Compensation Bill [HL]

My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall speak briefly in the gap. I look forward to Committee. I support the Bill completely, but I want to ensure that the way in which Clause 1 is implemented and explained will give the people whom the Government aim to help the confidence that they need. Undertaking something in which you believe that there is the sort of risk that the Bill sets out to tackle is rather like standing on the edge of a river feeling thirsty but being worried that there might be a crocodile in it. Serious efforts need to be made to calm people’s fears; it needs to be possible to show that this particular stretch of the river is safe and that what people are setting out to do is not attended with dangers. I have been the subject of lobbying by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers—APIL—as I suspect other Members have. The examples that that body has produced seem to illustrate perfectly the problems rather than their proposed solution. It is terribly difficult for people to evaluate legal language when they are setting out to take kids on a trip or deciding whether to use a council-owned paddling pool. We simply cannot confront people with those sort of legalised decisions if we are to hope that the Bill will have the effect that Clause 1 sets out to achieve. I shall table a couple of amendments really just for the sake of being able to discuss these matters in detail and how the provisions will be practically implemented. I have a particular interest in exclusion notices; that is an important tool for someone setting out knowing that they are going to be safe when they do something. It should be possible for an authority, a council, a school or whatever body to exclude liability when the risks that the consumer is being asked to undertake and evaluate are risks that you would ordinarily expect such a consumer to be able to evaluate and take. When it is a question of whether to use a paddling pool in a park, for example, it seems reasonable to put a notice beside it saying that there is no supervision, that the water is changed only once a day, that using the pool carries those and other risks and that if you use to pool you do so at your own risk. That should be absolute; there should be no question but that such a reasonable notice gave the protection that the council wished it to have—otherwise providing these facilities becomes extremely difficult. Clearly there is a border that needs to be policed, but you need to know that the first few yards are safe. If you wade in the river and go out to far, there may be a crocodile in the deep water, but you need to know that you can go a reasonable distance. Excluding liability—and using words that can exclude liability—are a very important mechanism for an authority in dealing with parents or children. When a school acts in loco parentis, it should be absolutely clear that the school is not required to do anything that a reasonable parent would not be expected to do—that there is no added burden on these poor school teachers, who have to corral a number of disobedient kids, or that they should somehow be expected to be supermen and superwomen and go beyond what would ordinarily be expected if you sent your kid out on a day’s expedition with a friend. To get to that position of rationality, when we all know what risks we are taking, accept them as part of our daily lives and take responsibility for them ourselves, rather than running to place those risks on other people, is an objective that I shall pursue in Committee.