Compensation Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 5:"Page 1, line 8, leave out ““desirable”” and insert ““legitimate sporting, recreational or other socially beneficial””" The noble Earl said: I move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Greenway. It may seem strange that, after the long debate we have just had, this amendment appears to be similar to the others. I should have put my name to this amendment, as I said earlier. It puts the focus in a different place. We have been talking about public interest and public benefit. The amendment is interesting. I do not want to open up a huge debate on this, but it may be helpful to separate mentally the two things. The amendment does not refer to the public interest but to,"““legitimate sporting, recreational or other socially beneficial””," activity. Private people can be sued as well. That is also a huge problem. People sometimes forget that it is not just public authorities and schools being sued. For example, my wife has a small estate with footpaths running through it. Someone wishes to organise a fun run through the estate and that impinges on her liability as well as his liability. She has had a very difficult exchange of letters with the organiser, who finds it difficult to take on board that she is liable as well as him. My wife’s insurers insist on seeing his insurance liability before they will absolve my wife from responsibility for permitting the run to take place if she is able to refuse it. As there have to be stationary marshals positioned at points along the fun-run course, she has some control over it, as people are not allowed to stop and sit down on a public footpath for any length of time. There are also huge implications for the private sector, for ordinary, private individuals. I want to separate out Amendment No. 7 so that I can focus the mind of the Committee on the fact that just using the public interest is not sufficient. One will find that other people are not covered by it and one will get what appears to be a public interest, like a fun run, raising money for charity, blocked because private people are at risk still. That is why I want to leave that amendment separate for discussion, so that we can focus our minds briefly on that. I do not want to labour the point. Most of it has been covered. I do not think it needs any lengthy reply or discussion. Between now and Report, when we apply our minds to potentially better wording than ““desirable””, the wording must encompass not only public benefit and public interest, but it must also encompass private interests where they would affect the pubic interest, so that those people are covered as well. I beg to move.