Civil Liability Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bassam of Brighton and Lord Faulks

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard continued): House of Lords
Thursday 10th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 14 in this group. Much of this ground was covered in the earlier debate, and I anticipate the Minister’s response in that light. I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Beecham that we perhaps need to find another route on this issue, and in a sense that is what Amendment 14 does. It seeks to place a duty on the Lord Chancellor to consult the Lord Chief Justice and obtain the agreement of the Judicial College on the proposed amount for tariffs, before making regulations to set damages tariffs for whiplash.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House recommended that it is the judiciary, with its experience of personal injury claims, that should determine the provisions for damages or, failing that, the responsibility should be undertaken by independent medical experts. Noble Lords have referred to medical experts in earlier debates and recognise their value. I know that many would prefer the Government to abandon their plan to discard the use of the Judicial College guidelines for general damages claims, but there is value in the current guidance. This is a probing amendment, along with others, to find a way of enabling consultation and constraining the absolute power currently set out for the Lord Chancellor.

One of the worries that feeds this is that genuine cases may be dealt with in a way that leads to undercompensation. We do not know what the scale of the problem is, because the Government have not produced statistics on what they believe to be the level of genuine or, for that matter, fraudulent claiming. While that remains the case, we must surely protect those who have genuinely suffered and need to make a claim for good reasons.

It is worth reminding ourselves that the Bar Council recommended that the Lord Chancellor should be required to have regard to decided cases. That seems a reasonable approach. If the Lord Chancellor is required to consult the Lord Chief Justice before making regulations on the uplift in exceptional circumstances, what justification can there be for him not to consult the Lord Chief Justice on the tariff amounts generally? It may be that, with its experience, the Judicial College guidelines would be an appropriate starting point and basis for consultation.

We recognise the power of the Government’s argument generally to change and make reforms, but it is also important to recognise the value of the judiciary’s knowledge in this field and the importance of consulting it in setting tariffs. After all, it has the experience.

[Lord Faulks]

I just wanted to say one thing. First, I am not sure whether I have declared during Committee that I was a Minister in the Ministry of Justice when the subject of whiplash reform was frequently discussed, although the precise shape of that reform did not manifest in the same way that it does in this Bill. I made that clear at Second Reading, but would like to make it clear now.