before the CRCs were introduced. We are looking closely at the question of qualification.