Compensation Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I said earlier that I sit at his feet in terms of his knowledge and ability, not only as a lawyer but also as a politician. So why would I be at all surprised that the noble Lord would know precisely what I would suggest by way of an invitation to amend or support the thrust of what I seek to do, while attempting at the same time to make it work more effectively? First, on conkers and trees, I want to say something on the broader work that we are doing. Quite a lot of examples that I have been given by not only noble Lords but also other organisations concern interpretations of health and safety legislation or the interpretation that they believe that the Health and Safety Executive or others are putting on that legislation. I can think of examples where I have heard of things that I thought were just plain daft, but they have been misinterpretations or a Chinese-whispers effect. We want to make sure that the Health and Safety Executive—we are working very fully with Bill Callaghan and his team—is able to get the message out about what is realistic and what is being said about health and safety issues, so that you do not get a position—this applies particularly to children and young people—where, for various reasons, those in charge say, ““You can’t do this because of some health and safety legislation””, which does not exist. I wanted to say that because there may not be an opportunity to say it elsewhere. The noble Lord gave me the opportunity with his reference to examples such as whether we should cut down trees because children might climb on them. I am not averse to having a think about whether there is something that we can add to Clause 1 that would do what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in particular, but other Members of the Committee as well, are concerned to achieve. In offering to reflect further, I should like to make two points. First, I am not convinced that the amendment would cover fully private interest. I used the case of Latimer v A.E.C. Ltd—the flooded floor case—earlier. I am not sure whether by using public interest we would capture all of that as effectively as we might.