I beg to move amendment 18, in page 4, line 30, leave out Clause 5 and insert—

“Power of court to uplift the amount of damages payable

(1) A court may—

(a) determine that the amount of damages payable for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in respect of a whiplash injury or a minor psychological injury is an amount greater than the tariff amount relating to that injury;

(b) determine that the amount of damages payable for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in respect of a whiplash injury and one or more minor psychological injuries, taken together, is an amount greater than the tariff amount relating to those injuries;

(c) in a case where the court considers the combined effect of—

(i) an injury or injuries in respect of which a tariff amount is specified by regulations under section 3(2) or (4), and

(ii) one or more other injuries, determine that an amount greater than the tariff amount is to be taken into account when deciding the amount of damages payable for pain, suffering and loss of amenity in respect of those injuries.

(2) In this section ‘tariff amount’ means—

(a) in relation to a whiplash injury, the amount specified in respect of the injury by regulations under section 3(2);

(b) in relation to a whiplash injury and one or more minor psychological injuries, the amount specified in respect of the injuries by regulations under section 3(4).”

This amendment would allow judges to increase the amount of damages payable where they determine the tariff amount to be insufficient compensation, rather than capping judges ability to increase compensation awards to a percentage specified by the Lord Chancellor as the Bill currently does.

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

This amendment would allow judges to increase the amount of damages payable where they determine the tariff amount to be insufficient compensation, rather than capping judges’ ability to increase compensation awards to a percentage specified by the Lord Chancellor, as the Bill currently does. Once again, I want to point out the long-standing tradition of trusting judges, rather than having politicians interfere with the discretion of the courts—a tradition that the Government are inexplicably undermining with this Bill.

Clause 5(3) states that if the court thinks there should be an uplift from the tariff because of the severity of the injury, the amount by which the court can increase the payment is limited according to a cap set by the Lord Chancellor. Not only are the courts being fettered by a tariff, but when they consider the tariff to be inappropriate, they will get their judicial wings clipped again. This reduces judges to little more than errand boys for the Lord Chancellor.

Many Lord Chancellors these days are not lawyers. They will rely on the advice of their officials, who need not have legal training either. If the Tories do not trust the judges, who do they trust? What are they scared of? What evidence do they have that judges will behave badly and award huge sums? What court cases can they point to in which that has happened? I can find none at all, and nor can the experts whom my team and I have consulted.

I suspect the insurers fear that without a cap, every tariff award will be taken to court, where judges will apply an uplift and blow up their tariff. If that is what they fear, it suggests that they secretly accept that the proposed tariffs are too low. Perhaps the reason for all these restrictions—all these fetters on what a judge can decide for themselves—is that the Government and the insurance industry are running scared that judges will, indeed, rebel against them. Not because judges are intrinsically rebellious—far from it, some would say; they are conservative with a big and a small c—but because they have a duty to be impartial and deliver justice, and the Government’s proposed tariff does not even remotely do that. Amendment 18 would restore judges’ lost autonomy.

I thank the hon. Lady for her speech. This amendment relates to the fundamental question of the tariff system and the relationship between the judiciary and the tariff system. Clause 5 provides a pragmatic compromise between a strict tariff system and judicial discretion by allowing the judges to lift that tariff in exceptional circumstances. However, as the European Court of Justice accepted in the arguments made in the Italian case, there needs to be a limit. If there were no limit to judges’ discretion, the tariff system would become unworkable.

In so far as we disagree about whether there should be a tariff system in the first place, I completely understand where Opposition Committee members are coming from. However, given that the fundamental cornerstone of the Bill is that there should be a tariff, we need to strike a pragmatic compromise between the tariff and giving some discretion to judges. Therefore, we propose that the Lord Chancellor will set a percentage of discretion for judges to uplift the tariff. We also propose that he will consult the Lord Chief Justice on the appropriate level of discretion. We will look carefully at the rulings of the European Court of Justice and the decisions that it has made in other countries where tariffs exist to arrive at that figure.

The tariffs range from £235 to £3,910, which are incredibly small amounts in the great scheme of things. To try to fetter the judges’ discretion on such small amounts, for exceptional circumstances that have yet to be defined, is to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We just accepted an amendment to the effect that the Lord Chancellor must consult the Lord Chief Justice. Does the Minister not think that it would be better to use that mechanism, rather than “exceptional circumstances”, to set the tariffs?

