I thank the Minister for her reply. I have worked on referral fees a lot and of course this is not quite the same. It is not about the
payment of referral fees, but about a law firm which is dependent for the volume of its work on being referred by an insurance company. I made no allegation whatever that a referral fee was being paid. The problem is that if the insurer is putting all its cases to one or more lawyers on its panel, that sets up a potential conflict of interest for the law firm which wants to remain on the panel.
I know that the Minister will not be able to answer my next point now, but she has talked about claims management companies. She will not be aware, because she was not the Minister at the time, that another amendment I did get through was that complaints against claims management firms should be able to be made to the Legal Services Ombudsman. I think that that happened around 18 months ago, but the SI has still not come before your Lordships’ House. Despite this House having taken the decision—a very wise decision, I have to say—that complaints against claims management firms can be made to the Legal Ombudsman, the MoJ has been so tardy that we still do not have the SI. I am sorry to get that in as a dig, but we are still waiting for it. It is really important in these sorts of issues.
As I say, it is not referral fees that we were touching on in this. It is about being absolutely certain that when you pay for insurance to cover legal representation if anything happens, that legal representation should be absolutely non-conflicted and should act for the driver concerned. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but if the Minister could talk to her colleagues in other departments and if they could move on the complaints against claims management firms going to the legal services ombudsman, many people would be very grateful.