Dr. Mark Cassidy:

The Deputy asked what we are planning in this regard. The information that we have published so far goes up to 2020, so it does not yet cover the impact of the personal injury guidelines. We have some tentative evidence. The Deputy mentioned the main evidence from PIAB, which suggests an initial average reduction in awards of 50%, which is extremely promising. These are early days, but the less promising evidence is that there has also been a reduction in the rate of acceptance of awards. Some of the early evidence is that with reduced awards, some claimants are less likely to accept them. I think that over time, these guidelines will bring good alignment of litigated and personal injury awards. These will be extremely useful. We do not have evidence of the impact on premiums. It will be a number of years before we can disentangle the impact precisely. We can look at the overall trend of premiums. Our data only extend to the end of 2020, but we have anecdotal data and data from alternative sources such as the CSO, which show that premiums continued to decline during 2021. From our current collection of data, which will relate to 2021, we will be able to compare settlement costs before and after the introduction of the new guidelines.

I concur with what Mr. Cross said. The UK does not have anything similar to the national claims information database, NCID. It does not have a comprehensive set of data to allow it to look at all elements of the claims process, premiums process and settlement channels, which will be extremely useful and will help us to see the impact that these guidelines will have on the market. Does that answer the Deputy's question?