Britain’s compensation culture is the fault of the legal system and not the public, a Supreme Court judge has said.
Lord Sumption said that people seeking damages for accidents could not be accused of greed, and the law was “extraordinarily clumsy and inefficient”.
The increase in claims and cold-call companies encouraging people to sue has led to a rise in insurance costs. Car insurance premiums increased in Britain during the final quarter of last year by 4 per cent, from £553.28 to £574.11, according to MoneySuperMarket.
Lord Sumption, 69, believes that the system of blame “often misses the target”. He said: “If the law entitles the victim of an accident to compensation it ill becomes us to criticise him for knowing it and claiming.”
The government has pledged to modernise the courts system and cut motor insurance costs, including a ban on payouts without medical evidence and fixed tariffs on whiplash claims.
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Lord Sumption told the Personal Injuries Bar Association annual lecture that this may not be enough: “If the law says that we are entitled to blame other people for our misfortunes, it is . . . absurd to complain about a culture of blame, as if this was somehow a symptom of a collective moral degeneration.”