Compensation Bill [HL]

Not to a non-lawyer, you have to understand. The House of Lords made the point that there was no justification for the activity—in other words, it looks at value judgments all the time. That is, in a sense, what I was trying to capture with the provision. In not having ““desirable””, the question would be whether—I was going to say, ““we would open the floodgates””, but that may be an inappropriate phrase. The noble Lord’s point was particularly valid, because the courts are now considering the matter anyway. They are dismissing cases where they do not believe that it is right. There is a question for me too; it is something that I muse on, and it has no legal basis whatever. When people think about public benefits, I am always mindful of who the public are in that context. Some people do not regard as having any value whatever activities that Members of the Committee would regard as desirable or to be welcomed. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to sport in his family. I think of instances in which people are negative about activities that he would consider of public benefit, in that they do not like young people tramping around the moor side, or children in a nursery making noise next door, or whatever. In the phraseology that we chose, I was trying to look for something that got into an understanding of the wide variety of different activities, but in a sense tried to capture what the courts already do. Removing ““desirable”” does not do what the noble Lord fears, because the courts already cope with that. It might have the benefit of getting me some support from Members of the Committee worried about other aspects of the phrase.