Compensation Bill [HL]

My name is attached to the amendment, but I come to it from a slightly different tack than my noble friend Lord Hunt. To make an apology is the perfectly normal, gentlemanly and natural thing to do on the spur of the moment. If one reacts with that speed, that should not later be taken as an admission of negligence. I return to yachting. Even when you are with friends and you know a crew well and an accident happens, you can say sorry. Often, things are happening so fast that you have time to do nothing else and things carry on. I cite another case, Richards v Wanstall, on 10 April 1995, where the owner of a small, 20 foot racing yacht was sued by one of the experienced crew members after leaving the marina. The skipper realised that the yacht had been caught by a gust of wind and could have hit a yacht moored nearby and asked an experienced adult crew member to run forward with a fender. The crew member stumbled going forward and, three months later, successfully sued the skipper for damages, claiming that he had injured his leg. After a five-day trial, the court found the skipper liable on the grounds that a reasonably careful skipper should have pre-briefed the crew on that manoeuvre and had a crew member pre-placed. I can tell the Committee that things do not work like that in sailing. Racing yachts—it was a racing yacht—go in and out of marinas all the time. In my opinion, an experienced crew would not need asking by the skipper; they would see what was happening and automatically run to do it themselves. Needless to say, that has caused great consternation in the yachting fraternity. Yachting is a rough and tumble sport. Indeed, a friend of mine has just had half of his jaw replaced, but it was his own yacht so he could not sue anyone. The record of the case does not state whether the skipper said sorry at the time. I often wonder whether, if he had said sorry, the five-day trial might have found the skipper negligent after only one or two days. The Bill should state that an apology or an offer of treatment is not necessarily an admission of negligence.