1) The Government’s Civil Liability Bill aims to crack down on fraudulent whiplash claims. Alongside this, the Government will make secondary legislative changes to raise the small claims track limit for personal injury from £1,000 to; a) £5,000 for Road Traffic Accident cases, and b) £2,000 for all other personal injury claims.
2) HM Opposition will oppose the intended increases of the small claims limit.
3) The Civil Liability Bill had committee stage in the Commons on 11 September 2018. Report stage is yet to be announced.

this is part of the package of measures the Government intends to introduce alongside the Civil Liability Bill. Current proposals would see an increase from £1,000 to £5,000 for road traffic accident-related personal injury claims and from £1,000 to £2,000 for other personal injury claims.

I oppose this move as I am concerned it will remove legal help from many people with genuine claims. The Government says this is a Bill to deal with whiplash, but changes to the limits are unrelated to whiplash or fraud and will also affect employment injury claims. I believe people who are injured should be able to get compensation and they need proper legal advice to do so.

I abstained from voting at the second reading debate of the Civil Liability Bill in the House of Commons. This was in the hope that the Government would rethink its proposals.

At committee stage, a number of amendments were tabled which aimed to change the Bill to ensure that genuine victims are not penalised. Unfortunately, the Government voted down all of these amendments. Unless the Government is willing to support these key changes, I intend to vote against the Bill at third reading.

More widely, I believe that all workers should have a safe work environment. The manifesto I stood on at the general election last year pledged to crack down on unscrupulous employers, including by strengthening safety-at-work inspections.