With the start of the political conference season in two weeks time, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will be considered at all party conferences in an attempt to change the current ‘No Win, No Fee’ legal arrangements commonly used for accidents at work or in a public place. Under the current system, the fee for the legal services provided is only payable on the condition there is a favourable result, with the fee recovered from the losing party.

The argument for amending conditional fee arrangements is to avoid rising insurance premiums which it is claimed must be put up because of a rise in accident claims, as well as the wider view that the UK is suffering from a ‘compensation culture’ brought on by the lack of financial risk for claimants. However, critics of the proposed Bill, led by the Access to Justice Campaign, argue 25% of accident victims never made a claim and the number of accident claims has not risen at all in the last 10 years.

Under the new Bill, accident victims will be expected to either pay the legal fees in advance or out of their compensation payments. This may mean some of the 727,000 who suffered an injury at work in one year will either be financial unable to pursue their case or the compensation awarded minus the legal costs render it worthless. This is particularly worrying as just under a third of these (233,000) were off work for at least four days.