We certainly will move to introduce an amendment exactly in relation the hon. Gentleman’s question—he has campaigned well on this, as have other hon. Members—setting out that we should consult the Lord Chief Justice on the level of tariffs as well as on the percentage uplift for judicial discretion. Those are two important concessions that I hope will reassure the Opposition.

Before the Minister sits down, can he give some further detail about how he intends to consult the Lord Chief Justice on making the regulations? How much notice will he give the Lord Chief Justice? Will the Lord Chief Justice’s comments be public? Will they be published so that other hon. Members can see them prior to any decision being taken? What happens if the Lord Chief Justice disagrees with the Government’s suggestions? Could the Minister give some outline of those circumstances?

As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, clause 5(5) merely states:

“The Lord Chancellor must consult the Lord Chief Justice before making regulations under this section.”

We intend that to be done in an accountable, responsible, transparent and predictable fashion that would give the Lord Chief Justice a serious amount of time to consider and respond, but, ultimately, it is a consultation and the power of decision rests with the Lord Chancellor, as is implied in the legislation.

Will the Lord Chief Justice’s comments on the consultation be public? Will other people apart from those two parties be able to see both their comments?

That remains to be determined by regulations introduced by the Lord Chancellor and is not included in the Bill.

Why not take the pragmatic approach and just leave it to the judges to decide? They are the experts. Why should a politician influence what is happening?

The answer goes to the core of the entire legislation. The proposed tariff recognises that what we are dealing with—or at least, what we believe we are dealing with—in relation to whiplash, with the peculiar anomalies since 2005 and the increase in whiplash claims, is not exclusively medical or legal, but has strong social and political dimensions in terms of insurance premiums and the cost to the public purse, which is why quite a lot of part 2 of the Bill deals with the NHS. The introduction of the tariffs is designed precisely to reduce the amount paid out in the specific case of general damages for minor whiplash injuries. Simply to stick with the judicial college guidelines would obviate the entire purpose of the Bill and undermine the medical, legal, social and political arguments that underlie the legislation.

Under the proposals, an uplift would be allowed only if the whiplash injury was exceptionally severe or the circumstances were exceptional. Does that not hugely undermine the principle of judicial discretion and take away judges’ ability to assess cases and make appropriate awards for damages? The threshold in these proposals has to be far too high.

Clearly, a system of the sort we propose, which is modelled on the existing tariff systems in places such as France and Italy, is designed to set in law, through the actions of an accountable Minister, the level of the tariff. The argument is absolutely right. As the hon. Lady suggests, that will remove discretion from judges except in exceptional circumstances. The reasons for that are to do with our policy objective of dealing with the whiplash claim culture. Our intention is to reduce the damages paid for minor whiplash injuries, which are defined in the Judicial College guidelines as those that last less than two years. That will result in general damage payments lower than those currently awarded by judges. However, in exceptional circumstances, judges will be able to increase the award.

What is the fear here? Is it that judges will make awards above the tariff set?

The Judicial College guidelines are simply a historical record of awards by the courts. It is a fact that those awards to date have been higher than the awards we propose in the tariff. The policy intention is to reduce the general damages paid, particularly for people at the three-to-six-month level. As we get closer to the two-year level, awards under the tariff come closer to the Judicial College guidelines, but at the lower end, as was suggested, there is a disagreement between the Government and the current practice of judges about the appropriate award for pain, suffering and loss of amenity.

There has been a lot of discussion about experts, but right hon. and hon. Members must remember that we are discussing general damages, not money for loss of earnings or to pay for physiotherapy. We are discussing a judgment of exactly how many pounds and pence someone should receive for a whiplash injury—for the subjective experience of pain in their neck or shoulder. It is difficult to argue that there is particular expertise on the question of the subjective experience of pain. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate suggested, it is impossible for anyone—whether they are a Minister, a judge or a doctor—to suggest that the money that is paid can remove the pain. The pain remains. Money paid in general damages is intended simply as an acknowledgement of the existence of pain, suffering or loss of amenity. It cannot, as would be the case with special damages, remove the pain itself. On that basis, I politely request that the amendments be withdrawn and the clause be accepted.

We do not accept the Minister’s arguments, so will divide the Committee.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided:

Ayes 7, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6