Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The insurance industry has long been regulated and the ombudsman has long been able to make declarations, but there are circumstances in which one cannot go to the ombudsman—for example, if the financial value of the contract is too high. There are circumstances in which the ombudsman will not intervene—for example, if legal proceedings between the consumer and the insurance company or, if Lloyd’s, some other insurer, are already afoot. In addition, experience dictates that the financial ombudsman is not, for example, particularly au fait with some of the more obscure parts of insurance law with which the Bill grapples, such as those parts of common law that deal with basis clauses and the turning of representations into warranties when made the basis of the contract.

I hear, then, what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) says, but it is fair to say that the Bill is not only welcome but contains proposals that the Law Commission has properly considered and requires no review of the type that the new clause contemplates. For those reasons, the new clause is, in my respectful view, misconceived; and for those reasons, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not push it to a vote.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I was rather attracted to the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie). The idea that the House should engage in post-legislative scrutiny is a good one and accords with good legislative practice. That, effectively, is what he is saying. He is not saying that the House would necessarily be involved; he is saying that the Treasury, the Department sponsoring the Bill, would have an obligation to assure everybody about the impact of legislation. This could be an important precedent. Perhaps, in due course, it will be part of official Opposition policy to provide for post-legislative scrutiny.

This area of insurance is extremely complicated and, as the hon. Gentleman said, very expensive for many people. The reason it is so expensive is that there is an enormous amount of fraud, particularly in relation to motor accidents. We heard recently about the high incidence of claims for whiplash. Almost everybody involved in even the most minor bump is encouraged to claim on their insurance for whiplash injuries, and invariably the insurance companies end up paying a lot of money to prevent what they would describe as nuisance claims from going to full litigation. Effectively, they are held to ransom, and not surprisingly it is the customers of those insurance companies who end up paying the bill through higher premiums.

That situation is particularly pernicious with compulsory insurance, which motor insurance is—third party, fire and theft, and so on—for people seeking to drive a motor vehicle on the road. It is particularly tough on young people, and has been made tougher by this ludicrous European legislation declaring that insurance companies cannot take account of whether a young girl belongs to a class group with a lower claims rate than a young man who belongs to a group with a higher claims rate and who therefore will face additional costs.

As a consequence, the premiums for young women have increased significantly faster than premiums for young men. I suppose I have a family interest, because my daughter has recently acquired her first car and taken out her first insurance policy. I can reconfirm what the hon. Member for Nottingham East said. Obviously, she did not have a no-claims record, because she did not have any driving experience, and in the end, the best deal was from a company offering her 10 months’ insurance, which gave her the prospect of getting a no-claims discount after 10 months rather than after a year.

Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Christopher Chope

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I will make a brief response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), Mr Speaker. What she says about perceptions is important. That is why it is essential that the Government do not bring forward motions that seem to be designed to appeal to an outside audience, while at the same time leaving things rather vague and open to the accusation that they are trying to tie the hands of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

[Stephen Phillips]

Surely all that the second part of the motion does is establish that we should be treated in precisely the same way as other public servants.

[Mr Chope]

It does not say that, actually, because if it did, it would be worded in that way. That is how it is being interpreted. If nothing else comes from this debate, something will have been achieved if that is how the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority interprets the motion. My concern and the concern of many colleagues is that it seems as though the Government have picked a few items and put them in the motion.

To take one public service scheme as an example, the Government have made it quite clear that they do not think that the principles we are talking about today should apply to the armed forces scheme. I support the Government in that, but it is a completely separate issue from trying to tie the hands of IPSA at this stage. IPSA will come forward with its proposals and they will go out to consultation, at which point the Government will have a chance to express a view, as will everybody else.

Criminal Records (Public Access) Bill

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Christopher Chope

Friday 13th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I hear what my hon. Friend says. I have not recently had any constituency cases relating to the Criminal Records Bureau, but there is a real problem with the time it takes to get information out of it, particularly if one wants to check records for potential volunteers or members of staff.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

A moment ago, my hon. Friend suggested that the electronic record the Bill seeks to create would be capable of being investigated by the public on the internet. Can he direct the House to the clause that mandates that to be the case?

[Mr Chope]

Clause 1(1) of the Bill states

“and must make them accessible to the public”.

As they are going to be in electronic form, I had assumed that that would be the means by which they would be made accessible to the public. If my hon. and learned Friend is suggesting that he does not think that that is spelt out clearly enough, I would obviously be happy to consider those representations. The idea behind the Bill is that such information would be accessible without someone having physically to go along to the criminal records office. Ultimately, it would be for the criminal records office to decide under the terms of the Bill in what way it would make the records accessible to the public.

The point is quite short and simple. It comes down to the basic principle that if somebody is convicted in a court, that knowledge should be publicly available and easily accessed by the public. At the moment, much to the surprise of many of us, unless one is actually in the court and hears what is happening or reads about it in the newspapers, it might go undetected and might be hard to detect in the future.

To pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), a number of employers might in due course want to see whether somebody who is applying for a job has a conviction from the local magistrates court. The Bill would facilitate their being able to do that without their having to engineer a situation in which they could get a CRB check on that individual.

The significance of the Bill will become greater as we find that fewer and fewer proceedings in the magistrates courts are covered by local newspapers. I am fortunate to have the New Milton Advertiser and Lymington Times, which take delight in printing at length reports from the magistrates courts. That is relatively unusual in local newspapers these days, so if people cannot find out what is happening through their local newspapers there must be an alternative way of enabling them to get that knowledge. That is what the Bill is all about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I accept my hon. and learned Friend’s point about the rehabilitation of offenders, but does not the Criminal Records Bureau keep a record of spent convictions, so that a conviction does not disappear once it is spent?

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend is right, but access to a spent conviction can be gained only where Parliament believes that there should continue to be access to spent convictions to prevent harm that might arise were the convictions not to be apparent to those making criminal records checks. The Bill would go much further and make generally available to the public the entire criminal record of those who might well have mended their ways many years before. That is the first problem with the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

What solution does my hon. and learned Friend propose to this acknowledged problem?

[Stephen Phillips]

My hon. Friend asks an interesting question. The short answer—I will be completely honest with him—is that I do not know, because I have not thought about it. I am seeking to point out the Bill’s defects and why it will therefore not secure my support on Second Reading. The solution can no doubt be taken up by Ministers in due course. I none the less consider the points I have made to be valid, so I urge the House not to give the Bill a Second Reading.