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All of the issues raised in the comments so far lead to one conclusion that the ill thought out proposals will set the tort of negligence back over 100 years for certain types of negligence and there is no socioeconomic benefit. Claimant practitioners will suffer and defendant practitioners will suffer together with the support staff and those employed by businesses supplying services and products to the market. Most unfortunately it will be those that are injured that will suffer the greatest.

Whilst the decision may well be a matter of public policy what is the benefit to the nation? Well, a pie in the sky promise that motor insurance premiums will be reduced by about £50 but hey ho, the government is not even going to monitor whether any such saving to the public will be made. This is simply profiteering for insurers through legislation. Legal costs have been controlled since predictive costs were implemented in 2003 and have not increased since. Hourly rates may have but the vast majority of the cases that may be removed from the process due to these proposals would have fallen within the PDC regime.

Since 2003 there may well have been more claims but guess what, there are more vehicles on the road and more miles being travelled with the inevitable consequence that more incidents are likely to arise.

Last year the ABI reported an 'underwriting loss' of, I think £27m and the year before it was a loss £53m. However, that does not take into account other revenue streams from the motor book of insurance. So what what does that mean? £2bn saving equals a £2bn increase in profits for the insurers. Well done Mr C! It is disgraceful.

As for lazy journalism, I have seen a number of reports on the BBC and not one of them has looked at true picture in terms of the whole market. The programs have simply taken anecdotal stories from defendant insurers and peddled them as the norm.