My Lords, I am sorry but this is so important and I do not want to be bullied into submission because of things that happened earlier.
The bottom line is that Her Majesty’s Coastguard is protected: it does not commit the offence. But there is a different formulation for those other rescuers. It is a defence for them, if they are charged, to show—they have to prove—these factual matters. They are in the loop; they are in the zone of being convicted and that is just not right. That is not fair. That is like saying, “You commit the offence of breathing but don’t worry, your defence will be that you weren’t raping and breathing at the same time.” This is a flip of the burden and it is very dangerous for those innocent rescuers.