Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, implementing the Jackson proposals, comfortably passed its second reading in the House of Commons yesterday with no signs of a Common’s rebellion.

However, I am grateful to Professor Dominic Regan’s Blog for pointing out that the act does not seem to deal with qualified one-way costs shifting, the 10% damages uplift or proportionality changes. Although damages could be increased by judicial diktat, it is hard to see how the other reforms can happen without clear legislation.

Perhaps the government is going to end recoverability of additional liabilities but will quietly drop the corresponding introduction of qualified one-way costs shifting.


2 thoughts on “Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

  1. I noticed that when reading the bill, and so we’re left with Claimant’s not being able to recover ATE or success fee, but Defendants are allowed to recover their costs from unsuccessful Claimants. Likewise, Defendant insurers are busy quietly selling cases to claims farmers whilst complaining about referral fees. Looks like the Defendant lobby are getting their cake and eating it!

  2. I suspect that those two other issues will be the subject of secondary legislation in due course.

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