The insurance industry must stop its persistent demonising of victims of negligence to suit its own agenda.

Compensation is not a windfall. Every penny paid to people with catastrophic life-changing injuries is needed for care, support, and living costs, often for the rest of their lives.

Alastair Ross (ABI) suggests quite shamelessly that severely injured people will have too much money if the Scottish Parliament votes to allow an adjustment to compensation to pay for the cost of professional advice on tax and investments. The reality is that the proposed change still falls far short of covering the cost of advice. The difference will have to be paid for out of compensation needed for therapies and equipment, or prosthetic limbs.

Professional advice is vital for injured people. These are not canny investors. They are vulnerable and inexperienced, and need to ensure their compensation will stretch to meet their needs.

If the insurance industry does not pay the full and fair compensation for which their customers are accountable, people with catastrophic injuries will have to turn to the State to fund their needs and their care. MSP minister Siobhian Brown acknowledged this fact in the debate on the proposed changes. The taxpayer should not have to bear the cost when the whole purpose of insurance is to take care of people, properly, when they are needlessly injured by the insured.

Jonathan Scarsbrook

Immediate past president Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL)