Bonfire of elf 'n' safety: Cameron plans to tear up regulations which 'have become a music hall joke'

 

 

By Daniel Martin

Last updated at 6:44 AM on 20th September 2010

 

 

 

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David Cameron is to unveil sweeping changes to ‘mad’ health and safety rules which are putting a massive burden on British business and public services.

The Prime Minister will launch a bonfire of rules and will declare war on the mushrooming compensation culture at his party’s conference next month.

A whole slew of regulations on police, teachers and ambulance workers will be lifted so they no longer face the threat of being sued for making common sense decisions.

Mr Cameron will tear up Labour rules which have been blamed for creating a culture where someone must be to blame for every mishap.

 

 

 

Tragic: Jordan Lyon (left) was one of the victims of the extreme applications of safety rules, a problem David Cameron has pledged to resolve

 

Teachers will no longer have to fill in reams of ‘risk assessment’ forms before taking youngsters on school trips, and killjoy council officials will find it much harder to ban firework displays and street parties.

Ambulance-chasing law firms will also be targeted. Personal injury lawyers will face restrictions on advertising and the fees they can charge.

And Mr Cameron wants to slash red tape which means even ‘low risk’ work places like offices are subject to the same tough rules as factories.

A government source said: ‘The PM thinks the current health and safety rules are mad. The system needs drastic reform.

‘What we are determined to see is a great extension of personal freedom, at the same time as a rolling back both of the state and the power of the courts.’

 

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The changes are contained in a report by Margaret Thatcher’s former trade secretary Lord Young, whose 40 recommendations will be published at the Tory conference.

 

He is expected to conclude that a barrage of legal cases have made health and safety laws ‘a music hall joke’.

 

 

Earlier this year, Mr Cameron told the Daily Mail that the health and safety obsession had ‘encroached into various different parts of national life, whether it’s stopping Bonfire Night or stopping an ambulance getting to an emergency. We need to deal with it all in a comprehensive way.

‘We all want our children to have great experiences outside the classroom, whether it’s visiting museums or farms or geography field trips or residential courses.

'We want all the things we had in our own childhood to be available today. There is a worry that it’s becoming too difficult to do because there are too many forms to fill in, too many risks to assess.’

He added: ‘We do have a good record of health and safety at work in this country, and we have a low level of industrial accidents and that’s important.

‘You can deal with this problem without jeopardising that at all.

'The neurosis comes from excessive litigation fears, unclear law, mission creep, Europe, town halls. It’s all of those things and we have to deal with each one. That’s what we will do.’

The changes aim to exempt the emergency services from lawsuits or prosecution for breaching health and safety laws when they are taking necessary action or risking their own safety to help others or stop crime. The rules will include part-time police officers.

And it says claims should no longer be considered by courts after ‘Good Samaritan’ situations which have seen people sued for trying to give first aid.

It will mean people will no longer be able to be sued for causing a personal injury through no fault of their own, when they had been trying to do the right thing, or had been trying to stop someone else injuring themselves.

There is likely also to be crackdown on lawyers’ ‘no win, no fee’ arrangements, which encourage lawyers to take on speculative lawsuits because they can demand huge costs from defendants like the NHS if they win.

Personal injury law firms will be limited in what they can say and what sort of advertising they can engage in.

Other changes would see success fees charged by lawyers in ‘no win, no fee’ agreements no longer recoverable from defendants – instead they would take their cut from the victim’s pay out.

Judges would also be given the power to cap the costs individual claimants can recover in personal injury cases.

Lord Young would also like to see a reduction in the huge number of risk assessment forms that teachers have to fill in before going on trips. There will instead be a simple consent form for parents to sign.

 

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1313432/David-Cameron-announces-end-mad-health-safety-rules-bonfire-compensation-culture.html#ixzz1032DyYxc

Sounds good on paper but there are plenty of people in positions of authority who need to be regulated. The police do not need any more power than they already have, for example.

 

From my experience when training to be a teacher, scrapping risk assessment sheets would be asking for trouble.

Mr Cameron needs to start regulating the insurance industry first and with it the compensation culture, since it's they who undermine sensible health and safety.

Mr Cameron needs to start regulating the insurance industry first and with it the compensation culture, since it's they who undermine sensible health and safety.

 

This is true.

The one thing I hope he sorts out.

Where there is blame, there is a claim ;)

and where there's a claim, there's usually £££ payment!

Usually 10% goes to the person whom suffered the accident, the remaining 90% goes to the ambulance chasers