Parliamentary Connections

Last week's meeting of the group seems to have generated some interest. Hardly surprising given the figures the Insurance Fraud Bureau unveiled about the rapid spread of staged motor accidents.
The message that came through to MPs was that innocent people are now exposed to thousands of these accidents every year and that this was the peg on which to hang a new approach to police and ministers to give investigating this type of insurance fraud a proper priority. At the moment, it is barely on their radar screen and the police tend to be dismissive as they believe the 'victims' in insurance fraud are the insurance companies. MPs at the group meeting felt this needed to be turned round and a sharper focus put on the third parties who are caught in these staged accidents that earn the fraudsters around £30 000 to £40 000 a time.

Fraud has been in the news this week following the release of the ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) report on The Nature, Extent and Economic Impact of Fraud.
This produced the headline grabbing figure of £20bn lost to fraud every year and brought home the impact of fraud – and the fear of fraud – is having on ordinary people. It is, the report made crystal clear, certainly not a "victimless crime" as often chracterised by police and Home Office in the past when pressed for a more focussed attack on fraud.
Earlier in the week, the chairman of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) spoke to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services and painted an equally grim picture about the extent of fraud. He admitted that even he found it hard to get the police engaged with the need to investigate fraud, although he was able to point to some examples of where police forces had worked with insurers to investigate insurance fraud.
The disappointing aspect to all of this is that there is little in the way of plans for concerted action. ACPO have called for the establishment of a National Fraud Reporting Centre (which is a recommendation the Home Office is looking at already) but all this can do is depress us further. We all know that the £20bn figure is an under-estimate, probably a serious under-estimate, but knowing for certain that the real figure is much higher doesn't seem to get us alot further forward.
What we need is some fresh calls for action to curtail fraud and catch the fraudsters as part of a fully fledged National Fraud Strategy. This requires a whole raft of measures: more funding for Fraud Squads, the designation of one or two police forces to take the lead nationally on fraud (the City of London Police already does some of that) and the creation of targets for catching fraudsters and eliminating fraud.
The government is committed to publishing its response to the consultations to the Fraud Review published last year on Thursday next week (15 March). Is it too optimistic to hope for some real, tough measures to be proposed as part of that?

Labour’s plans to split the Home Office in two by creating a fully fledged Ministry of Justice out of the existing Department of Constitutional Affairs has all the hall marks of a classic “act in haste, repent at leisure” political manoeuvre.
This latest Whitehall shake-up seems to have started life as a reaction to the perceived failings of the Home Office in a whole range of areas from prison management to counter-terrorism. Few people seem to doubt that the Home Office’s present portfolio is rather too bloated. What made sense in the 19th century, no longer looks workable in the 21st century and it probably ahs become impossible for one government department to sensibly mage everything that currently falls under the Home Office’s remit.
Accepting the basic premise that reform is needed is one thing but agreeing the way forward is quite another. These are complex, sensitive political and constitutional areas that are woven into the very fabric of what we understand as British society. Issues such as the independence of the judiciary are not to be tampered with lightly. Yet, reform is being rushed through with indecent haste.
Within weeks we will have a Ministry of Justice, replacing the Department of Constitutional Affairs as the government rushes ahead. It feels pleased with itself that it has found a way of implementing these reforms without the need for legislation. It should wipe that smug grin off its face. Sweeping changes to such well established institutions need the harsh glare of Parliamentary scrutiny turned on them.
Some way down the agenda from the huge constitutional concerns about the independence of the judiciary must come a raft of worries in the insurance industry and legal profession about the implications of the change for many of the constant dialogues they have with the Home Office’s legal departments. It is easy to dismiss these as detailed concerns of a narrow group of people but, frequently, they affect millions of policyholders. You only have to look back at some of the issues that have come up in recent years such as debates about the costs of after the event insurance or the implications of rulings on asbestosis liabilities to understand the potential human impact of getting major departmental changes wrong.
Almost everyone acknowledges that the Home Offices needs major reform and that its role needs to be more focussed so there is already a following wind. Why not take a few months longer just to make sure that nothing has been overlooked and that the proper constitutional safeguards are in place to everyone’s satisfaction?