A "compensation-seeking culture" could be costing Britain billions of pounds a year, the Government's red tape tsar said today.

Chairman of the Better Regulation Task Force, David Arculus, said there was no actual compensation culture in the UK because the number of successful claims was actually falling.

But the myth there were "vast wads of cash" to be won was costing companies and the public sector hundreds of millions of pounds in unnecessary bureaucracy, he said.

Friday May 28, 2004