Cameron: We'll curb Britain's health and safety neurosis

By James Chapman for the Daily Mail
Updated:

David Cameron: 'There are too many rules'

David Cameron: 'There are too many rules'

David Cameron will today pledge to cure the 'national neurosis' caused by the explosion of health and safety rules under Labour.

The Conservative leader wants police, schools and volunteer groups to be freed from the fear of being sued.

He said the culture in which someone has to be blamed for every mishap must be countered.

Mr Cameron, speaking to the Daily Mail ahead of a major speech, set out plans for a Civil Liability Act to streamline hundreds of different pieces of legislation and regulation.

He said he wanted to exempt entire categories of workers and organisations from the fear of litigation or prosecution because of 'over-the-top' health and safety rules. Mr Cameron said a Tory government would amend the Compensation

Act to abolish negligence claims for activities where it should be obvious there is a risk - for example, sport and adventure training.

He is also considering introducing a Good Samaritan Act to protect from liability those who choose to aid others who are injured or ill.

Mr Cameron has been impressed with similar legislation in Australia, which has helped reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death.

It has also dramatically scaled back the potential for medical negligence claims against doctors.

'I want to see if we can extend this sort of legal protection for all people acting in good faith - especially public service professionals,' Mr Cameron said.

He insisted that health and safety legislation had 'noble origins' and had done much to make Britain's workplaces among the safest in the world.

But he said it was clear something had gone 'seriously wrong'. He highlighted the examples of children made to wear goggles to play conkers, trainee hairdressers not allowed scissors in the classroom, and staff at a railway station refusing to help a mother carry her baby's buggy because they were not insured.

'The rulebooks keep getting thicker. The restrictions keep getting sillier,' Mr Cameron said. 'In Britain there is just a great sense that there are too many rules and regulations and petty bureaucracy that are mucking up people's lives.

'The impact of this national neurosis should not be underestimated.'

He pointed out that the Health and Safety Executive enforces 202 primary regulations, two-thirds of which were passed over 99 years before Labour came to power in 1997.

The remaining third have all been introduced in the past 12 years, he said.

Mr Cameron blamed Labour for introducing 'law after law, rule after rule, in an endless attempt to micromanage and control people's lives'.

The result was that people were often 'stopped from being active citizens', he said. 'It holds back the development of voluntary groups. It's a straitjacket on personal initiative and responsibility.'

Mr Cameron also highlighted the economic cost - with an estimated £35billion bill to businesses complying with EU employment, health and safety law alone.

The Tory leader will today announce that Lord Young, Margaret Thatcher's former trade secretary who was credited with slashing back unnecessary red tape in the 1980s, is to lead a review of health and safety laws, litigation and the insurance industry.

But he also insisted individuals themselves had to wake up and accept that the 'culture of blame' had to change.

Mr Cameron said people were so worried about being sued that they often 'invented' lots of their own rules on top of the plethora of legislation that already exists.

'It's not as simple as saying are some rules we have got to tear down. We have got to get to the causes of petty rules and a culture that has grown up around them,' Mr Cameron said.

'We have got to try to reduce the blame culture, have a more realistic attitude towards risk. That goes for all of us. We all have to accept that there are risks in life.'

The Tory leader also defended plans to exempt everyone but millionaires from inheritance tax, which Labour has attacked as unfairly favouring the rich.

Mr Cameron said he would not rethink the policy even if Chancellor Alistair Darling reverses his own decision to raise the inheritance threshold to £700,000 for couples.

'I think we should be moving away from the idea that people in homes worth £325,000 or more should be subject to death tax,' Mr Cameron said. ˜BRITAIN could be on course for a hung Parliament, a survey suggested last night.

The Tories' advantage over Labour has narrowed to ten points over the past month, research by ComRes for The Independent found.

If the result were reflected at the ballot box, it would leave Mr Cameron six seats short of an overall majority.

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