Cancer of litigation must be removed from society: Tories

The Tories have called for the "cancer of litigation" to be cut out of Britain's public services, after claiming that compensation culture now costs schools and hospitals around £680 million a year.

Writing in last weeks' Spectator magazine, the Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, demanded a shake-up in the no-win, no-fee legal system which, he claimed, had led to an exponential rise in compensation claims against health and education authorities.

Last year, health authorities paid out £480 million and education authorities paid out £200 million, he said.

Mr Davis said that fear of compensation claims had also seen public amenities, such as children's play parks, denuded of anything may carry even the smallest risk of an accident. He also slammed a human rights system that "rewards compensation chasers and the criminal troublemakers".

Warning that public service chiefs are going to extreme lengths to avoid risk in the wake of Labour's adoption of the Human Rights Act, Mr Davis said: "According to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the rise in compensation has coincided with the loss of many of the most attractive aspects of parks and open places.

He added: "Ancient trees, boating lakes, adventure playgrounds, festivals, markets, water features and public art are all deemed too risky. Green spaces are turning into just that: green spaces, shorn of all ornament, with the trees pruned back to the trunk, the conkers swept up each morning, and the lakes filled in."

Mr Davis said that litigation should only go ahead when a public servant may be said to have "recklessly endangered those in his or her charge".

(gmcg)