Civil Liability and Personal Injury Compensation

Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 November 1978.

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Photo of Mr Peter Archer Mr Peter Archer , Warley West 12:00, 17 November 1978

It is a convention of the House to say at this stage that we have had a good debate. When I say that, it is not simply because it is the conventional thing to say. It has been an extremely valuable debate and I regret that at least one of my hon. Friends waited all day to take part and was unable to do so. We shall be happy to have the views of hon. Members on a number of subjects which, for various reasons, they were not able to cover today.

The purpose of the debate was to afford the Government an opportunity of hearing the views of the House on the various issues raised by the report. When my right hon. Friend opened the debate, he indicated the way in which the Government's mind was working on some of the issues. The right hon. Member for Wan-stead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) seemed to suggest that it was a ground for criticism that my right hon. Friend had not been more specific in indicating what the Government had in mind, but this is where the Government cannot win. If we had come to the House and said "This is what we propose to do" we would have been criticised—quite properly—for making up our minds in advance of the debate. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wan-stead and Woodford for indicating now that he was not thinking of that as a matter of criticism.

The Government came with an open mind and for that reason I am unable to give definitive answers to many of the questions put to me, particularly by the hon. and learned Member for Southport (Mr. Percival). I shall be happy to discuss these matters with him afterwards.

I add my tribute to those paid by the hon. and learned Members for Southport and for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) to the work of the Commission. I have been pleased to see Lord Pearson attending our debate. It is an exemplary Royal Commission report. It was careful and painstaking, it took adequate time to obtain the facts and it marshalled the arguments. That is exactly what we expect of a Royal Commission. That is its value and it has become an integral part of our governmental process.

It is inevitable that the process will attract some criticism and I am sure that the distinguished members of the Commission would hardly have expected to avoid criticism. I fear that that is an inevitable reward for those who give their time and talents to the service of the public. It would be surprising if. in the process, the Commission had not made some recommendations. Although we expect recommendations from such a body, we do not expect it to relieve politicians of the responsibility of taking the ultimate decisions, balancing the advantages and disadvantages, considering the groups who will gain and those who will lose and weighing the resources required for one purpose against those urgently needed for a different purpose. Those arc matters for the Government and, ultimately, for the House.

There has been some criticism of the Commission's terms of reference. Those who establish Royal Commissions cannot win. It is said either that the terms are so wide that what is invited is a general debate on a whole area of public interest, or that the terms are so narrow as to exclude something which the Commission might have wished to take into account. However, the Government have to take account of these issues in the whole context of the other matters raised.

And may I mention what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley)? We appreciate that those who campaign vigorously on behalf of specific categories of people are also those who complain in general about the interests of the disabled. Nobody knows better than those campaigners that we are discussing painful and heart-rendering priorities. My hon. Friend asked me to apologise for his absence. He explained that he arrived in this country only this morning and came here straight from the airport. Since he has not had a night's sleep, he is now remedying that situation. A number of other hon. Members have told me that for various reasons they could not wait until the end of the debate. I am sure the House will accept the difficulties that confront some Members on a Friday and I hope that those concerned will forgive me if I do not mention each of them specifically.

The report raises a number of issues not always connected by any readily discernible logic, except that they relate to the injured and handicapped. That is the fault of nobody but results from the fact that we are confronted with so many issues. Underlying what was said by the Royal Commission is the question of principle involving the relationship between compensation for physical misfortune through the law of tort and compensation through a system financed by the public.

How far should such compensation be paid by those whose fault led to the misfortune? How far should compensation be limited to those who can establish that they were the victims of that fault, or that in some way their injuries were related? I must be careful not to exclude the no-fault principle. These are the issues that face us. For example, how far do we wish to extend those categories both in respect of payers and recipients? Do we wish the bill to be met by those whose activities created the risk—perhaps together with those whom, economically, they can compel to share the burden, normally their customers? Do we wish the recipients to be only those whose misfortunes can be specifically laid at the door of somebody else, or should help extend to all those in need, irrespective of the cause?

