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Making the ban on paying referral fees for personal injury work a criminal offence is among a range of changes to part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill that will be put to the House of Lords this week, after peers inflicted six defeats on the government over its legal aid reforms.

The Law Society, Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and Motor Accident Solicitors Society have agreed a compromise on the Jackson reforms that they are to propose to the government, Legal Futures can report. They have won the support of three key charities.

The outcome of yesterday’s high-profile Downing Street insurance summit appears to have put paid to any hopes among claimant lawyers that there is a compromise to be reached over the Jackson reforms.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers will next week launch a final attempt to challenge the Jackson reforms by setting out a new negotiating position that drops outright opposition to the changes. However, defendant lawyers rebuffed any suggestion of compromise.

The government has pushed back implementation of the Jackson reforms and the referral fee ban to April 2013, it announced yesterday. However, it knocked back all amendments to key elements of the reforms during a House of Lords debate.