The role and the very existence of All Party Groups is back in the headlines with yesterday's report in The Guardian on the links - disclosed and undisclosed - between many groups and lobbying firms, trade associations and commercial interests and the large sums of money that seem to surround some groups, especially those with an overseas dimension.

This story isn't new - The Times did a very similar exposé in January 2006 and The Guardian first picked it up it in February 2011.

As everyone who reads this blog knows, I have been involved in running the All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services (APPGIFS) since it was launched over 20 years ago. The Guardian, like The Times before it, makes some good points and I have alot of sympathy with the growing calls for reform. However, we do have to be careful not to fall into the obvious traps of assuming that every group has a raft of secret funders or a specific lobbying agenda. The APPGIFS certainly doesn't.

Let's get the facts about the group on the table. Incisive Media is not a lobbyist. It is a publishing company. We initiated the group 21 years ago through one of our publications, Post Magazine, the leading weekly magazine for the UK insurance industry. The group has always been run on a strictly neutral basis and we frequently invite critics of the insurance industry to speak to the group so that MPs get a balanced view of every issue. We have continued this policy as we have broadened the scope of the group's activities to cover other retail financial services sectors.

Our mission has always been to provide a channel for more effective communication between an important service sector and Parliament. The benefit to us – and there is one – is to be at the heart of the political debate on many crucial issues affecting our readers. There are no hidden funders.

PriceWaterhouse Coopers has acted as technical consultant to the group for most of the time the group has been running but there is no financial link. PWC's briefings cover all aspects of the issues the group debates in a neutral and even-handed manner. It also produces minutes of the open meetings, one of the sensible proposals for reform put forward by The Guardian yesterday. These minutes and briefings are published.

No-one pays us or PWC for access to the group. Where companies, trade bodies and others want to meet the group privately over breakfast, lunch or dinner they make all the arrangements and pay for them: we just invite the members on their behalf.

We have tried to be as transparent as possible and for some years have made as much more information about the group available online than required by the current rules. This includes a full membership list (not just the 20 you are are required to publish to register a group), details of the group's meetings, including which companies have invited the group's members to private lunches or dinners, relevant briefing papers and minutes of meetings.

All of the meetings in the House of Commons are open to anyone to attend and there are frequently over a dozen people in the public seats at meetings freely observing the proceedings. When we have faced requests from organisations presenting to the group at these meetings for the sessions to be closed we have resisted them.

The group does not have any external members. This is the Associate Parliamentary Group status that The Guardian refers too and which, I believe, causes many of the problems. We have frequently been approached by companies and other organisations to open up the membership to external groups, many offering to pay to 'support' the group. This route has never attracted us. We have happily worked with other groups run on this basis but have always felt one of the strengths of our group is its neutrality and its lack of corporate funding or direct industry linlks.

Personally, I think it would be helpful if the Associate Parliamentary Group status was abolished. That would leave us with groups like the APPGIFS which just has members from the House of Commons and House of Lords. But they still need someone to administer them. Why you may ask?

In an ideal world MPs would run such groups themselves. You could argue that if they are sufficiently interested in a topic they could get together, set-up a group and invite people to come and meet that group. This isn't going to happen for a variety of reasons. Probably top of the list is that MPs (even more so Peers) simply do not have the administrative resources to take on something like this. We underfund our Parliamentary representatives and expect them to do far too much with very limited resources. They also do not have the depth and range of contacts with an industry that an organisation that is part of that industry has.

So, you inevitably end up with external support for groups. The challenge is to stop that being provided by firms, trade associations or lobbyists pressing just a narrow range of views on the relevant issues.

The answer lies in a major overhaul of the rules.

• The Associate Parliamentary Group status should be scrapped as it is too open to abuse and causes confusion
• Full membership lists should be published
• A requirement for a minimum number of open meetings per session should be introduced
• Meetings should be minuted and the minutes published
• Details of all administrative support and the basis on which it is provided should be published, if appropriate with an estimate of the cost of providing that support
• Full details of additional benefits available to members of the group should be published
• A mechanism for independent review of any decision by a group to limit access to its meetings should be set-up.

