Compensation Bill [HL]

I am delighted that the noble Lord has the brightest and best legal minds behind him, though I believed that it was not allowed to name people in Committee in that way—otherwise I should have named mine long ago. What I understand is that Anderson does not completely overrule Jayes, and that Jayes was about the courts not straining to find the odd 1 per cent or so. Because I am not a lawyer, I crave the indulgence of the Committee that we cannot get into the position where top legal brains are, in a sense, feeding directly into the Committee to a Minister who is not a lawyer. I am happy to discuss these issues outside—but it is, for me, quite inappropriate for me to try to respond in that way. I am happy to be caught out at any time by the finest legal brains, but I would rather that we stuck to the principles behind the Bill and sought to deal with the particular issues. It is my contention, regardless of case law, that the 1945 Act gives the courts the appropriate degree of flexibility to deal with contributory negligence. That would be my contention as to why the amendment should fall.