PM: I will kill off safety culture

David Cameron speaks at a Waitrose food distribution centre in Bracknell
12 April 2012

Prime Minister David Cameron has said that his new year's resolution is to "kill off the health and safety culture for good".

Health and safety legislation has become an "albatross around the neck of British businesses", costing them billions of pounds a year and leaving entrepreneurs in fear of speculative claims, he said.

He announced plans to cap the amount which can be earned by lawyers from small-value personal injury claims against employers and to reduce overall costs in cases funded by "no-win no-fee" deals.

And he revealed he has asked the Health and Safety Executive to bring forward to the end of 2012 its timetable for abolishing or consolidating up to half of all existing regulations.

Speaking to an audience of small businesses in Maidenhead, Berkshire, the PM warned that 2012 was going to be a "difficult year" but insisted the Government would not simply "stand back".

"It's a year when the Government's going to roll up its sleeves and ask, 'what can we do to help business, to help consumers, to help our economy get moving and to help our economy provide jobs for young people?'," he said.

"I want 2012 to go down in history not just as Olympics year or Diamond Jubilee year, but the year we get a lot of this pointless time-wasting out of the British economy and British life once and for all."

The Prime Minister's comments were branded "appalling and unhelpful" by Richard Jones, head of policy and public affairs at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health.

"Labelling workplace health and safety as a monster is appalling and unhelpful, as the reason our legislative system exists is to prevent death, injury or illness at work, protecting livelihoods in the process," said Mr Jones. "The problem identified by the Government's own reviews is not the law, but rather, exaggerated fear of being sued, fed by aggressive marketing."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This shows just how out of touch with the reality of working life Number 10 is. Every Government report on the UK's supposed compensation culture has shown it to be a myth, and in fact claims have been declining over the past decade. Despite this, the Government seems hell-bent on trying to stop workers injured by their employers' negligence being able to claim compensation."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in