The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has welcomed the Lord Chancellor’s agreement to a review of the discount rate.
The discount rate is used to calculate the amount deducted from an injured person’s compensation to account for any income they may receive from investing their damages.
The rate was set at 2.5% by the (then) Lord Chancellor in 2001, with the calculation based on yields generated by index-linked government stock (ILGS).
Since then yields on ILGS have gradually declined, according APIL president, Muiris Lyons, who believes that over the last three years the average gross yield has been less than 1%.
Mr Lyons comments: “For years now, injured people have been undercompensated because of the previous Government’s failure to review the discount rate in light of economic changes.”
He adds: “Our hope now is that the Lord Chancellor’s review proceeds quickly and redresses this imbalance which has had such an impact on injured people for so long.”