Lord Young, the peer leading the Coalition Government’s review of the personal injury compensation system, while addressing the Conservative Party conference this week said, some personal injury lawyers offer “free lottery ticket where you win as you enter”.
Young said, he wanted to inject “common sense” in the personal injury claims system.
The peer who was one time a solicitor was so critical of some lawyers who advertise on TV aggressively promoting the “no win no fee” claims system.
Young said “We have all seen adverts in the newspapers, on radio and television, saying if you think you have a claim, come to us and if our solicitor agrees, you will walk away with a cheque for £500, just for putting in your claim.
“This is not access to justice- this is incitement to litigate. And it must stop”
In his report, Lord Young wants to impose tighter controls on “no win, no fee” claims advertising and speculative personal injury claims.
However, a report published by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) shows that nine out of every ten workers injured or made ill by their jobs never receive personal injury compensation, the idea that UK is gripped by a “
personal injury compensation culture” is nothing but a myth.
The number of personal injury claims against employers is going down every year and this has been the case for the last five years.
The TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “The hash reality for thousands of ill and injured workers is very different with most getting little if anything when things go wrong at work as a result of their employer’s negligence.”
Instead of wasting resources on the so called “no win no fee” advertising, Government attention and resources should be properly focused on improving health and safety standards to prevent negligent accidents from happening in the first place.
When an employee has been injured at work as a result of the employer’s negligence, the priority should be to voluntarily allow the
injured worker receive proper treatment and rehabilitation to help them recover quickly and return to work.
Where it is clear that the accident was caused by the negligence of the employers, there should be a mechanism to compel insurance companies to promptly accept liability to avoid building up expensive legal costs and clogging up courts.
Asiimwe Balinda
Personal injury lawyer