Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2010

My Lords, I thank everyone who has spoken in this debate. I defend my noble friend the Chief Whip. All he was doing was reminding the House that we normally rise at around 7 pm on a Thursday. I do not think he was doing anything more than that. Indeed, I think that what he said has had some, perhaps rather minor, effect on the length of this debate. However, let us let us move on to the issues. I will try to be as quick as I possibly can, while trying to do justice to the comments and the questions that have been raised. We do not believe that these two proposals undermine the Jackson report or our consideration of it for longer-term reform. We are some way off—this could be true of the party opposite if it comes to power—from deciding which of the Jackson recommendations to support, which not to support and whether the report should be taken as a whole, as Sir Rupert himself believes it should. That will take any Government some time to decide. Decisions will be reached, and then time will have to be found for primary legislation. Not waiting for Godot, but waiting for Jackson really is not, I am afraid, an option in some of these cases. Why is it not an option? Frankly, in the case of both these orders, there is an urgency to do something about the problems with the current situation. With the greatest respect, it is quite wrong to say that the DBAs were introduced by the legislation that we passed last year. They existed already and were being used in employment tribunals. The problem with them was that claimants were being badly treated in some cases, I am afraid to say, by lawyers or by claim managers who took them to the cleaners because there was no regulation on the arrangements reached. That is why Parliament passed the relevant section of the Coroners and Justice Act last year. I had the pleasure of talking to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and other noble and learned Lords who were concerned about the phrasing of the Bill, as it was then, and I hope that we satisfied them to some extent. This is not the precursor of contingency fees. Sir Rupert Jackson is in favour of broader contingency fees, but that is a different issue that will have to be decided by the Government and legislated on if the Government decide to support it. This deals with a specific problem in employment tribunals. By passing that Bill, making it an Act, and putting these first regulations in place, we hope to regularise the position and make it impossible for claimants to be badly treated by lawyers in these cases.