I write regarding the recent announcement by the Ministry of Justice to increase the financial limit in the small-claims track from the present £5,000 limit to £10,000, diverting some 80,000 cases each year from the fast-track claims route to the small-track claims route.

This is a misconceived attempt at cost-cutting populism that will result in both an increased delay in cases coming before the courts and a greater cost to the taxpayer.

At present, a claim for under £5,000 is allocated to the small-claims track in the county court. The small-claims track is an informal way to hear cases with the distinguishing feature being the no-cost rule, namely that litigants are usually unable to recover legal costs.

As a consequence of the no-costs rule, the overwhelming majority of litigants do not instruct lawyers to represent them in court since they will not usually be able to recover those legal costs even if they win the case.

The upshot of increasing the small-claims limit will, first, be a flood in new cases coming before the court, since those who previously would not have issued a claim because their case value took them beyond the £5,000 limit, thus exposing them to legal costs from the other side should they not win at trial, will now issue their claims with impunity and without risk of costs; in short, litigation for those with a claim of between £5,000 to £10,000 becomes less of a gamble.

Second, cases involving litigants in person take up more court time and resources than cases in which both parties are represented. Litigants in person often lack the ability to bring out the issues; to get to the point; to manage the case timetable properly; to provide relevant and concise written witness evidence; and to address the court as to questions of law.

By way of comparison, we do not (yet) encourage patients with minor surgical needs to do it themselves, since (unless they are surgeons) they are not competent to do so. Why, then, should the government seek to increase injustice through incompetence, which flows from being unrepresented, by encouraging litigants to go it alone?

As a result, we will find ourselves with more cases before the court, with each case taking up more court time and resources.

Far from providing the desired ‘quicker, cheaper and less daunting justice’, if anything these changes march away from the principle of equality of arms and serve to delay justice for litigants, as the already strained court system struggles to cope.

Henry Hendron, barrister, Strand Chambers, London WC2