Compensation Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 6:"After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—" ““INTERPRETATION OF PART 1 (NO. 2)    Section 1 does not apply to claims by an employee against an employer arising out of the course of his employment.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have already said that we on this side of the House support the broad concept of Clause 1, and I believe that it sends a welcome message to the courts and to society. However, there is one area of detail in Clause 1 which we are concerned will have undesirable consequences. By introducing amendments to extend the scope of Clause 1 to breach of statutory duty, the Government have given the clause its teeth, but they have also opened the door to the potential effect on most areas of employers’ liability, when claims almost always involve the breach of a duty imposed either by statute or by statutory instrument. The law in this area is complex and has been led, in the past 15 years, by a broad impetus on workplace health and safety from Europe. The Government—and, indeed, their predecessors—have been keen to focus activity on improved health and safety in the workplace. As I have the honour to be president of the All-Party Group on Occupational Safety and Health, I am certainly fully supportive of such initiatives. Most injuries in the workplace are avoidable, and I am sure that all noble Lords would agree that we must do everything we can to reduce the incidence of employees being injured at work. The risk created by Clause 1, in the workplace context, is that we may be in real danger of creating a two-tier standard of health and safety. If the ““desirable activity”” test applies in employers’ liability claims, we will in effect be saying that, where an employee has been injured—because of breach of statutory duty by the employer—the nature of the activity in which the employer is engaged may make a difference to the outcome. I know that local authorities and other public sector employers are concerned about that. They certainly do not want to be regarded as second-class employers, particularly in the field of health and safety. Those concerns are, understandably and rightly, mirrored by those of the TUC on behalf of employees. If Clause 1 is all about creating a more civilised society, any watering down of the rights of employees—even at a theoretical level—would be directly contrary to that message. On that basis, I beg to move.