The incoming leader of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers will go on the attack against insurers this week.

Karl Tonks, incoming president of APIL, will use his inaugural speech on Thursday at the group’s annual conference to call for fairness in the civil litigation system. Tonks, head of employers' liability at national personal injury firm Fentons, will call on the government to ensure fairness in the debate between claimant and defendant lawyers.

‘We have a system where insurers can contest claims until the eve of an expensive trial, cause significant costs to be incurred unnecessarily, and make an innocently injured person wait unreasonably long for the compensation he may desperately need,’ he will say.

‘Then those same insurers pass those wasted costs on to their customers in the form of higher premiums.’

Tonks’ speech comes as the government pushed in the House of Commons to ensure the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill.

The legislation will remove the recoverability of lawyers’ success fees and after-the-event insurance from unsuccessful defendants. Personal injury lawyers are expected to debate how the system will affect the sector and how to respond to the challenges.

Tonks will also call on the government to fulfill a long-awaited pledge to create a fund of last resort for industrial disease victims.

The government inherited a consultation document calling for insurance firms to finance claimants in their search for their former employer’s insurer, but the scheme has stalled in the past two years.

Tonks will say: ‘It’s obvious what needs to be done. We need a fund of last resort. The insurance industry needs to start paying what it should pay.’

The conference programme will be missing two key speakers after late withdrawals. Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly has been called into Westminster by Conservative whips to vote on the Finance bill.

Lord Justice Jackson will also not appear after it was announced by the Judiciary that he will shortly undergo an operation to treat cancer. He is expected to return to full-time work by October.