Compensation Bill [Lords]

I represent people who worked in the docks and who lived in the old dock-worker community—although perhaps not to the same degree as other Members—for whom the same issues arose. There were significant knock-on effects. I want to make two other general points. This debate is not unrelated to the great debates that we have had in this place on incapacity benefit, time off work and so on. Sometimes, even though people are physically able to go back to work, they are advised not to do so because the compensation has not been sorted out and the legal case has not ended. We want a healthy and working society, but we also need to get the balance right between people’s liberties and their duties to each other. There are some significant issues to deal with in that regard. I was not doing this job when the Bill was launched last autumn, so I checked to see what my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said then. The title of the first page of his very brief notes was, ““Compensation Bill modest but welcome—Heath.”” [Interruption.] That was a description of the Bill, not of him, although he is probably both those things. He went on to say:"““We all agree that there is an urgent need to deal with and regulate no win, no fee ‘claim farmers’, but we need to look very carefully at the issue of duty of care…the idea that this Bill presents a massive set of plans to tackle the compensation culture is a huge oversell.””" To be fair to the Government, I am not sure that they said that the Bill was going to do all that. It clearly is in some ways modest, but it is none the less important. Given that the Bill started its life in the other place, I checked to see what my noble Friend Lord Goodhart said when he kicked off our comments. The Bill—not least clause 1, to which I shall return—was considered in the other place for quite a long time. On Second Reading, Lord Goodhart said:"““This is undoubtedly a well meaning Bill, but being well meaning is not enough. Part 1, which is clause 1, is at best unnecessary and may well lead to confusion and still more litigation. Part 2 unquestionably has a useful and desirable objective””.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 November 2005; Vol. 676, c. 87.]" Following Second Reading, clause 1 alone was debated for some nine hours in Grand Committee, and for two hours on Report. I join the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in paying tribute to colleagues from all parties—and in particular to the Minister in the Lords with responsibility for the Bill—and to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, who worked very well together. Lots of amendments, and progress, were made. I also pay tribute to Lord Hunt of the Wirral, who did a lot of good work for the Conservative party. I looked to see what the general collective wisdom was at the end of the debate. Lord Goodhart said:"““Part 2 has now been both changed and improved to an unusual degree””" that is true; much progress was made—"““and it is now a very much better Bill than it was when it was brought forward…As for Part 1, I remain dubious as to whether Clause 1 will do more good than harm. It presents a real risk of causing serious problems. However, I am pleased that the Government have accepted Clause 2…Overall, I welcome the fact that this Bill will now go on to the other place.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 March 2006; Vol. 680, col. 577.]" I could not quite work out whether Lord Goodhart was saying, ““Thank goodness we’re not going to be preoccupied with it any more””, or, ““There is a lot more work to do, and you guys have got to get on with it.”” But anyway, here the Bill is, and we will seek to do just that. As the Minister said in her introduction, we must deal with the significant issue of new unregulated businesses dropping leaflets through our letterboxes seeking business, unsolicited. As the Government said, it is sensible initially to deal only with what are the most live issues, of which personal injury is obviously the biggest and most important. Housing disrepair is another issue that is raised regularly in our surgeries, and others include employment, criminal injury compensation and the mis-selling of financial services, which is an increasing problem not just in London but elsewhere. Having been in the House for as long as I have, I take the fairly robust view—I hope that colleagues of similar long service agree—that we need as little legislation as possible, not as much as possible, and that it should be as simple as possible. I approached this Bill on that basis. I also believe that we should regulate as little as possible. We are in great danger of having too much regulation, which is why the Better Regulation Task Force exists. Governments understand that we are trying to whittle down the amount of regulation. That said, of course consumers need a degree of protection, and the Bill is about getting that balance right. If we are to have regulation—we Liberal Democrats are persuaded that we should—it should be effective and proportionate and go only as far as is necessary in dealing with the problems that have arisen. At the end of the exercise, the judgment is whether we have got that balance right. So if we are to have regulation, we clearly need a regulator. Again, I take a fairly simple view. I am absolutely opposed to the idea that every time we see a new problem, we should set up a new regulator and new committees, and new structures and organisations involving new people and new costs. Rather, we should look around to see who else exists who can do the job. I share the Minister’s view, however, that the two potential candidates in the financial services world were not the right ones. I also share her view that the other existing bodies that appeared suitable to do the job were not the right ones, and that it would be better for the regulator to be a member of the family regulating legal and other services. However, we have to have an interim stage. It might seem slightly bizarre to think of the Lord Chancellor as the regulator of claims farmers, but that job will keep him occupied in his post-Lords-speakership days and justify his saying to the Prime Minister, ““I’ve got plenty to do.”” It might even justify his salary being kept at the same level. Following that interim stage, we will need to move on. Once the draft Bill on legal services has been enacted, I hope that we will have a single, streamlined and minimalist regulatory system that costs as little as possible and occupies as few people as possible. The much-heralded progress that everyone applauds is clause 2—I have heard very little criticism of it—which was not in the Bill at its outset. It is very simple, but it deals with a very important issue. We have all been there. I remember stopping suddenly in my vehicle one day—it was an election day—at a set of traffic lights and someone immediately behind me failing to stop. On another election day, exactly the reverse happened. I was looking over my shoulder and by the time that I turned round, the fellow in front had stopped and I had not. One then thinks, ““Dare I say sorry?”” Dare one apologise when in some cases, it is self-evident that the accident is the fault of the person behind, who has run into the stationary vehicle in front?