Letwin to warn of “cowardly” society
Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin will today warn that society’s obsession with minimising risk is leading to a “cowardly” society where innovation and entrepreneurship are discouraged.
Mr Letwin will say that the Government should stop trying to remove risks that people’s “common sense” should be able to predict, and restrict itself to protecting individuals from risks outside their control.
In a speech entitled “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” to be delivered to the Centre for Policy Studies tonight, he says: “Our obsession with risk-minimisation is imposing terrible risks on society.”
Examples include a charity pancake race in Devon cancelled earlier this year after the insurance costs more than tripled from £75 to £280, and advice from teaching union NASUWT that members should stop taking children on school trips because it believes “society no longer appears to accept the concept of a genuine accident”.
The Shadow Chancellor also cites the £477 million paid out by the NHS to claimants last year, up from £53 million in 1990, and the further £5 billion of claims in the pipeline.
“Given such liabilities, one begins to understand the compulsive caution spreading through our schools, hospitals and police forces – and, for that matter, through society as a whole,” he says.
Mr Letwin warns: “We will pay a price for this obsession with risk-minimisation and for the “reckless caution” it engenders .If we do not change direction we will by then be further down the road towards a cowardly society.”
And he compares today’s concern for risk with Britain’s appeasement of Hitler before WWII, saying: “In the 1930s we failed to face up to one enormous external threat. Today, the threats we fail to face up to are legion.”
He attributes the anti-risk policies to the disappearance or reduction of major threats such as war and disease, and notes that many of these policies result not in the reduction of risk but in its redistribution. For example, speed restrictions after the Hatfield rail disaster decreased the risk on the railways but increased the risk on motorways by encouraging more people to drive.
Mr Letwin will call on society to embrace the concept that life is risky.
“It is a risk to fall in love, to get married, to have children; to lend a hand, to have a go or to make a difference. None of these things can ever be without risk. Neither can starting a business, or changing a career, or making an investment.”
He says the responsibility falls on individuals to display wisdom and obtain reliable information, but the state has a role too.
“The state does have a role, which is to ensure transparency and to protect society against those risks whose extremity and unpredictability overwhelm the capabilities, the information and the wisdom that may reasonably be expected of the individual.”
He concludes: “If we are to have a courageous society rather than a cowardly society, we need to abandon the rhetoric of risk minimisation and adopt instead the attitude of accepting and managing risk.
“We have to adopt the principle that the state will arrange for people to be alerted to risks which they could not otherwise reasonably be expected to predict, and for people to be protected – to a sensible degree – from risks which they could not otherwise reasonably be expected to manage; but, also, that the state will not seek to minimise (let alone remove) risks that any person with common sense could reasonably be expected to predict and manage.
“In short, we need to ensure that, in dealing with risks, the state will recognise the risk of being too risk-averse.”
