At best, the word “generally” adds nothing to clause 3. At worst, it could mean that everything including the kitchen sink is thrown into litigation by defendants who are desperate to show that they are not liable for a particular tort. That could lead to additional costs and complexity, red herrings, satellite litigation and who knows what? I hope that the Minister will at least go so far as to say that the drafting of the clause could be improved. Having said that, I do not think its drafting could be improved; it simply needs to go. I therefore hope that he will agree to amendment 5 and sacrifice the clause. He would be losing only one clause out of the five. I am sure the Bill would be just as good with four clauses as with five.
I will not repeat what I have said in previous debates on the Bill, but the Minister has said at some stages that this is an attempt to change the law. In more candid moments elsewhere, he and the Lord Chancellor have indeed suggested that this is an attempt to skew the balance in personal injury litigation, particularly between employers and employees. An article in The Daily Telegraph has described the proposals as sending a
“blunt message to the trade union officials who bring thousands of negligence cases against employers every year”.
I do not know whether the Minister has ever been a member of a trade union or whether he is familiar with their work, but much of the unsung detailed work that they do on behalf of their members is exactly in this area of assisting with litigation against employers in meritorious cases, just as any other solicitor might do. Personal injury cases are not brought for fun or to make a political point. They are brought because there has been an injury and there is substantial evidence of negligence. We fear that the clause is designed to weaken the ability of those who have suffered injury at work—or elsewhere, but I suspect that it is primarily directed at injury at work—to take their cases to court, and that they will either not be able to bring those cases or will not succeed with them, despite their merit.
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