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Small Claims (Courts)

: I have indeed, but mainly because my hon. Friends and other hon. Members have passed letters from personal injury lawyers in their constituencies on to me. One or two personal injury lawyers in each constituency have dutifully written to their Members of Parliament, as they are quite entitled to do, to express their view and to advance their arguments. The Government must now consider the various cases that have been put to them about whether, and if so by how much, the limit should be increased, and they will obviously want to take account of those representations. A curious feature of several of those representations, however, was that they appeared to be based on the principle that £1,000 was the appropriate limit in personal injury cases for all time. One or two bodies, including the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, conceded that, in its view, no personal injury cases should ever go down the small claims track, or should ever have done so. We should bear it in mind that we are talking about a limit over which cases have drifted during the period in which it has been in force. We had better come clean about whether we believe that no personal injuries should be dealt with using the small claims track, or that there is a limit, which must be set at an appropriate level, and I shall come to some of the arguments about that. Before I go much further on that, however, let me highlight the testimony from the Association of District Judges. Its view is that parties would not be unduly disadvantaged if the limit were raised to £2,500. Such judges are often solicitors who may have practised in this area of law and who are in a good position to judge how litigants would cope with the support that judges gave them. They have had plenty of opportunity to observe represented and unrepresented claimants. In its report, the Committee referred to the potential complexities faced by claimants who need to obtain medical reports—a point that was raised earlier. We made it plain that it may be proper to draw a distinction between more complex injury claims, which require a medical report, and those in which injuries clear up within months, in which the only available evidence is likely to be from the general practitioner or physiotherapist, and in which there is no continuing problem with the injury. In the latter circumstances, it would be more sensible for the GP's letter to be adduced in evidence, avoiding the cost of medical reports and lawyers to interpret them. Our subsequent inquiry looked into whether there was a compensation culture. Incidentally, for the benefit of those who wrote to us suggesting that we thought that there was a compensation culture, let me say that we said precisely the opposite in our subsequent report. In our inquiry, insurers told us that they would be prepared to accept reports from GPs in such small cases. The current process can lead to cases in which the legal costs and disbursements involved in bringing a claim exceed the damages that the claimant receives, fuelling the impression of compensation culture. One should recognise that some minor injuries and effects are well out of the way by the time people get to the small claims court. Such injuries and effects fall well within what judges refer to as the green book limits, which are in the £1,000 to £2,500 range, or at some other suitable level around there. I have in mind the minor injuries, the trips and the slips, the broken finger or the very minor scarring. If one looks at the green book and at the injuries that fall within that range, one sees that compensation for the loss of, or damage to one front tooth falls in the £1,250 to £2,150 range. Compensation for work-related upper limb disorders, which relate mainly to tendons and where there is complete recovery in a short period, are in the £1,250 to £1,900 range. Compensation for trivial thumb injuries that have caused severe pain for a short time, but which have been resolved is in the region of £1,250. Compensation for all those things is just over the present limit.