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Justice: Civil Litigation Reform

I begin by thanking the Minister for repeating the Statement made by his right honourable friend and for giving us advance sight of it. We have a number of questions, mainly around the first part of the Statement. We look forward to the second part on the commencement of the consultation period, and broadly welcome the fact that there is to be a consultation period on those issues. As regards the first part, we of course accept that costs in civil proceedings are very much worth investigating; indeed, we did so when in government. I am sure we all agree that those suffering injury through the negligence of public and private bodies and who cannot afford to fund actions privately must have recourse to the civil justice system. Our fear is that these plans go so far in trying to keep down costs that some claimants with good cases will find it difficult, if not impossible, to find a lawyer who will take on their case. Of course, the devil will be in the detail of today’s announcement, and I ask when it is intended that legislation will be introduced. Will it be part of a Bill that is rumoured to be coming from the Ministry of Justice within the next few months? To justify his announcement, the Justice Secretary refers in his Statement to Lord Justice Jackson’s monumental report. However, have Her Majesty’s Government taken into account Lord Justice Jackson’s view that his proposals should be seen as a package and should not be subject to cherry-picking, although is that not exactly what the Government have done in this announcement? Will he also take into account Lord Justice Jackson’s strong desire to keep civil legal aid for clinical negligence and housing cases, which are currently very much under threat from the Government’s proposals? I quote from page 70 of his final report: "““I do, however, stress the vital necessity of making no further cutbacks in legal aid availability or eligibility””." Is it fair to allow claimant solicitors to recover up to 25 per cent of their costs from the damages that a claimant recovers when the increase from defendants to claimants in compensation will be only 10 per cent and will apply only to general damages, which as the House will know, are sometimes only a fraction of the total damages? Why should someone who has suffered the trauma of an injury at work be told that some of the money they have justly received to compensate them is to go to their lawyer? Do we really want to go down the route of contingency fees? I know that they existed under our law for a short time but they no longer do. I think that at some stage the House will want to debate the whole issue of contingency fees and whether they are an appropriate course for the English and Welsh legal system. Has the Justice Secretary had a chance to assess the road traffic accident portal scheme introduced by the previous Government to reduce costs? This uses fixed fees and efficient processing to limit costs, and it came into force in March 2010. Does the Minister accept that it has reduced by half the cost of 75 per cent of personal injury cases? Expanding the scheme to cover personal injury claims would, we believe, save costs. Do the Government agree? The Government have said that an aim of the reforms is to reduce the costs that defendants have to pay. Of course, many defendants are insurance companies. In the light of the reforms, can the Minister say what reductions the Government expect in insurance premiums? Can he confirm whether there is an impact assessment of how the changes will affect access to justice, costs to defendants and reductions in insurance premiums? Next, is the Minister concerned that, although there will be limitations on claimants’ ability to bring a case and on the costs incurred by their solicitors, there will be no such controls on a defendant in defending a case? Does that not raise the question of possible inequality between the two sides in a case? In this House we all agree that a fundamental principle of our justice system should be proper access to justice. As a Government, we agreed with senior judges such as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—the Lord Chief Justice—as well as Lord Justice Jackson and others, that the costs of civil litigation were sometimes excessive. We would all like reduced litigation costs and, very importantly, alternatives to litigation and particularly to the courts to be found wherever possible. Our fear is that the proposals could restrict access to civil justice, particularly for those who do not have their own means of funding—rather like the Government’s proposals on cutting legal aid in social welfare law. It could reduce access to justice rather than the opposite, which is our desire—to improve it. It will be on that key issue of access to justice that we will hold the Government’s actions to account.