Indeed, that is what I intend to do, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was simply making the point that, with all of that going on just in the past few days, here we are talking about the Lord Chancellor’s heroes Bill. He is fiddling while Rome burns: more Nero than hero.
We are all sick of the Bill. I suspect the Lord Chancellor is sick of the Bill. Like many of his projects, it began as an exercise in public relations and a nod towards the tabloids, and a coded attack on the rights of the individual to find redress through the law. Both the ridicule and the incredulity with which it has been met on both sides of both Houses, and from almost every expert commentator, has exposed its pointlessness and fragility.
The Bill will be locked away from public gaze, elided by the courts and ignored by everyone else until some future Government finds a space in the legislative timetable to repeal it. The noble Lord Pannick said that he could not
“remember a legislative proposal that has been the subject of more sustained ridicule and derision.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 December 2014; Vol. 758, c. 16.]
The chair of the Law Society policy board today wrote that there were two views of the Bill: that is was
“vague, meaningless and otiose”
or
“so ill-defined that it is dangerous to the point of mischievousness”.
Given that history, do the two minor amendments do anything to improve the Bill? They certainly do not make it any worse, if that is any comfort to the Lord Chancellor, so we have no reason to vote against them.
Amendment 2 has been urged on the Government since Second Reading on 21 July 2014, when the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) pointed out the unhelpful nature of the final words of clause 4. I moved to delete the offending words—
“and without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests”—
in Committee, supported by a very strong argument from St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross. However, it was not until Report in the other place that the Government finally gave in, stating:
“This will put beyond doubt that the clause applies to anybody who intervenes in an emergency to help somebody in danger, regardless of whether they acted entirely spontaneously or weighed up the risks before intervening.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 December 2014; Vol. 758, c. 44.]
I am not sure that that was the point of the objections; rather, it was concern that the Government were encouraging bystanders to intervene, even when it was not safe to do so, and when more lives might be placed at risk, including those of professional rescuers. The Government have at least removed one howler, whatever their motive or excuse for doing so, so we welcome amendment 2. It is just rather late in the day in coming.
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As for amendment 1, to leave out “generally” and insert “predominantly”, who knows what that will mean? No doubt we will find out in further satellite litigation, but given the brevity of the Bill, it is surprisingly full of imprecise, unhelpful and novel drafting. One belated and half-hearted attempt at reform is of little practical help. What does “activity” mean? What does “heroically” mean? What does “interests of others” mean? None of those issues has been addressed, only that one point.
Lord Pannick summarised his view of the Bill by saying that it
“will stand as a monument to the jurisprudential and policy achievements of Lord Chancellor Grayling. It is a fitting testament to the Lord Chancellor”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 January 2015; Vol. 758, c. 262.]
Similar sentiments in less elegant language were expressed last week by the former Member for Harlow, Jerry Hayes.
We are all enjoying “Wolf Hall”, but perhaps with a tinge of regret that the office of Lord Chancellor, in the 500 years since Thomas Cromwell held the title, has gone from the indomitable to the unflushable. Cromwell was the architect of the biggest social and religious changes in the country’s modern history. This Bill, this Lord Chancellor’s last Act, certainly in this Parliament, is literally meaningless, and it is therefore, as has been said, a fitting memorial.