My Lords, this amendment is concerned with one aspect of clinical negligence cases: the cost of expert reports. It would not have been necessary if the House had accepted my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson's amendment last week, but unfortunately it failed by a narrow margin.
Everybody, I think, agrees that the cost of expert reports at least should be recovered in one way or another. The trouble is that the Government set about it in the wrong way. In Committee on 16 January, I put forward some figures to show why. I did not expect that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, would deal with the figures there and then. However, I have to say that I did expect that I would get something rather better than what I got some weeks later, which said simply that the Government did not recognise or accept my assumptions. Nothing then happened for a further period of time, until 1 March, when the Government put forward their own alternative calculations.
On the following day, 2 March, the Government were given a detailed answer which showed that their calculations were simply wrong. On 7 March, the third day of Report stage, I again explained why, but on that occasion the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, did not deal with the figures, any more than he had done on 16 January. Instead, he said that he would place the Government's calculation in the Library of the House. However, he had not done so by the time I had left the House last night, nor when I arrived this morning. I did not in fact see the Government's calculations until early this afternoon.
However, that delay, which I would humbly suggest was unforgivable, at least meant that the Government have now put forward—at my request, I may say—and placed in the Library, not only the Government's own calculation but the response to it, which was prepared by Mr Andrew Parker, a partner in the firm of Beachcroft, to whom I am especially indebted. That response shows that by accepting this amendment the Government would make a saving to the taxpayer of something between £10 million and £19 million.
I suspect that the House will be glad to hear that I will not go into the figures again, since the Government have simply left it too late for further consideration of the figures. The House has accepted the amendment that I tabled last week, on the basis of the figures which I then put forward, there having been no other figures with which to compare them. However, that is not an end of the matter, because the savings that I have indicated will depend on the Government accepting this amendment, the second part of the coupled amendments now before the House, as well as the one that they accepted last week. If the Government are serious about saving money, as they have said so often in Committee and so far on Report, then that is what they ought to do.
The repeal of Section 29 of the Access to Justice Act, which would get rid of recoverable insurance premiums, is one of the two or three main planks on which Part 2 of the Bill rests. What, therefore, is the point of repealing Section 29 and then, in the same breath, making an exception in the case of expert reports, when expert reports are now covered by legal aid as a result of last week's amendment? It simply does not make sense. The only explanation given so far is that the Government want to help those who are above the legal aid limit. But how does that square with the Government's attitude to those many deserving cases, of which we have heard from all sides, who are being denied legal aid even though they are within the legal aid limit? It is in the highest degree ironic that one of the grounds given by the Government for spending the extra £10 million is the need to secure access to justice for those who are above the limit. How much better that money would have been spent elsewhere in the course of this Bill.
The truth is that the Government simply made the wrong decision. They listened to representations, as a result of which they decided to fund expert reports by way of ATE insurance rather than by way of legal aid. They chose the most expensive course but they now have the chance to mend their ways. It is not too late for them to put the matter right by accepting this amendment. I beg to move.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
(Crossbench)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 14 March 2012.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
736 c363-5 
Session
2010-12
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House of Lords chamber
Subjects
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2023-12-15 16:12:07 +0000
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