I think that these matters can be discussed without anybody seeking to accuse those on one side of the argument of falling into the trap of generally believing that somebody else should pay. There is a respectable argument on both sides of the issue.

The Commission pointed out that for a number of reasons there is a move in the direction of relying more and more on social security. Its members pointed out that it would seem fairer to compensate all those in need rather than to distinguish between those whose needs do and those whose needs do not stem from a particular cause. The hon. and learned Members for Royal Tunbridge Wells and for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) gave a number of examples which showed that if one were to rely purely on tort some deserving cases would fall on the wrong side of the line. The Commission pointed out that it is sometimes unfair to brand somebody as a wrongdoer and ask him to bear the bill when his fault lay simply in not complying with a standard which the law makes artificially high for a specific purpose.

The Commission pointed out that the social security system is much more efficient because a higher proportion of the resources involved go to compensate the victims, and although there may have been some dispute over the figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South I do not think that they destroy his argument.

The Commission pointed also to the delays in the tort system. These factors were recognised by all those who took part in the debate, but I think that there is probably a philosophical difference between those who argued for the virtues of personal responsibility—the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford, the hon. and learned Member for Southport, the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) and the hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells, who were all on one side of the division; and on the other side my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent, South, and Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann), and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery.

I endorse the point of the hon. and learned Member for Southport that we should not make this philosophical division—it certainly exists, although probably it exists more as an argument about how much weight is attached to one consideration rather than to another—into a brick wall between the two sides. Clearly there are arguments on both sides, and equally clearly they are recognised by those who advance both arguments.

Perhaps the important thing is to resolve two problems, in so far as we can in general terms. First, how shall we try to ensure that there are no needy categories which are excluded from all help? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner), my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery gave a number of examples of that. I fear that when one responds to specific needs—all Governments do it, some more assiduously, perhaps, than others—there are bound to arise a number of anomalies and illogicalities. I think that the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford, although critical of the existing system, or lack of it, accepted that. It is difficult to start with an entirely clean sheet and try to bring in all the various categories which, over the years, have manifested their needs.

I do not believe that there is any one simple formula which will include everyone. And I take the point of the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire that we will never arrive at the stage of being able to compensate for every conceivable misfortune.

The other general problem is whether we are committed now to a parting of the ways, to opting inevitably for one side or the other. The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford referred to the anxieties of some of the disablement organisations. I do not believe that any decisions that we take at this stage commit us irrevocably to one path or the other for all issues and for all time. The Commission, however, took the view that one must retain the tort system, but that probably the publicly financed system will become for the moment, and perhaps for the future, the senior element in this partnership.

Some discussion—though rather less than I had expected—was devoted during the debate to the scheme relating to road accident liability, to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State adverted. I was asked by the hon. and learned Member for Southport whether the evidence of the British Insurance Association to the Commission of a scheme alternative to that which was recommended by the Commission was still open. The answer is that the Government are aware of it. It is one to be considered along with others and no one is ruling it out at the moment. The hon. and learned Member will forgive me, obviously, if I cannot say very much more than that.

As an alternative to that scheme, a great deal of attention has been given to the possibility of introducing strict liability within the system of tort. Obviously, there is a great deal which a number of hon. Members could have contributed if time had permitted. Certainly I shall be very happy to hear their views privately.

What is said by people such as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West, the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) in an intervention is that the law at the moment excludes too many categories on the ground that it was not anyone's fault that they were hurt, or that they could not produce the appropriate evidence, or that someone's recollection was dim, or that it was an illness of a form which had not yet been recognised.

That is the argument on one side. On the other side it is said that if one compensates these categories of people there will be a corresponding burden on someone. We were reminded of the anxieties of some people who have to compete in the commercial field—and admittedly they have to compete competitively—by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) and the hon. Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls).

We have consulted among industrialists. One of the problems at the moment is that industrialists themselves do not seem to be wholly agreed on this matter. Certainly in the field of responsibility for dangerous products, which are to be listed, it is interesting to see how many industrialists agree that there should be a form of responsibility, but we never met one who agreed that his product was dangerous. I have a feeling that we shall find it very difficult to produce a scheme which makes everyone happy.