My Lords, I support Amendment 208A. I declare my interest as a solicitor but not one who has been directly involved with personal injury claims. This is an area of particular specialism that requires particular expertise and experience for it to be carried out to the best advantages of those who seek that help.
Looking back, I am concerned that this matter has been raised, in different fora, on a number of occasions. For instance, in 2016, the Telephone Preference Scheme opt-out was discussed when it was removed from the control of Ofcom to that of the ICO. At that point, there was a great opportunity for this matter to be dealt with. Indeed, a number of organisations, including personal injury lawyers, the Motor Accident Solicitors Society and others, said that it was vital to carry this out and that cold calling should be ended because of the pressures it placed on an awful lot of very vulnerable people.
Since 2016, things have got worse in one respect—although, perhaps, they are a little less bad in respect of telephone calling. It is a little while now since I was last told that I had just had a major accident in my car as I was sitting enjoying a glass of wine and not having such worries in my mind. Telephone cold calling seems to have diminished but pressures through social media contact, various scams and so on have increased dramatically. I have been told this by a number of my legal colleagues.
In 2023, the Government produced the UK’s Fraud Strategy. As I am sure noble Lords will know, when it was published, it specifically pursued the question of
extending the ban on cold calling to personal injury cases; that was very important and included all servers. So, unless there is some relationship already in place—something where that is a defence, as it were, here—and a voluntary willingness on the part of those who suffer from personal injuries to be contacted by an organisation with which they already have a relationship, this is something that we should pursue very strongly indeed.
Although it is correct that the legal profession, and perhaps other professions, are banned from this procedure, on a regulatory or disciplinary basis, some of my colleagues in the profession are, in some cases, susceptible to financial and commercial challenges through these organisations, such that they would become—sometimes, almost inadvertently—part of the process. Therefore, I hope that, in passing such an amendment, we would give a clear sign to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society that it underlines yet again that these practices are not acceptable to those members of the profession.