Compensation Bill [HL]

My Lords, as we are having some changing the light-bulb analogies, I am tempted to begin with one that I have heard: how many Peers does it take to change a light-bulb? The answer is: ““Change?”” To the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, I would say that issues of interpretation surround the Health and Safety Executive. At our November conference—at a point when I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, was still with us—we discussed how the executive is sometimes used as an excuse, for other bodies’ reasons. So the ministerial group wishes the Health and Safety Executive to have a chance to explain what it does and does not do. Some of the concerns often raised in that context are nothing to do with what they themselves are doing, but, either by accident or design, relate to the interpretation put on what they have said or attributed to them inappropriately. Like the noble Earl, I can think of examples where I know that to be the case, although I am not suggesting that that applies to those he raised. There is a genuine problem that we should address.