These amendments relate to the date of knowledge provisions in Part 2 of the Bill. Before I address the substance of the amendments, I wish to issue a clarification regarding a statement I made in the previous sitting on Tuesday evening. I said that, while 94% of service personnel already bring their claims within the relevant time,
“it must be the case that many of the remaining 6% will come under the state of knowledge provisions”—[Official Report, 9/3/21; col. 1596.]
Your Lordships may recollect that that issue came up in the course of submissions by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. In fact, we assessed that the 94% figure relates to claims brought by service personnel and veterans within six years of either the date of incident or the date of knowledge. We will endeavour to educate service personnel and veterans about these new provisions to ensure that more, if not all, claims are made within the new time limits in future.
I now move to the amendments in this group, which would increase the time period which runs from the date of knowledge for Human Rights Act claims from 12 months to six years. They would also change how limitation time periods are calculated by allowing claims to run only from the date of knowledge and not also from the date of the act or incident.
The date of knowledge provisions in Part 2 are an important aspect of the Bill. Because we are introducing hard time limits for certain claims, it is right that the longstop period can start from the date of knowledge. Of course, the Limitation Act 1980 already includes a date of knowledge provision which works, and we should not be amending that in this instance. However, the Human Rights Act does not have such a provision. We are therefore seeking to mitigate any unfairness that might arise from the imposition of a hard time limit by allowing claims to be brought late if the date of knowledge is later than the date of the incident.
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The time period, which runs from the date of knowledge provision, is 12 months for Human Rights Act claims, because this mirrors the primary limitation period that already exists for Human Rights Act claims. We should consider why the primary limitation period for Human Rights Act claims is one year, as opposed to three years for personal injury claims, as we have heard already from the noble Lord, Lord Hendy. I believe that this is because it was considered, at the time, that 12 months was a sufficient period to bring a Human Rights Act claim. Your Lordships will recollect the submission of the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, on what these claims, as opposed to claims in tort, tend to involve. We feel that in situations where the date of knowledge provision is engaged because knowledge is gained later than the date of the incident, 12 months provides enough time to bring such a claim. Claimants will still have at least six years from the date of the incident to bring a claim if they are able to persuade the court that it is fair and equitable in all the circumstances to extend the primary limitation period of 12 months.
While I accept all that the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, had to say about the potential difficulties of such claims, and while I acknowledge all the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas
of Gresford, about the provenance of such claims and the fact that they might arise from people in the theatre of operations, nevertheless these are circumstances with which the courts are familiar. All noble Lords who have spoken, including the lawyers, have considered that limitation periods are necessary. They are accepted throughout the world in all legal systems, because finality in litigation is desirable. Those speaking in support of the Bill differ from those on this side only in saying where the line should be drawn.
These amendments also propose changing the date of knowledge definition. We consider that the definition in Clause 11 is comprehensive and fair both to claimants and to the Ministry of Defence. It does not replicate Section 14 of the Limitation Act 1980, because parts of the definition there do not make sense in the context of Human Rights Act claims. For example, in Human Rights Act claims, it is not necessary to show that a significant injury has been sustained as the result of an act or an omission alleged to constitute negligence. Similarly, these changes would add a new element to the date of knowledge definition—
“knowledge … of the manifestation of harm—"
that does not work in the context of Human Rights Act claims, where a victim simply needs to show a causal link between an unlawful act of a public authority and the resulting adverse outcome.
Lastly, these amendments would remove the date of incident or act as a reference point and rely only on the date of knowledge for calculating the limitation period. The date of knowledge would already be the relevant point in time for the limitation period to start from situations where knowledge arises after the date of the incident or act.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, acknowledged that these matters will arise in the special context of overseas operations, and I maintain what I said earlier about the difference between that and the domestic context, which is more familiar. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, referred to aspects of Tuesday’s debate on Amendment 29, as have others, and to the Government’s justifications for arguing against that. I gratefully accept the noble and learned Lord’s invitation to write to him on the legal basis upon which that argument was founded rather than taking up the time of the House with an amendment that we discussed on Tuesday.
For all the reasons I have advanced, I recommend that the amendment is withdrawn at this stage.