Compensation Bill [HL]

I am grateful for the helpful way in which we have been able to debate this important issue. I am aware of the Ipp committee in New South Wales—David Ipp is the chairman—and of recommendation 31 and of a whole range of different work by the committee look again at the whole question of the law of negligence. I have the terms of reference available to me, and we will watch with interest what happens in Australia. I am aware of it, but at the moment I am completely unconvinced that I wish to go down that route. I will explain more about that in a moment. I want to say something else, which is slightly tangential but was raised for me by what the noble Earl said when he talked about the Gaping Ghyll case, which is the case of Craddock v Farrer and the Scout Association. One of the great points of interest and, dare I say, difficulty when you are the Minister in this area is that lots of different cases are brought to my attention in a range of ways. As the noble Earl will know, county court cases are not normally reported in legal journals so it is often difficult to get to the bottom of them, but I have been able to read articles relating to that case. The judge said that the Scouts had gone to Gaping Ghyll with no proper equipment, supervision had been inadequate and the scout leader had shown woeful ignorance. Those are strong terms to be used by the courts. The difficulty in the appeal, as noble Lords will know, is that the person who was found negligent had died by the time the case came to trial, and that may be one of the factors in the case. I raise that not to go into details of the case, because I cannot, but because it is difficult when one looks at the judgments in particular cases at face value to see underneath all the different factors. Thus far, in every single case we have looked at—and we have tried to look at every case that has been brought to our attention—where people have felt very strongly that something has been done wrongly, we found other factors which, on the face of it, would appear to have had a bearing on the case. I say that as a Minister and not a lawyer. It does not take away from the fact that people feel very strongly that these cases happen and as a consequence they are not doing the activities they should do. I would not want any noble Lord to feel that we do not take very seriously, looking at all the different examples, to see if we can find cases where perhaps the courts have not picked up factors that noble Lords have been concerned about. I wanted to say that because it comes up quite often in my conversations, particularly in another place as well. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart—I do not speak as a lawyer—that if there was 100 per cent contributory negligence, it does not follow that the other person can be liable. The courts must always look at the circumstances of the individual case. Let us take a couple of the examples used by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. If someone does not fasten their seatbelt and is badly injured, that may be a factor in the compensation awarded by the court, but I disagree that the fact that someone smashed into them with their car should not be taken into account. Equally, if a person not wearing a helmet comes off a bicycle or motorcycle and suffers a head injury, who is to say that even with a helmet they might not have received the injury? Again, the courts will take that factor into account, but it cannot be dismissed. In my experience chairing a health authority, it does not always follow that because you wear a helmet you will not suffer a head injury—