Some people may by now be wondering whether it wouldn't be better just to abolish the whole All Party Group concept as it seems to be open to so much potential abuse. I think this would be an over-reaction and would risk losing a demonstrably valauble channel of communication with Parliament. Over the years, the APPGIFS has proved there is a need and a role.

Its recent work on referral fees, whiplash claims and the cost of motor insurance illustrates that value. The Transport Select Committee was looking at these issues too but the inquisitorial, often confrontational, modus operandi of the select committees can sometimes miss vital details and the subtle nuances of an issue. The APPGIFS was able to very effectively complement this work and provide MPs with a more rounded understanding of the issues.

Going back to the early days of the group – in the week of the 20th annivesrary of the Baltic Exchange IRA bomb (pictured) – it was instrumental in bringing insurers, major property owners and ministers together to initiate the dicussions that led to the creation of Pool Re. A review of the work of the group over its first 20 years which I wrote last year provides plenty of additional evidence of the value of effective, neutral and transparent All Party Groups.

Reform, yes. Effective transparency, by all means. Independent review, certainly. But please be careful not to throw away something valauble in a fit of over-enthusiastic cleansing.

The latest newsletter on the activities of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services is now avaialble and can be downloaded here APPG newsletter no 32

It reviews the work of the group on referral fees and whiplash claims and the implications of gender equality as well as previewing the forthcoming meetings on Solvency II.

If you wouldlike further information on the group's activities please go to the Programme page or contact Jonathan Swift.

Minutes from recent meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services are now available on the group's pages in their new home within the Post Online site. They cover meetings on referral fees and the cost of motor insurance and the implications of the European court's ruling prohbiting the use of gender as a rating factor in insurance.

The minutes are prepared by the group's long-standing technical consultants PricewatrehouseCoopers.

Rarely – indeed, possibly never – has the insurance industry emerged so triumphant from discussions with government. It has certainly never so comprehensively trounced the legal profession as it did last week at the 10 Downing Street summit on whiplash claims and rising motor insurance costs.

The six point plan drawn up at the end of the meeting was that drawn up by the Association of British Insurers, making no concessions to the legal, and especially the claimant, perspective. The ABI and the major insurers present at the meeting have been admirably restrained but they must be cock-a-hoop at the progress they made in their one hour with the Prime Minister. There are aspects of the agreement that place obligations on insurers but they expected that and those commitments around developing telematics, young drivers and fighting more claims have been drawn up in a way that the insurance industry will be comfortable with. It will prove a game changer as I predicted in the run-up to the meeting.

Of course, the legal lobby is reeling from this huge snub and several commentators have already highlighted the extent of the humiliation this represents for the Law Society and the other lobbying groups within the legal profession. Quite simply, in Mr Cameron's eyes lawyers have become part of the problem and have therefore forfieted the right to be consulted on the solution. This is very much part of Mr Cameron's style. We have seen it today with the exclusion of major organisations including the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing from the Downing Street summit on the NHS reforms. the Prime Minister is getting impatient on several fronts and is only interested in talking to people he believes can take the policies he supports forward.

I'll freely admit that I am no great fan of claimant lawyers as a group. There are many who do a fine job in representing vulnerable people with geniune claims against large institutions and vested interests but, as a group, they have allowed themselves to become too closely associated with ambulance chasing, with persuading people to make claims when they originally had no intention of doing so and of exploiting the greater awareness of health and safety for all it is worth and to the detriment of society as a whole. That image has now cost them dear and will continue to do so unless they wake up to the problem.

That said, I don't think it is very clever of the Prime Minister to have these one-sided summits on any issue. I believe that you usually end up with better legislation if you listen to all parties. This doesn't always mean you make alot of changes: sometimes just by involving so-called opponnets in shaping a solution they come to share that solution.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services will be continuing the work it started during the autumn session looking at some of the many issues around the cost of motor insurance, referral fees, whiplash claims and fraud.

