Compensation Bill [HL]

That was a tour de force by the Minister, who cited case after case. I was left with the clear impression—and my mind went back to our discussion of trees—that she has very cleverly produced a money tree for the legal profession. It will be very difficult to make any progress with a phrase that has never been defined, unless lawyers test ““desirable”” and ““activities”” and test ““desirable activities””, and I am not sure that that should be the purpose of what we enact. The poor person left in the middle—the consumer or the person partaking in an activity—is left in the position of not really knowing whether that particular activity will fall under the heading of ““desirable activities””. The Minister did not really deal with the suggestion of ““public benefit”” and why it is a worse phrase than ““desirable activities””. We shall obviously return to the matter at a later stage. Although I recognise that she put some persuasive arguments about why a list does not work, she has not given any persuasive arguments about why Amendment No. 3—namely, the insertion of ““public benefit””—does not work. To return to the question of the list just for one moment, trees have grown fast and furious to uproot the definition that I gave; but I have a sweep-up definition which I extend to commercial activities in the last part of my attempted definition of public benefit. That is something to which I shall want to return later. The most important thing that has come out of the debate is the Minister’s statement that she is not wedded to a particular phrase—which means that we do not have to consider divorce! We can merely try to persuade her to separate from the phrase. I am pleased about that, because it means that we can go away and see whether, in the light of the Minister’s comments, we can come up with something better. But I still have doubts about whether at the moment we have moved sufficiently far in the direction that some noble Lords would like—namely, to ensure that activities that have what I have heard described as ““vitamin risk”” in them are ““desirable””. It is not immediately apparent that ““desirable activities”” will cover the activities that inject that element of risk, which is so much part and parcel of proper education and training, particularly for young people. I should like to find some way to meet those points. My noble friend Lord Erroll said that the Army must take risks in training, which is clearly part and parcel of what I put into subsection (2)(l) of Amendment No. 13, which refers to the,"““promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown””." That is such an important point, and I hope that noble Lords will reflect on my noble friend’s statements, because we need to see where this legislation is taking us. Is it taking us in the right direction, a direction in which we feel we should move? My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale made the valid point that we need legislation that is readily understandable to people who look to Parliament to deal with what appears to be a mischief and to be wrong; namely, that activities can be constrained by fear that risks will take the individual or the organisation into areas beyond their means as regards litigation. This has been a very valuable debate. Taking Amendment No. 13 with Amendment No. 3 has been valuable.