The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has received confirmation from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of a further delay to the long-overdue review of the discount rate for personal injury cases.
“People with life-changing injuries continue to miss out on the right level of compensation to cover their needs while the Government drags its heels on rectifying the problem,” said APIL president John Spencer.
“Rather than just review the rate as promised, and as he should, the Lord Chancellor has now decided to delay the process further by recruiting a panel of experts to help him,” he explained.
It is three years since the Lord Chancellor told the Administrative Court that “his decision will be made as promptly as practicable” after APIL launched judicial review proceedings.
“The promised decision never materialised so we wrote to the Lord Chancellor in July, urging him to review the discount rate. APIL was prepared to start a fresh judicial review if necessary,” said John.
He added: “Establishing a panel just creates yet another delay while the Ministry of Justice is seen to be doing something.Meanwhile, injured people continue to have their damages unfairly docked by a discount rate which was set 13 years ago when the financial markets were very different”.