Two of the biggest Parliamentary influences in this debate have been the Transport Select Committee and former Cabinet minister Jack Straw's bid to ban referral fees. Next Tuesday the group will be meeting Mr Straw and the chair of the Transport Select Committee, Louise Ellman as it bids to bring together the different strands of this key debate.


Tuesday, 17 January at 4.30pm in Room B, 1 Parliament Street
 
The Transport Select Committee: The Cost of Motor Insurance
What will happen next following the publication of the report on 12 January 2012?

Confirmed speakers
Louise Ellman MP, chair of the Transport Select Committee
Rt Hon Jack Straw MP


We have also confirmed the details of the following two meetings

Tuesday 31 January, 4.30pm, Room S, Portcullis House

Pricing challenges in motor insurance in 2012 and beyond
The impact of the ban on gender as a price differentiator and making motor insurance affordable for young drivers

Confirmed speakers
Mike Brockman, founder and joint CEO, Insure the Box
Richard King, CEO, Ingenie
Grant Mitchell, head of motor insurance, Co-operative Insurance
Adrian Webb, head of corporate communications, esure & Sheilas' Wheels

Tuesday 21 February, 4.30pm, Room S, Portcullis House

The role of medical experts in personal injury disputes
Countering the myth that whiplash diagnoses are always delivered by third rate doctors, in the pay of claims management companies or personal injury lawyers

Confirmed speakers
Dr Simon Margolis, CEO and Donald Fowler, MD of Premex Group
Dr John Canning, Chair of the Professional Fees Committee, British Medical Association

These meetings are open to members of the public but accommodation is sometimes limited.

One of the most striking outcomes of yesterday's discussion on referral fees at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services was the lukewarm support from the Labour frontbench for Jack Straw's strident campaign to ban fees.

John Woodcock, Labour's new shadow transport minister (right), was less than enthusiastic about an outright ban: "What troubles me is how do you avoid over-correcting? Clearly there is a broken marketplace but we need to ensure that we retain access to legal advice for people who need it". This view was succinctly echoed by Chris Shaw, commcercial director of AI Claims who was presenting to the group: "We need more of a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer".

This seems a far cry from Mr Straw's call for an outright, all-embracing ban on referral fees in his Motor Insurance Regulation Bill. This features five key provisions:

• to make it unlawful and a criminal offence to solicit, offer, or pay referral fees relating to a personal injury traffic claim
• to introduce objective evidence for whiplash claims
• to half the Ministry of Justice fixed fee for road traffic claims pursued through the portal
• to prohibit insurers from isolating risk on the basis of a geographic area smaller than a region
• to bring forward certain provisions in Data Protection Act.

Jonathan Evans, chairman of the group, said that his belief is that most MPs feel that the £1200 flat fee for cases coming through the electronic portal is far too high and that there is a consensus emerging around the call in Mr Straw's bill to cut that by 50%. He was far more cautious about the proposal to criminalise the taking or offering of referral fees but warned that "unless there is a move to take unjustified cost out of the system people will continue to press for drastic action".

One area he suggested could benefit from closer scrutiny was the credit hire business which he alleged pushed up costs and incentivised repairers to take too long through practices such as booking in vehicles on Fridays. He also called for an investigation into allegations that the police may be passing on information from accidents for money.

Clearly, this debate has a long way to run. Many people instinctively feel that referral fees are wrong and have added unnecessarily to motor insurance claims costs. They certainly seem too high and are often paid indiscriminately for large amounts of data with very little justification by any test of public benefit. The challenge is going to be to find precisely where to wield Mr Shaw's scalpel if the market is to avoid Mr Straw's sledgehammer crashing down on it.

One of the other elements of Mr Straw's campaign - a crackdown on whiplash claims - is the topic for the next meeting of the group:

Tuesday 15 November, 4.30pm. Portcullis House, Room N
A new consensus for tackling whiplash culture in the UK
• Can the insurance industry agree on how diagnosis, claims and treatment could be changed?
• Is there a better way?
Speakers: Andy Wigmore, on behalf of Health and Case Management
Prof Sir Mansel Aylward (TBC)  

One of the most striking outcomes of yesterday's discussion on referral fees at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services was the lukewarm support from the Labour frontbench for Jack Straw's strident campaign to ban fees.

