Civil Liability Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Viscount Hailsham

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 12th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Will the noble Lord also observe that this clause is only permissive and does not require the Lord Chancellor to make an uplift?

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

My Lords, I am very grateful for that intervention, which is absolutely right. The point about an uplift is that, if it is just, it should be given. We say that there may be a whole range of circumstances where it is clear that an award greater than the tariff figure is justified. We would regard it as far better than insisting on a finding of exceptional circumstances to permit the courts, as per our Amendment 20, to increase a tariff award where satisfied simply that it would be in the interests of justice to do so. Were Amendment 18 not carried so that Clause 2 survived, we would propose to pursue that amendment to improve Clause 3, which would then remain.

[Viscount Hailsham]

My Lords, I shall comment on an amendment that has not been spoken to—Amendment 12, which I think will be articulated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—and, more precisely, on the proposed new clauses, spoken to so admirably by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf.

Amendment 12 seems manifestly sensible. Of course the Lord Chief Justice should be consulted by the Lord Chancellor. That is particularly important when one bears in mind that many Lord Chancellors nowadays are not lawyers and will therefore be entirely dependent on the advice of their officials, who might themselves not be lawyers. Therefore, it seems admirable that we should put into statute a requirement that the Lord Chief Justice be consulted. If the Minister says, “But of course he will be”, all I can say is that Ministers sometimes have a curious habit of forgetting the obvious and their obligations. For example, I was rather surprised about three weeks ago when the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, during the debate on Brexit, said that Ministers had never used the phrase “meaningful vote”. That was a curious lapse of mind, and it may well be that Lord Chancellors will forget the obligation to consult the Lord Chief Justice. Therefore, I am all in favour of the amendment and I hope the Government will concede the point.

Perhaps I may move more directly to the proposed new clause in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and Amendment 18. I do not have the experience of the noble and learned Lord but for many years I practised as a personal injury lawyer. I do not do so any more, so there is no need for me to identify an interest, but I used to do a lot of work in personal injury law. Indeed, I was instructed by my noble friend Lord Hunt and I was very grateful for the briefs in those days. Back then, we were informed about the level of damages by the guidance of the Court of Appeal and by the reports, which in those days were available in the current law citator. There really was no difficulty in operating within the parameters set by the judiciary.

That takes me to my objections to what the Government are proposing. The first is a very deep-seated reluctance to see the Executive or Parliament interfering with essentially judicial positions. I am bound to say that that informed my real reservations about the determination of Parliament to impose tariffs in homicide cases, set out in a schedule to the Act. I deprecated that. This is another example which we should be very cautious about. We need to ask ourselves what the essential characteristic of justice is. It is to respond to the individual and varied cases that appear before the courts. The effect of imposing a cap of this kind is to prevent the trial judge being able to respond to the particular aspects of the case in front of him or her, and in my view that is, by definition, unfair.

There is a further point that I venture to intrude on the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Marks. It is perfectly true that the Bill provides for an uplift, but the uplift requirement is discretionary on the Lord Chancellor; it is not mandatory. The Lord Chancellor may provide for an uplift in regulations but he or she does not have to do so.

I am sorry to be pedantic about this, but your Lordships will know that on many occasions I have spoken in pretty derogatory terms about the statutory instrument process that we have. This is another example. Let me acknowledge at once that we are doing it by the affirmative procedure, which is a lot better than doing it by the negative procedure, but the cap will be determined by statutory instrument. Who, pray, is going to set the cap? I can tell you: it will be officials. Unless the Minister of the day is particularly well informed and/or intrusive, the cap will be determined by officials without interference. I am bound to say that I find that a very unpleasing prospect.

If, therefore, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, is minded to press his amendment and his proposed new clause and to test the opinion of the House, unless my noble and learned friend is even more persuasive than he customarily is, I anticipate that I will support the noble and learned Lord.