Young was taking questions a couple of hours after his report on the ‘compensation culture’, Common Sense, Common Safety, was released. The report itself does not contain many surprises; it had been leaked heavily over the past month. More surprising were the inconsistencies within the report, and between report and accompanying sound bites.

‘The problem of the compensation culture prevalent in society today is one of perception rather than reality,’ the report states. If that is his belief, why did Young say at Friday’s press conference that compensation was ‘a cash cow for lawyers and referral agencies’? Why, at the Conservative party conference, did he speak of being ‘ashamed’ of the advertising done by personal injury firms; and why did David Cameron talk last week about ‘the spectre of lawyers only too willing to pounce with a claim for damages on the slightest pretext’?

Young continued the theme of contradiction into the questions session. I asked him if he thought claimants would be less aware of their right to claim compensation if the volume of personal injury advertising were controlled, as he suggested it should be.

‘I am not seeking to control the amount of personal injury advertising, only the content,’ he replied.

Another journalist perked up immediately: ‘You say on page 21 that you would like to see controls over "both the volume of advertising that such companies produce, and also the content of these adverts." So are you now saying that you don’t want to control volume?’ Unfortunately, Young’s cagey reply didn’t bring us any closer to an answer.

Another of Young’s key recommendations is to extend the use of the road traffic accident claims process to other spheres of personal injury. This is a giant stride, considering that the process was only launched in April, and that the claims portal – the information technology integral to the working of the process – suffered numerous technical problems. Young brushed this aside: ‘It had a few teething problems,’ he said.

As we filed out of the room, there were a few mumblings between journalists about ‘direction’.

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