Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2015 to Question 18028, with what representatives of claimants his Ministers or officials met when developing policy on the small claims limit.

The Government is very clear on what claimant representatives think about raising the small claims limit. The Coalition Government consulted on this issue between December 2012 and March 2013 with a wide range of stakeholders. Following that consultation, the Coalition Government announced in October 2013 that it was deferring the decision on whether to raise the small claims limit to focus instead on work that would lead to the establishment of the MedCo system in April 2015.

The present Government decided that the time was right to return to the issue of raising the small claims limit, announcing its intention to do so in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. The Ministry of Justice has continued to engage with representatives from all sectors since the Chancellor’s announcement and will be consulting on the detail of the new reform package in the New Year.