Legal Services Bill [Lords]

Yes—and very generously in some cases. As a result, there was an avalanche of complaints not only about Mark Gilbert Morse but other firms as well, which were double-charging and therefore taking from people’s compensation. The highest proportion was 25 per cent. and the lowest was 3 per cent. Those firms were already being paid for all their costs. A succession of firms were doing that. As a Conservative Front Bencher mentioned, Thompsons Solicitors was in league with the Durham National Union of Mineworkers. As well as the scandal of double-charging, there is the scandal that poor advice was given to our constituents. There was poor advice not only in terms of how solicitor firms were dealing with their cases, but some companies were taking on claims and sausage-machining them, which is my term for doing nothing at all and not contacting their clients for long periods— for many years in some instances—while as the cases plodded through the system they were taking their cut. The greedy individuals involved could not be content with the generous fees paid by the Department of Trade and Industry, but they had also to raid the victims’ compensation. Somebody asked me why I keep going on about this matter. I do so because I feel very angry about how the legal profession has dealt with many of my constituents. I challenge anybody—such as Fiona Woolf, president of the Law Society—to come and meet my constituents, and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, who have put their faith in lawyers and have been cheated. I know that that is a strong word, but it is the only word that can be used to describe what has happened. I congratulate the Government on introducing the Bill, and also on having brought forward the Compensation Act 2006, which regulates a different area—that of claims handling. Again however, the claims handling industry could not have exploited many thousands of people without the collusion of the lawyers involved. Let me give an example to illustrate my point. People ask whether the companies I mention are merely back-street companies. No, they are not. They are companies such as Watson Burton, a solicitor firm in Newcastle. It sells itself as a big commercial law firm; it has a big banner at Newcastle airport. It went in league with a claims handling company called P and R Associates, which did nothing at all apart from getting people to fill in an application and then passing it on to Watson Burton. Watson Burton then deducted £325,000 from victims’ compensation and passed it to P and R Associates. I have challenged Watson Burton to explain the contractual relationship between the two companies, and it did not do so. Those companies should pay back that money, but they will not because they are adamant that somehow they were contractually obliged to do what they did. However, what they did not do was tell their clients that they did not have to go through middlemen in the first place.