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The reforms benefit nobody other than the Insurance industry.
Lord ( overly ) Keen, if your government genuinely was concerned about reducing motorists’ insurance premiums then it would not have increased insurance premium tax twice in the last couple of yearr months; a measure which increased each motorist’s premium over and above £40.

It is factual that your party has a long standing financial relationship with insurance companies. According to an investigation by the Guardian, financial firms with insurance interest have given your party over £5.4 million in the last decade, with £4.9 million of that post-dating 2005.

In September 2009, Mr Peter Wood, the founder of Direct Line, gave Mr Chris Grayling, then shadow home secretary, £71,000 to ‘’run his office’’.
In 2013, Mr Grayling introduced a raft of measures, embodied within LAPSO, that saw legal costs slashed in relation to all personal injury claims, including the abolishment of recoverable success fees and ATE Premiums.

Mr Keen, just like you, Mr Grayling represented to the general public that all the savings the Insurance Companies made would be passed onto the general public. Insurance premiums of course, just like they will in 2018 and beyond, went up without any accountability.

It is perhaps worth bearing in mind that Public Ministers must adhere to a Ministerial Code, which embodies the following in its 2015 format:

7.7: Ministers must scrupulously avoid any danger of an actual or perceived conflict of interest between their Ministerial position and their private financial interests. They should be guided by the general principle that they should either dispose of the interest giving rise to the conflict or take alternative steps to prevent it. In reaching their decision they should be guided by the by the advice given to them by their Permanent Secretary and the independent advisor on Ministers’ interests. Ministers’ decisions should not be influenced in the hope or expectation of future employment with a particular firm or organisation.

7.20 It is a well-established and recognised rule that no Minister should accept gifts, hospitality or services from anyone which would, or might appear to, place him or her under an obligation.

Mr Keen, sadly, it could be said that the evidence suggests that the reforms are in effect a quid pro quo to your insurer friends in return for their multi-million pounds’ worth of donations to your party. It is an insult to the legal world's collective intelligence to raise the counter argument that insurers have ‘’ promised’’ to pass on their colossal heightened profits to motorists but for the avoidance of doubt let’s examine this issue further:

• October 2003: Predictive costs regime was introduced for RTA Claims: result = car insurance premiums went up.
• April 2010: The MOJ Portal System went live: result = car insurance premiums went up.
• April 2013: LAPSO was enacted. This resulted in Portal Fees being reduced and ATE/Success fees being abolished: result = car insurance premiums went up.
• July 2013: Fixed fees introduced for litigated Personal Injury cases: result = car insurance premiums went up.
• 2014—the Court Issue fees were increased: result = car insurance premiums went up.
• April 2015- Medco was introduced along with fixed fees for experts: result: car insurance premiums went up.


In crux: you are decimating the entire nation’s access to justice based on a promise that, if history teaches us anything, everyone knows will be broken.

On her first day in office, Prime Minister Theresa May said this:

‘’When we make the big calls we’ll think not of the powerful but you (ordinary working people), when we pass new laws we’ll listen not to the mighty but to you.’’

When it comes to civil justice, there is no bigger call than this. I ask with respect that you give genuine contemplation to just how much injustice will be caused by the reforms and that you side with UK Citizens.

Please stop and think about matters such as injured children, injured elderly persons who cannot use computers, injured policemen and woman in RTAs etc et, all of whom will have no access to legal representation should their general damages be worth less than 5k ( over 95% of cases ).

Your observation that a Judge has the power to allocate a case of sufficient complexity to a different court track overlooks that this only happens once Court Proceedings have been issued; long before that juncture the overwhelming majority of lay persons will have either abandoned or under-settled their cases.

The reality is that laypersons will never be able to adequately run Personal Injury cases themselves.

The RTA system that we already have in place has more than safeguards systems within it to prevent fraudulent and exaggerated claims. All that is realistically needed is

1. A ban on pre-medical offers;
2. A ban all Claims Management Companies;
3. Make cold calling illegal.

and real and fair progress will have been made.

In terms of any concerns you may have re Whiplash, the reality such that insurance companies can and invariably always do allege that persons have not been injured in RTA cases when they have evidence to that effect. They are known as LVI ( low velocity impact ) Defences. There is a protocol distinct for these type of cases, with a Claimant having to disclose the entirety of their medical records in order that an insurer can ascertain the veracity of a claim.

Please also take heed that legal costs have already been fixed at incredibly low levels: £500 for a case that settles within the RTA Portal ranging to £2655 plus 20% of damages for cases that go all the way to a Trial.

Please also take heed that the system as it already stands means that if a Judge finds that a Claimant has in any way exaggerated their claim, then the Claimant will lose 100% of their damages and be ordered to pay all of the Defendant’s legal costs.

In other words, there are already massive risks/disincentives to any Claimant who tries his/her luck in running a fraudulent or exaggerated claim.

Whilst the general public are apathetic at the moment (since they do not understand the ramifications as to what you are doing), once these reforms come in you cause so much injustice on a national scale that the backlash will be seismic. You will be a minister for Injustice.