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Small Claims (Courts)

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I apologise to you, Mr. Marshall, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) for being delayed by a constituency engagement. As this is the first time that I have taken part in a debate on a Constitutional Affairs Committee report since I took up my present responsibilities, may I pay tribute to the Government for their restructuring of the Departments? We now have at least a stepping stone towards a department of justice, and I hope that before too long we will have the department of justice for which many of us have pressed for a long time. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and his Committee for their diligent work on this and other issues, and for regularly producing significant reports on what he described to me as a range of initiatives from the Department. This is an important report among them. I appear to be in a minority among those who have spoken so far, as I do not have a registrable interest to declare. That may or may not give me more credibility in arguing the case. However, just so that nobody can say that I am concealing something that may be relevant, I should say that in my earlier life I used to deal as a member of the Bar with cases such as those we are considering today, as have others in their legal professions. Although recently I have not been in and out of the courts as frequently as I used to be, I believe that I know the subject area relatively well. The issue that has engendered the most interest in this debate has been the threshold for claims, particularly personal injury claims. I shall come back to that in a moment after making some preliminary points. First, I was slightly troubled to hear the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) imply that people would not get good advice if they knocked on the door of their local citizens advice bureau. The Minister and I share the same borough. I do not know of her experience as a constituency MP, but mine is that the CAB is an excellent front door for accessing services. It points people in the right direction, even if it does not directly give advice itself. Various agencies in our borough are extremely helpful in ensuring that people go to the right place to get good advice.