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Health and safety zealots blamed for creating a ‘national neurosis’ are finally to be reined in.

Meddling officials who attempt to ban events or activities on the grounds that they breach red tape will themselves be threatened with huge fines under Government plans.

And emergency workers, teachers and office workers are to be freed from the compensation culture where someone must be held to account for everyday mishaps and accidents.

Too dangerous: The annual cheese rolling in the Cotswolds

Margaret Thatcher’s former trade secretary Lord Young, who has drawn up a string of proposals accepted by David Cameron, says a decade of Labour laws and regulations will now be torn up.



The assault on the excesses of the health and safety culture will form a key part of the Tory Party conference which begins tomorrow in Birmingham, and is seen as a potential vote winner.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Lord Young unveiled plans which include:

■ Local authorities who wrongly try to block events on health and safety grounds will be forced to pay large-scale compensation;

■ No-win, no-fee advertising encouraging personal injury claims will face a major crackdown;

■ Red tape that means many children never go on school outings is to be scrapped

■ People performing first aid or Good Samaritan acts are to be exempted from being sued.

Lord Young, 78, said ‘petty tyrants’ had been allowed to flourish under Labour.

He said he had uncovered extraordinary examples, including a restaurant that would not give out toothpicks for fear of injury, a headteacher who told pupils not to walk under a conker tree without helmets and a council that banned a pancake race because it was raining.

‘It makes you wonder what sort of world we have come to,’ Lord Young said. ‘It has gone to such extremes. What I have seen everywhere is a complete lack of common sense. People have been living in an alternative universe.’

Lord Young said he was particularly concerned about council officials who often claimed powers to stop village fetes, sporting events or other events when they have none. In one example, organisers of the annual Whitsun cheese-rolling down a steep hill in the Cotswolds cancelled it this year after pressure from police and local authorities.

In future those affected by wrong decisions may go to the local government ombudsman who will be able to insist that a council pays compensation.

Asked how much local authorities would be forced to pay, Lord Young said: ‘Whatever the loss is. I want officials to think twice and make sure they have the authority.

‘This sort of nonsense has come from the last government trying to create a nanny state and trying to keep everybody in cotton wool.

‘Frankly if I want to do something stupid and break my leg or neck, that’s up to me. I don’t need a council to tell me not to be an idiot. I can be an idiot all by myself.’







He said the Government, which has approved his report, due to be published later this month, would also implement a crackdown on ‘ambulance-chasing’ personal injury firms. There will be restrictions on the way they advertise their services and a limit to speculative law suits.

‘The last government allowed no-win, no-fee advertising and we have seen an enormous rush of it, on afternoon TV particularly,’ Lord Young said.

‘A lot of them aren’t lawyers - they’re claims management companies.

‘People are being paid for making a claim. Legal expenses are now two or three times the claim. The biggest cost to the health service is legal fees. That’s going to stop.’

Schools are to be freed from burdensome regulations.

Lord Young said: ‘Schools are not allowing pupils to go on days out because they are scared they will be liable if an accident happens.

‘That’s nonsense, and that’s not going to continue, unless a teacher is really negligent. In the ordinary course of events, accidents happen.’

The Health and Safety Executive enforces 202 primary regulations, a third of which were passed since Labour came to power in 1997.

Lord Young, who has an office in Downing Street, revealed that the Prime Minister has asked him to stay on to advise on turning public services into locally-owned co-operatives.

Baroness Thatcher once said of him: ‘Other people brought me problems. He brought me solutions.’

Source: dailymail.co.uk

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