The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has criticised the government for ignoring Law Commission recommendations to increase general damages in personal injury cases.

Responding to a Ministry of Justice consultation on the draft Civil Law Reform Bill, APIL said that ‘injured people will bear the brunt of the government’s failure to keep the law of damages up to date.’

APIL said that the government has not gone far enough in extending the list of people eligible to claim for bereavement damages under the Fatal Accidents Act. Under the MoJ proposals, parents will not be entitled to bereavement damages if a child is over 18.

APIL said that ‘the Westminster government should learn from its Scottish counterpart, where the system for awarding bereavement damages is much fairer to relatives.’

APIL president John McQuater said: ‘I am exasperated that the government has missed another opportunity to implement Law Commission recommendations from as far back as 1999, which said general damages in most cases should be increased by at least 50%. It is ironic that in her foreword to the consultation, [justice minister] Bridget Prentice says she is grateful to the Law Commission for its work in keeping the civil law up to date. Why, then, have these important recommendations yet to be implemented?

‘It goes against the natural order of things for parents to lose a child. The suffering they endure is the same no matter how old that child is and, when that child is killed through negligence, that compounds the suffering. It is absolutely wrong to suggest parents should not be entitled to bereavement damages if the child is over the age of 18. It suggests that when a child reaches that age, the suffering and pain parents feel will somehow be less than it would be for a younger child.

‘In Scotland there is no difficulty recognising the closeness between parents, grandparents, siblings and other people who lived with the deceased as part of a family. The law in England and Wales should offer bereaved people no less comfort than those in Scotland.’