Lawyers urge MPs to ‘take government to task’ over Civil Liability Bill
Personal injury lawyers have highlighted ‘gaping holes’ in the Civil Liability Bill, as MPs gathered for its second reading.
The bill will introduce a system of fixed tariffs for whiplash damages. Secondary legislation will raise the small claims limit from £1,000 to £5,000 for road traffic accident claims.
Vidisha Joshi, managing partner of Hodge Jones & Allen, said: ‘It’s up to MPs to highlight the gaping holes in this highly questionable bill.
‘It is staggering that such fundamental reform can be based on such flimsy or non-existent evidence—for example, the Ministry of Justice has never explained, despite even the Justice Select Committee asking, how it came up with the figures in the new compensation tariff. What we do know, however, is that the number of claims is falling, while both premiums and insurers’ profits are rising.
‘MPs must also take the government to task over the increase in the small claims limit for personal injury cases, which is so fundamental to the reform programme but is not actually in the bill.’
In a briefing note to MPs, the Personal Injuries Bar Association (PIBA) and Bar Council argued both that the bill’s definition of ‘whiplash injury’ was too wide, and that the bill should not give the Lord Chancellor the power to amend the definition in response to future medical developments.
On the proposals for tariffs, they said there was no evidence to support the suggested level of them. Moreover, there had not been enough time for the effect of recent changes to personal injury claims to become known: for example, the requirement that courts strike out claims that are tainted by dishonesty (s 57, Criminal Courts and Justice Act 2015) and the funding reforms introduced by LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012).
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