My reply follows in my next blog.
 |
31 July 2015
Dear Mr Bevan,
Uninsured Drivers Agreement 2015
Thank you for your email of
10 July about the new Uninsured Drivers Agreement between the Secretary of
State for Transport and the Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB). I am responding within our usual guidelines
for replying to members of the public which is 20 working days.
The new Agreement is the
product of several years’ discussion, serious consideration and negotiation
between this Department and the MIB. Turning to the substantive issues that you
have raised:
Your letter states that
clauses 8 (1) (a) and 9 of the new Agreement “are clearly not permitted under
European law”. You add that our
introduction of the phrase “knew or had reason to believe” in clause 8 is also
a breach of EU law. We take a different
view on each of these points and regard them as consistent with the provisions
of the consolidated EU Directive 2009/103/EC.
You refer the arbitration
procedure in clause 17 and consider it must have been unintentional that we set
no timescale for a claimant initiating a reference to an arbitrator. We do not agree that there is anything
defective with clause 17 and again consider it consistent with the Directive.
You refer to the
consultation which we undertook in 2013 with regard to EU law, the Vnuk judgment and the Court of Appeal
judgment in the Delaney case. We have examined the Vnuk judgment and are presently working on our implementation
options. We will consult before making
any changes and will ensure that your name will be included in the list of
consultees. We did not consider it
appropriate to delay the new Agreement following the Delaney judgment: we accepted that we were in breach of EU law and
wanted to ensure that we were compliant as soon as reasonably possible in order
to avoid infraction proceedings.
Finally, I would like to
reply to your point that we have ignored the advice given in response to our
consultation. Whilst we appreciate your
comments, it is important to stress that you were just one of a number of respondents
and we gave your response the same consideration we did for the others. Our intention is to have an Agreement which
is both in line with EU law and is workable for the MIB to implement.
Yours sincerely,
[Author’s name redacted]
No comments:
Post a Comment