Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
Those people include a driver, working to take disabled people to and from a day centre, who, because he had not been properly trained, fell off the vehicle while assisting a wheelchair user and suffered a back injury. They include a cleaner in a hospital who, while mopping the floor, went to pick up some papers and pricked her finger on an unsafely discarded needle. She suffered a psychological and physical injury. Just imagine the fear she must have felt as she waited for the test results. Those are examples of cases that have been sent to my office, and of real people who would be penalised by the new system. Those are the people whose voices the Government are content to drown out with their rhetoric that labels people fraudsters and says that they are on the make when they are anything but.
When we consider the Bill, we should not forget that there was a 90% drop-off in employment tribunal claims when employments tribunal fees came into effect. Something similar could happen again with personal injury cases, with genuine victims priced out of justice and deterred from pursuing a claim for an injury that was not their fault.
It is not only Labour who oppose this Conservative attack on access to justice. The Justice Committee has explained that
“increasing the small claims limit for personal injury creates significant access to justice concerns.”
We agree with the Justice Committee and the recommendation of the Lord Justice Jackson review that the small claims limit should be increased in line with inflation, which would mean a rise to £1,500, not the £2,000 currently proposed. We have repeatedly tabled amendments to the Bill, and it is a shame that the Government have not listened. We have also made clear our position on tariffs, and it is a shame that the Government have not responded in a meaningful way to those amendments.
I am conscious that Mr Speaker has asked that I shortly draw my remarks to a conclusion, but I urge every Member of this House to look at the chart produced by the House of Commons Library at page 30 of the briefing and ask themselves whether this is just. What does the chart show? It shows that compensation for an injury lasting up to six months will fall to a fixed £470, down from the current average of £2,150—down by three quarters. Compensation for an injury lasting 10 to 12 months will be £1,250, down from the current average of £3,100—down 60%. Compensation for an injury lasting 16 to 18 months will be £2,790, down from £3,950—down by 30%. Is that what the Conservatives mean by justice?
Injured people who have done nothing wrong are losing out and being placed at a huge disadvantage. If Conservative Members do not want to take Labour’s word for it, they should at least think very carefully about what was said in the House of Lords. The point has already been made that this Bill undermines the independence of the judiciary with the tariff system. We have commented on the definition of whiplash and on the fact that the Government are making out that fraud is taking place on an industrial scale. Do something about cold calling from claims management companies; do not target injured people.
Why not exempt children? People outside this place will not believe that the Government did not concede on our common-sense amendment and have refused to budge on the discount rate.
The central purpose of the Bill is to tip the scales of justice against injured people and in favour of insurance companies’ profits. The Conservatives have shown that this is about lining the pockets of insurance companies by refusing to vote for Labour’s considered amendments, which would have protected vulnerable people and safeguarded fair treatment for victims. This attack on justice is not the first by this Government since 2010—after legal aid and employment tribunal fees—and I fear it will not be the last Tory attack on access to justice.
The wider measures that the Conservatives plan to introduce alongside the Bill will leave tens of thousands of people unable to enforce their legal rights. The Bill may well turn out to be the thin end of the wedge for yet more restrictions on justice in all personal injury cases. If it passes, it will be celebrated as a great victory by the insurance companies in whose interests it has been conceived and drafted, and it will be ordinary people, whose rights are gradually chipped away, who pay the price. That is why Labour will be voting against Third Reading tonight.
6.47 pm