The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has called on Lord Young to recommend tighter regulation of claims management companies (CMCs) as part of his review of health and safety laws.

Senior figures from APIL held a face-to-face meeting with Lord Young of Graffham to offer advice on the review.

Young was selected to conduct the review, which will examine what the government described as the ‘growth of the compensation culture’, by prime minister David Cameron in June. He will report his findings directly to Downing Street during the summer.

In a submission to Young seen by the Gazette, APIL said it had ‘outstanding concerns’ about the rules governing regulation of CMCs. In particular, it said that the requirement for professional indemnity insurance should apply to CMCs ‘across the board’. APIL noted that vulnerable people can be left without protection if, for example, a CMC does not pass on a claim to solicitors within proper timelimits.

In its submission, APIL called for more controls over personal injury advertising, and blamed CMCs for the ‘explosion’ in TV and radio adverts over the past ten years, which it said had ‘done so much to generate misconceptions about the law and how it operates’.

It said ‘solicitors wishing to stay in business have often had little choice but to advertise themselves or to join together in their own marketing co-operatives’.

Young has indicated that he is considering recommending a ban on personal injury advertising.

APIL said that there was ‘no real need’ for people to use the services of CMCs at all. It said: ‘It seems anomalous that when commercial businesses are generally cutting costs by removing middle men, middle men have become an established feature of the personal injury landscape.’

The association added that a ‘generalised assault on health and safety’ as a way of curtailing what is perceived to be too much regulation was ‘aiming at the wrong target’. It said the key is to ensure that the existing regulations are applied accurately, and with ‘common sense’.

In its own submission to Young’s review, the Claims Council, which represents CMCs, said claims managers ‘promote access to justice’ by increasing awareness of the right to compensation.

Meanwhile, a report on claims management regulation released by the Ministry of Justice last week showed that there were 3,172 claims management businesses in March 2010, compared with only 2,004 in June 2008, a 58% rise. Turnover grew by only 32% in the same period, however, to £370m.

The report, written by Mark Boleat, former head of the MoJ’s claims regulator, said there was ‘little doubt’ that claims management companies had improved access to justice. However, Boleat said that ‘the increased "access to justice" has led to a belief in some quarters that compensation can be obtained when it is not properly due’.