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Small Claims (Courts)

: I am not a lawyer, although there are quite a few around. Having an accountant present encourages me to invite him and his colleagues to come up with some more ideas as to how we can improve the enforcement process. The Government have some good ideas that they want to carry forward, and we commend them in the report. However, we are worried about the time that it will take to achieve such things. The Department has laid out a number of proposals, including widening access to charging orders, fixing tables on attachment of earnings orders and information sharing with other Departments, but many of those require legislation. Despite our recommendation that the new powers should be introduced expeditiously, the Department has suggested that they are likely to feature in the draft courts and tribunals Bill, which we will consider later this year. There may be measures in that Bill that ought to go through the draft process, but we have been discussing these powers for a long time. I would rather have seen them in the current legislative timetable than put off for another Session. An awful lot of people will not get help to have their county court judgments enforced if we have to wait that long. That is a worry. The third issue, which is not a problem about the small claims track but an issue for the future, is the limits on claims for personal injury and housing disrepair. There is a lower limit of £1,000 on the value of claims for personal injury and housing disrepair that go through the small claims track, which has been in force for a long time. We felt, as did the Better Regulation Task Force, that the limit needed to be reviewed and raised to £2,500. In preface, perhaps I should say that virtually all our witnesses agreed that the most important issue was that the parties had proper information and advice before they came to court, rather than when they were represented at court, so that they knew whether it would be appropriate for their case to go through the small claims track, or whether they ought to be properly represented and not go through that track. Of course, one can be represented legally in the small claims track, but the cost structure does not make that an attractive or appropriate option for many people who might want to pursue claims. A more complex case should not go through that process. However, claims for personal injuries at the lower level could certainly be considered under the small claims system without unduly disadvantaging claimants. The same issue could be raised about housing disrepair cases. It is important that vulnerable tenants, for example, have access to advice to find out whether their case can reasonably be resolved in the small claims process. It might be a lot easier for them if it is dealt with in that way, but it could be more complicated to do so.