Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2010

My Lords, like my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, I start by declaring some interests. I was so-called Head of Civil Justice. I say "so-called" because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, was really the Head of Civil Justice at the time of the implementation of his reforms and I attended many meetings with him with the officials of the Government of the day, discussing the issues of costs. As my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf has said, the success of his reforms was always going to be to some extent conditional on appropriate arrangements being made for costs in the civil justice system. I am also a Member of the Merits Committee, which has made a report on these two particular instruments, and as your Lordships have heard, I accompanied the Chairman of the Merits Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to the meeting with the Minister and the Secretary of State to which reference has been made. In order to deal with the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, the reason I was at that meeting was because I had taken some drafting points on the termination provisions in the damages-based agreement. It had seemed to me that they had not properly covered the questions of what remedies there would be for ordinary breaches of contract. An amendment had been made and the instrument was relaid because of it, but the view I took was that it did not go far enough and the main function of the meeting, I think, was to discuss further amendments to the rule which were then made, so it took the form in which it now stands. I do not recall anything at that meeting which really impinged on the issues that arise in connection with the conditional fee agreement order that is now before the House. The reason for that was that the Secretary of State made it quite clear that what we were discussing were drafting issues on, in particular—