The Conservative Party has launched a campaign against so called “compensation culture” with the announcement of a review of the 1998 Human Rights Act.
Announcing the establishment of a commission to carry out the review, Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: “The Human Rights Act has given rise to too many spurious rights.
“It has fuelled compensation culture out of all sense of proportion and its is our aim to rebalance the rights culture.”
Writing in the Spectator, Davis said the conditional fee arrangement introduced in 1999 had been effective in widening access to justice, but had also lead to “a rush of spurious claims by people who have nothing to lose by launching an action against an employer or public agency”.
Davis said the party would seek to place limits on liabilities on company directors and charity trustees, and would look at how to change sex and race discrimination laws, which he said “positively encourages claims”.
“We need to think about cutting the cancer of litigation out of the public services altogether, except when a public servant may be said to have recklessly endangered those in his charge,” said Davis.
The Conservatives said hospitals and schools payed out billions a year in unjustified compensation claims.
