The government and the opposition have hinted that they would implement some of Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations on civil litigation costs, following the first parliamentary exchange on the judge’s report since its publication a month ago.

Justice secretary Jack Straw said: ‘Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals… are designed to reduce the costs of civil litigation overall. Those costs have risen too high, and that is a bar to proper access to justice.’ He said that the government is ‘actively assessing’ the proposals.

Shadow justice minister Henry Bellingham hailed the report as a ‘remarkable magnum opus’ and highlighted Jackson’s criticism of referral fees and the practices of claims management companies.

Neither the current nor any post-election government is obliged to implement the recommendations made in the report, which was commissioned by the then Master of the Rolls Sir Anthony Clarke, rather than the Ministry of ­Justice.

Straw said that the government is examining ‘with great care’ Jackson’s key proposal to replace conditional fees with contingency fees. ‘Part of the problem concerning the burden on the civil legal aid fund and the public purse from, for example, actions for medical negligence are the costs of litigation. Those are in nobody’s benefit, except those who directly benefit,’ he said.

Paul Rowen, Liberal Democrat MP for Rochdale, said that ‘ordinary men and women’ will lose out if the proposals, especially those on litigation costs for industrial personal injuries, are implemented. Straw denied this.

Bellingham asked Straw for a ‘cast-iron guarantee’ that there will be ‘no special exemptions or cosy deals for the trade unions’ when it comes to referral fees and claims management matters. Straw said: ‘I am not intending that there should be any cosy deals with anybody in the implementation of the report. I fully understand the objections raised by Lord Jackson about referral fees. We have to look at all the recommendations in the round and make judgments in the round, not least after the economic assessment that we are making at the moment.’

The publication of Jackson’s report last month followed a yearlong review of civil case costs. Jackson recommended that success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums should no longer be paid by the losing party in personal injury cases, and instead be replaced with contingency fees. Winning parties should receive a 10% uplift in their damages award to compensate, Jackson recommended, and solicitors’ success fees should be capped at 25% of damages. Jackson also said that lawyers should not be allowed to pay referral fees for personal injury cases.