I, too, thank everyone who has worked on this important Bill, including the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission. It has been interesting to follow the special procedure. There is no doubt that the Bill was rigorously scrutinised in the other place, and a number of amendments were tabled. That perhaps makes our task in Committee and on Third Reading somewhat easier, and will help to ensure that the Bill safely completes its passage through the House.
I raised one issue that was originally suggested in the Law Commission reports but did not make it into the Bill: late payment. I want to give the Minister the opportunity to reply, but to recap briefly, the Law Commission report states:
“We consider that a policyholder should have a remedy where an insurer has acted unreasonably in delaying or refusing payment.”
It recommended
“an implied term in every insurance contract that the insurer will pay sums due within a reasonable time”,
with appropriate caveats. Those points were deemed too controversial to be included in a Law Commission Bill, and as I have said before, although the recommendations have merit, I recognise that a Law Commission Bill may not be the appropriate vehicle for putting such provisions into statute because of the way that “controversial” is interpreted.
I asked the Minister whether she would consider legislating for late payment by some other means. She offered encouragement on that and also said that
“evidence presented to the Law Commission, the Treasury and the Special Public Bill Committee demonstrated that the problems in the existing law are worse in theory than in practice.”––[Official Report, Insurance Bill Second Reading Committee, 26 January 2015; c. 9.]
Although the Minister provided some encouragement, she perhaps also suggested that such measures would not be a priority for the immediate future. It would be helpful if she clarified that point and said whether the Government have plans to take the issue forward and to what time scale. In general terms, the Bill has taken us forward and is largely technical in how it updates insurance law in statute. We have given it a good airing and should see it successfully enacted.
1.25 pm