Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Stephen Phillips and Jack Straw

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

That might be so—it is good to know that my constituency is representative of middle England.

Similarly unacceptable practices take place in motor repairs. In bottom-line referrals, accident management companies require repairers to give them a discount of up to 25%. The repairers then increase their prices to take account of that bottom-line referral fee. Royal and Sun Alliance outrageously practised a type of subrogation whereby it set up an internal subsidiary, which contracted repairers for, say, £1,000 for a repair, and then added 25%, which was charged to the main company—RSA Ltd—which then charged the at-fault insurer. Product mandating is another unacceptable practice. Deals are struck with, for example, paint manufacturers, and repair companies are required to use specific brands of paint. That has led to a 67% increase in the cost of paint since 2003.

We must act on all those matters, and I hope the Minister will say briefly what will happen on the RTA portal if he gets the chance. I know that he has indicated that he hopes to take action, but is he sympathetic to what I suggest in respect of whiplash and many other matters?

I come now to the issue between the Minister and me. I welcome new clause 18, and I am grateful to the Secretary of State and the Minister for introducing it. However, for my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and I, there are two issues. First, in my judgment, the breadth of the ban must go wider than personal injury claims. It could be excluded in one or two discrete areas, but in the generality of cases, as the right hon. Gentleman said—he has a great deal of experience—abuse also happens elsewhere.

Secondly, on the question of whether there should be a criminal offence, I noted what the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said about what happened before 2004, and in a sense, they have made my point. My understanding is that the prohibition on solicitors charging referral fees was in the solicitors conduct rules and that it was not a criminal offence. Those rules changed; it was not that a criminal offence was abolished. I am glad that the Secretary of State proposes to make greater use of the regulatory authorities, and I would not for a moment suggest that that is unnecessary, because it is very necessary. However—this is where, with respect, I found his argument least convincing—there are many other areas of regulation, including, for example, of financial institutions, when conduct that is in clear breach of regulations leads to both a fine or penalty by civil regulatory authorities and a criminal offence. That is particularly true given the vicarious liability requirements imposed by section 7 and others of the Bribery Act 2011.

I applaud what the Secretary of State is doing as far as it goes, but for the life of me, I simply do not understand why, given that he recognises the inadequacy of the 2004 regulatory system and many other things, he does not back that with the criminal law.

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

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Given the right hon. Gentleman’s wide experience, can he detect any pattern in relation to those matters where an action by a regulated body constitutes something that could lead both to regulatory action by the regulator and to criminal sanction under the statutes? If so, it would be interesting to know which side of the line the new clause and the matters to which it refers lie.

[Mr Straw]

The hon. and learned Gentlemen may have noticed that I need to research that point, but I have in the back of my mind a number of cases where breaches of regulations are dealt with both by the regulator and in criminal proceedings. He is experienced in the law and will know that plenty of criminal offences are also civil wrongs of some kind in common law or by regulations.