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Small Claims (Courts)

: With the leave of the Chamber, I want to thank hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, especially the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), who makes such a valuable contribution to the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), with his ideas on enforcement, which have been a valuable addition to our discussion today, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly), who gave general support to the belief that we have to reconsider the limit and may need to raise it, although we must work out what would be a sensible increase, and the hon. Members for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) and for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) for their extremely eloquent defence of the views of many personal injury lawyers and some trade unions. As I listened to the hon. Member for Hendon, there were moments when I feared that I might trap my finger on my way out of the Chamber. In such circumstances, it would clearly be essential that I obtained the services of the hon. Gentleman or of the small number of lawyers who are known by him to be up to his standard. I dare not read Kemp and Kemp, from which he is going to give me the chapter, because that was not written for people like me. There was a moment when he sounded a little like the lawyer in the Lady Chatterley case, challenging the jury to think whether this was a book that they would want their servants to read. I am sure that you will now scurry home to read it, Mr. Marshall. I turn to the Minister's response. I shall want to pursue her on three unanswered questions. When will a fully-integrated IT system be in place in the county courts? How soon can we get effective action and enforcement? When, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon asked, will we get the difficult but necessary decision about the limits? It should not take too long now that all the arguments are out in the open. I hope that the argument about the personal injury limit will not in any way detract from the importance of the other issues that we have talked about: the benefits and advantages of the small claims track, and the need to equip it adequately with IT and ensure that its judgments can be enforced. Question put and agreed to.