The architect of the government’s civil litigation reforms today rejected calls for a bigger uplift in damages payouts.

Lord Justice Jackson said his original proposal of a 10% uplift on all settlements is still fair, despite claimants having to spend up to 25% of their damages on legal costs. Jackson, giving the 10th and final speech of his series to explain his proposals, admitted he was persuaded to recommend a 10% uplift only through the ‘force and volume of the submissions from the personal injuries lobby’.

Despite initial misgivings, Jackson said that insurers have now accepted his proposal, as long as it is part of a total package of reforms. And he stated there was ‘no conceivable justification’ for increasing the recommended figure of 10%.

Jackson said: ‘The forthcoming reforms to conditional fee agreements could quite properly be introduced without any increase in general damages.

‘The proposed increase of 10% has the consequence that most claimants will be better off under the package of reforms as a whole. It would not be proper to unpick this part of the package in an attempt to secure additional cash for claimants and their lawyers.’

Indeed, Jackson told the IBC Legal Conferences event that more claimants will be better off as a result of his proposals than first envisaged.

In his original report, Jackson quoted research that said 61% would be better off; that figure will increase, he argued, when solicitors are forced to compete on ‘who can charge the lowest success fees, not who can pay the highest referral fees’.

Thus the beneficiaries of competition will be injured claimants, ‘rather than claims management companies, before-the-event insurers or other referrers,’ he said.

‘There can be little doubt that the great majority of claimants will be better off under the forthcoming reforms than they are under the present arrangements.’