Osborne confirms he finds rule of law unnecessary

Order! Order! Spring Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne

By scrapping general damages and costs in personal injury cases up to a figure that I have not yet determined, on a date that I have not yet announced, covering types of cases which I have not yet specified, I will pass the burden of compensating injured people and treating them from insurance companies to the state.

I had thought that £5,000 was the appropriate figure, but my friend in the judiciary, the Right Honourable Sir Michael Townley Featherstone Briggs, Charterhouse and Magdalene, has advised that we do not need lawyers or courts for any claim under £25,000.

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas (salary £247,112), fully supports this and says the judiciary is suffering from low morale and that their work is not valued or appreciated.

LiPs - litigious insolent plebs - are clogging up the courts, so I am abolishing all claims up to £50,000. Any above that level will be dealt with on Twitter. To help the morale of the judges - £177,988 a year for High Court judges and £202,668 for Court of Appeal judges - I am improving their redundancy packages.

As there will be no courts we will not need judges, and I am confident that the combination of an index-linked pension, enhanced redundancy packages, and no work to do will cheer them up.

Your government has already successfully piloted this scheme in employment tribunals, where the introduction of unaffordable fees has reduced the workload by 81 per cent. The Administrative Court declined to overrule this move in judicial review proceedings and I am glad to have the support of the senior judiciary in abolishing courts.

I now turn to the impact statement in relation to road traffic accidents [note to self: pause for laughter], which shows that the state will lose:

• The Compensation Recovery Unit;

• Court fees;

• VAT and income and insurance premium tax; and

• Money in the economy.

These costs must be met by savings elsewhere.

Evidence shows that many accidents occur while children are travelling to and from school. This imposes an unacceptable burden on insurance companies and the state, so we are closing all schools immediately. Exceptions will be made in relation to Charterhouse, Eton, and some others. Closing all schools except public schools is not a decision on ideological grounds. Boarding schools clearly involve less travel and therefore fewer accidents.

I now turn to clinical negligence claims. The cost to the state is unacceptable. I have considered seeking to improve the NHS so that there are fewer deaths and injuries and therefore fewer claims - but that is too expensive.

Fixed costs are not the answer as lawyers will find a way of serving their clients, just as they did when we reduced portal costs to next to nothing. Unfortunately, people still instructed lawyers and courts continued to order negligent people - in reality insurance companies - to pay damages. That cannot continue.

So, I am shutting down all hospitals.

As there will be no mechanism for enforcing laws there is no point in making laws.

Consequently I am shutting parliament.

'Without lawyers, judges, and courts, there is no access to justice and therefore no rule of law, and without the rule of law, society collapses' - President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, 10 April 2015. SJ

Kerry Underwood is senior partner at Underwoods Solicitors and a course specialist in qualified one-way costs shifting

@kerry_underwood

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