Former Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers will warn on Wednesday 10 March of the dramatic growth in the US style blame, claim and gain culture in which a person’s first reaction to anything going wrong is to find someone to blame and then make a legal claim for compensation.

Speaking at a conference in Birmingham he will call for a public debate about whether this is desirable and where it will lead to. In particular he will raise the issue of claims for compensation against the national health service and schools.

He will say:

“Compensation payments from schools have reached £200 million a year – the equivalent of the salaries of 8,000 teachers. In the health service payments for medical negligence have risen from £1 million in 1974 to £477 million – enough to pay for 22,700 extra nurses. Potential claims over the next five years amount to an estimated £4.5 billion.

“Something is badly wrong when the individual right to due legal process is infringing a more basic individual and collective right to good quality schools and a decent health service.

“Money is being taken away from saving lives and educating our children to pay for a compensation system in which the real beneficiaries are the lawyers and accident management companies.

“Are we prepared to allow this to continue or should we build on developments like the NHS Redress Scheme and introduce for the health service and schools a no fault compensation scheme for all cases with maximum financial limits or go even further and say that because there is a social contract between the individual and government a different way needs to be found to deal with the situation when things go wrong. Perhaps a new system avoiding the legal process but one which provides lifelong care and assistance when appropriate without fault needing to be proven,  alongside an effective public complaints procedure and disciplinary action against staff if necessary.”

In relation to compensation claims more generally Stephen Byers will suggest the following proposals for debate:

• There needs to be a review of the no-win no fee basis on which solicitors will now take up cases which previously would have been settled without going to law
• Reform of the legal system to provide arbitration, mediation and early intervention to resolve the issue informally and quickly
• A cap on the costs paid to lawyers, accident management companies and other relevant groups
• More effective regulation of accident management groups
• Insurance companies to be required to develop new procedures to resolve claims more quickly without going through the legal process
• Greater control over advertisements which often make misleading claims and more effective action in such circumstances.

Stephen Byers concludes by saying

“there has been little public debate about the growth in this blame, claim and gain culture. Yet the consequences for our society are dramatic. We see it with playground equipment being fenced off; hanging baskets being taken down as a health hazard; teachers being advised to no longer supervise school outings.

“But it also reflects how we see ourselves. A reluctance to take responsibility for our own actions with always someone to blame and never at fault ourselves. For the well-being of our society this is a state of mind that must change.”