Personal Injuries (NHS Charges) (Amounts) Regulations 2006

I am very grateful to the Minister for introducing the regulations. I am afraid that I had not heard the story of NARTRACC that the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has just raised. I add my concern to his. If the story is as he has described it, and I imagine that it is, we need some kind of public explanation of why that should have been the case and why someone who, if you like, helped the Government to sort out how the compensation scheme should work should not have either been thanked or compensated. I will now go back to what I was originally going to say. In principle, the regulations are good. The Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee commented on the fact that two government departments have worked side by side and hand in hand and the silo mentality, unusually, seems to have been in abeyance. We would all celebrate that, and I am delighted by it. It is relatively unusual, and it is great. That is the first thing. There are some issues that need to be addressed. Before that, I seek one clarification. In the report by the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, there is the conclusion that it would lead to roughly a 2 per cent all round premium increase for insurance. The Government’s Explanatory Notes, assuming we are going for option 3 rather thanoption 2, state that the increase will be 1.5 per cent. It would be helpful, given that there is an issue about the cost, to know whether the increase in insurance claims is 1.5 per cent or 2 per cent. I would be very glad to hear that straightforward clarification. I have two areas of concern, one of which the noble Earl, Lord Howe, has already raised. The concern is whether the employers’ liability compulsory insurance market can cope. Given the number of delays in the introduction of this because of the doubt as to whether that market could cope, what is the evidence that suggests that it can cope now? Why is it okay now, when there was a deliberately delay of a year because clearly there were worries about it? It would be good to see what the evidence might be and to hear from the Minister on that. In addition, there is the question of whether the CRU itself—irrespective of whether it should have been put out to tender—can cope with what is clearly going to be vastly increased amounts of business. Given the considerable delays in it at the moment, will it be able to tackle what seems to be a vastly increased role? If it will be dealing with all personal injury claims, which is what the regulations seem to suggest, there is a specific question in relation to cases where individuals who are not insured become liable and the extent to which the CRU is genuinely going to pursue them for these payments for the National Health Service. Or should those costs be borne by the public purse? There is a public policy question in relation to cases where the costs will not be picked up by insurers. My second issue of concern is rather different, and I want some kind of explanation. We are told that there will be indicative tariffs instead of compensation reflecting the actual cost of treatment. Those tariffs look reasonable and a new one is being introduced for ambulance costs of £159 per journey. I have done only a little private research on this, but it looks to me as if that figure is on the low side. How did the department reach that indicative cost? I am not entirely sure that I am convinced by indicative costs. Perhaps we should still look at compensation for the actual cost of the journey to the hospital. I imagine that the explanation is that it is simpler to do it by a tariff scheme, but I would still like to hear how the calculation was done, how the averages were arrived at and whether there will be a differential between different areas of the country. We know that the costs are very different; London and the south-east is considerably more expensive than the north-east and the north-west. This tariff scheme bears close examination. However, apart from those concerns and the serious concern raised by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I am delighted by the regulations.