Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I begin by raising one or two questions of a procedural nature. I am not clear whether I am speaking in the gap. My understanding is that there is virtually no precedent for the procedure that we have adopted today other than for one previous Law Commission Bill. It is not the least bit clear whether this is a Second Reading. My understanding is that it is not. We are considering a Second Reading in Committee. If it is in Committee, any noble Lord is entitled to speak without being on a speakers list, but I understand that there is a speakers list. Perhaps at a later stage either the Lord Chairman or my noble friend, if he has advice from the Clerk, could make the position clear. Further, in relation to the statement made by the Lord Chairman at the beginning, as I understand it a Second Reading will be moved in the Chamber in the normal way. I am not clear whether that will be debateable. Perhaps we can have some clarification on that. Presumably, there will then be Committee and Report stages later on. At the moment, there seems little precedent to clarify the position on any of this. However, on the assumption—it may be an heroic assumption—that I am speaking in the gap, perhaps I might raise one or two points. I first congratulate my noble friend on the helpful way in which he has had private discussions ahead of this meeting. I also congratulate those who prepared the documentation for the Bill, particularly the Explanatory Notes, with the excellent and helpful diagram. There is confusion, as my noble friend Lady Noakes implied, between the situation with the Bill and European legislation. Of course, we do not have a single market in insurance in the European Community. Consequently, some parts seem to be dealt with by directives and some parts by national legislation. That takes me a little wide of the remarks that I want to make, but I congratulate my noble friend and, indeed, the Treasury on arranging to get this Bill into the programme. It certainly would not normally get in, given the pressure on parliamentary time. The Bill is clearly very useful. It clarifies the position considerably, except in one respect. I discovered only this afternoon the massive tome that is the Law Commission and Scottish Law Commission report. At paragraph 10.29, it raises the question of whether courts should follow industry guidance and it says at paragraph 10.30 that there is confusion as to whether the courts follow industry guidance or not. Parliamentary counsel has drafted a provision saying: "““The insurer may not take advantage of any remedy provided for under this Schedule if, or to the extent that, it would be unreasonable to do so according to written guidance generally recognised by insurers providing the type of insurance in question””." That seeks to reconcile the position between codes of practice and legislation, which in many ways this seeks to avoid. Anyway, when I look at Schedule 1, I cannot find that particular clause, which appears to have been drafted but not included. If it is not included, this point seems still to be left in some confusion. I will be imposing on the tolerance of the Committee if I go on much longer. However, if this is going to be done in future—and there is a strong case for using this procedure on Bills of this kind—we need to be clear on what the procedure is.