If the devil is in the detail, this government is starting to seem angelic.

There was excitement unbounded in the newsroom on Thursday afternoon as the Ministry of Justice confirmed that referral fees will be banned for personal injury claims.

But reading through the quotes from justice minister Jonathan Djanogly was a familiar experience, like playing a game of cliche bingo.

‘Compensation culture’ and ‘spurious claims’ made their customary appearance, while there was a rare outing for the near-poetic ‘money sloshing through the system’.

There was even a reference to ‘individuals living in fear of being dragged to the courts for simply going about daily life’.

Well-worn cliches and bizarre scaremongering aside, there were more questions than answers as the dust settled on this sudden announcement.

The press release itself admits ‘there is no universally recognised definition of referral fees’, while there is no clue as to when this might become law.

Why is conveyancing not included in this ban? After all, if the government is so hell-bent on blowing away this seemingly unethical practice, why pick and choose its targets?

There is also little indication of how the ban is to be enforced. The problem with banning anything that is already so prevalent is that the measure has not really addressed why it was there in the first place. Prohibition in the US in the 1920s didn’t stop people drinking – it simply sent them underground and out of sight.

If the same fate awaits claims referees, how has this ban improved transparency, as the government seems intent on doing?

Earlier this week, I wrote that the allowing of cameras into courts seemed a populist move, a pandering to the mob mentality of the Daily Mail readership. Does this measure fit the same criteria?

If the government really wanted to ban referral fees, should the ban not have been included in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act currently meandering through parliament? This is what Lord Justice Jackson recommended, yet curiously ministers held back on this aspect of the report while accepting much of the remainder.

For now, this ban is a headline-grabber. We eagerly await the rest of the story.