John Woodcock, Labour's new shadow transport minister (right), was less than enthusiastic about an outright ban: "What troubles me is how do you avoid over-correcting? Clearly there is a broken marketplace but we need to ensure that we retain access to legal advice for people who need it". This view was succinctly echoed by Chris Shaw, commcercial director of AI Claims who was presenting to the group: "We need more of a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer".

This seems a far cry from Mr Straw's call for an outright, all-embracing ban on referral fees in his Motor Insurance Regulation Bill. This features five key provisions:

• to make it unlawful and a criminal offence to solicit, offer, or pay referral fees relating to a personal injury traffic claim
• to introduce objective evidence for whiplash claims
• to half the Ministry of Justice fixed fee for road traffic claims pursued through the portal
• to prohibit insurers from isolating risk on the basis of a geographic area smaller than a region
• to bring forward certain provisions in Data Protection Act.

Jonathan Evans, chairman of the group, said that his belief was that most MPs feel that the £1200 flat fee for cases coming through the electronic portal is far too high and that there was a consensus emerging around the call in Mr Straw's bill to cut that by 50%. He was far more cautious about the proposal to criminalise the taking or offering of referral fees but warned that "unless there is a move to take unjustified cost out of the system people will continue to press fro drastic action".

One area he suggested could benefit from closer scrutiny was the credit hire business which he alleged pushed up costs and incentivises repairers to take too long through practices such as booking vehicles in on Fridays. He also called for an investigation into allegations that the police may also be passing on information from accidents for money.

Clearly, this debate has a long way to run. Many people instinctively feel that referral fees are wrong and have added unnecessarily to motor insurance claims costs. They certainly seem too high and are often paid indiscriminately for large amounts of data with very little justification by any test of public benefit. The challenge is going to be to find precisely where to wield Mr Shaw's scalpel if the market is to avoid Mr Straw's sledgehammer crashing down on it.

One of the other elements of Mr Straw's campaign - a crackdown on whiplash claims - is the topic for the next meeting of the group:

Tuesday 15 November, 4.30pm. Portcullis House, Room N
A new consensus for tackling whiplash culture in the UK
• Can the insurance industry agree on how diagnosis, claims and treatment could be changed?
• Is there a better way?
Speakers: Andy Wigmore, on behalf of Health and Case Management
Prof Sir Mansel Aylward (TBC)  

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Insurance & Financial Services will continue its autumn programme with meetings covering a range of topical issues, starting with the highly contentious topic of referral fees on 25 October.

Tuesday 25 October, 4.30pm. Portcullis House, Room M
Referral fees - What next?
• Will a ban succeed in the objective of reducing costs/motor premiums
• How can a ban be best policed/regulated?
Confirmed speaker: David Sandhu - Chief Executive Officer, AI Claims Solutions

Tuesday 15 November, 4.30pm. Portcullis House, Room N
A new consensus for tackling whiplash culture in the UK
• Can the insurance industry agree on how diagnosis, claims and treatment could be changed?
• Is there a better way?
Speakers: Andy Wigmore, on behalf of Health and Case Management
Prof Sir Mansel Aylward (TBC)

Tuesday 29 November, 4.30pm. Portcullis House, Room R
Payment Protection Insurance Claims and Beyond
• An update from the Financial Ombudsman Service
Confirmed speaker: Natalie Ceeney, Chief Executive and Chief Ombudsman, Financial Ombudsman Service

All of these meetings are open to the public although accommodation in the Portcullis House meetings rooms can be limited. Anyone attending should arrive early to allow time to pass through the security checks.

For further information on the All Party Group please contact:

Jonathan Swift
020 7316 9321
jonathan.swift@incisivemedia.com

David Worsfold
020 7316 9282
david.worsfold@incisivemedia.com