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David Cameron tackles health and safety bureaucracy

An attack has been launched by the Prime Minister David Cameron on the “stranglehold” of health and safety bureaucracy on UK employers, but claims by unions say that he is “out of touch with reality”.

While speaking to an audience of small businesses and entrepreneurs he also said that tackling the compensation culture will be part of a series of measures announced to get behind enterprise.

He announced that “the health and safety law on strict liability for civil claims will be amended so that businesses are no longer automatically at fault if something goes wrong.”

He also announced that to tackle the compensation culture and address the fear from businesses of being sued for trivial or excessive claims - the Government will extend the current scheme that caps the amount that lawyers can earn from small value personal injury claims, and reduce overall costs in cases funded by ‘no win no fee’ deals. This will help bring down the cost of many cases and deter the speculative health and safety claims made against good businesses that would appear not to have done anything wrong.

The Government will write to the Chief Executives of all major insurance companies, asking them to set out what they will do to deal with this problem - and they will be invited to a meeting at Downing Street next month to set out their plans.

David Cameron said “Government departments will investigate the demands made by insurance companies on businesses to ensure that levels of compliance do not force businesses to go far beyond what is actually required by the the law to secure their insurance cover.”

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