We all know who will benefit most from RTA reforms – the spin is shameless.

Well, let us get one thing straight. Personal injury lawyers are quite right to describe as ‘deluded’ the notion that motorists will pay lower premiums as a consequence of the RTA reforms. The powerful insurance lobby is not generously funded to penetrate the heart of government for reasons of altruism. Any financial gains will be taken to profit – a fact of which Petty France is well aware even as it pretends otherwise.

In the spirit of the age, let us call it an ‘alternative fact’. So what of the small claims limit? Ministers may be cynical but they are not stupid. Hold out a doomsday scenario that will curb access to justice yet further and trigger tens of thousands of job losses – then beat a partial retreat and wait for the applause.

But the handclaps are slow, if they are audible at all. As Joshua Rozenberg wrote in these pages last week, where is the logic in absolving drivers and their insurers from the consequences of careless driving? And why should your right to pursue compensation for another person’s negligence be substantially curbed just because you happened to be sitting in a vehicle at the time?

Actually, we know why. So an insurance industry, which (doubtless coincidentally) has in the past given our governing party millions of pounds in donations, can pay bigger dividends. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.

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