UK Parliament / Open data

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Proceeding contribution from Chris Philp (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 4 September 2018. It occurred during Debate on bills on Civil Liability Bill [Lords].

I will give way in a moment. The hon. Member for Jarrow also said that judges have decided that injuries—[Interruption.] I am grateful for the heckling from my own side. The hon. Member for Jarrow said that judges had made these compensation awards, but of course that is not true: under qualified one-way costs shifting, insurance companies have a massive financial incentive to settle even claims without merit before they go to court, because even if they win they pay the costs and the costs are often much bigger than the value of the claim. So insurance companies simply settle the claim without a medical examination and without it ever going to court. Therefore, all these compensation claims have not been adjudicated by a judge, although the hon. Gentleman erroneously suggested that they had; they are simply settled immediately because that is the cheapest way of doing it. There is no judicial intervention in almost any of these cases.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
646 c107 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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