We welcome the recommendations from the Justice Select Committee

In response to today’s report on the Civil Liability Bill issued by the Justice Select Committee, Qamar Anwar, managing director, First4Lawyers, says:

“We strongly welcome the recommendations in the report, to set the small claims limit at £1,500 not the £5,000 proposed by the Ministry of Justice in the draft bill. We have long said that this creates serious access to justice concerns, and are heartened that this has been acknowledged by the Justice Select Committee.

“However, before we hang out the bunting, there are still further elements to the bill that need addressing. One being the absence of reliable data. In today’s report the committee said it was ‘troubled by the absence of reliable data on insurance fraud and we recommend that the Government work with the Association of British Insurers (ABI) to develop a more nuanced approach that avoids conflating unexpected consumer behaviour with fraudulent activity’. We have been saying this all along, but struggle to understand why no serious review of the impact of LASPO has ever been undertaken. If it had, surely it would highlight that last year recorded the lowest number of claims registered at the Claims Recovery Unit (CRU) in over a decade.

“My question is now, when will the government sit up and take notice?”