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What the insurance industry wants, the insurance industry gets. Nothing new in that.

What irritates more than cold calls is the constant ABI propaganda. Yesterday we heard a Tory MP talk about 50p in every £ of damages going in to lawyers pockets. Another Tory MP then reduced that figure to 47p. Subsequently, another quoted 40p. Clearly that particular statistic is as quantifiable as their fraud figures. However, they rely on both to support legislation which will significantly impact on the right to access to justice for many people.

The ABI’s propaganda machine would have everyone (including Tory MPs) believe that there will not be any encroachment upon the right to access to justice, however, their reasoning is totally unsound. For example they maintain that if a small claims case up to £5k is deemed complicated the Court will transfer it to the fast track. I seriously doubt that such a transfer would happen in anything more than a handful of cases.

The absence of hard (or any) evidence in support of this change in legislation is astonishing. If Claimants representatives had sought a seismic change in legislation, they would have to provide some very good reasons and substantial supporting evidence. However, Conservative MPs seem to be “under the spell”(*) of insurers and reading the ABI script in Parliament like programmed robots.

*potentially on future payroll