Compensation Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 11:"Page 1, line 11, at end insert—" ““(   )   In considering whether an activity is a desirable activity for the purposes of this Part, the court shall have particular regard to whether the claimant— (a)   willingly accepted a risk as his (the question whether a risk was so accepted to be decided on the same principles as in other cases in which one person owes a duty of care to another), or (b)   entered onto land or into premises with the intention of committing an offence.”” The noble Lord said: It may assist the noble Earl if I indicate that I intend to move Amendment No. 18, which covers many of the points in Amendment No. 10, so there will be an opportunity for us to explore this further. Amendment No. 11 seeks to insert at the end of Clause 1—again, in the definition of ““desirable activity””—the words set out on the Marshalled List. These words attempt to restrict the duty owed, for example, to trespassers by the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984 by removing any right for those engaged in criminal activity. I suppose that some people would call this the Tony Martin defence. It is interesting that in another place, the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill was presented by Anne McIntosh earlier this year. A range of parties are signatories to the Bill, including Kate Hoey, Frank Field, Dominic Grieve, David Davis and Richard Taylor. It seeks to amend criminal law in relation to the use of force in the prevention of crime or in the defence of persons or property. It is also interesting to note that that Bill deals with an issue which featured in the Radio 4 ““Today”” programme survey on what was the legislative change that most listeners wanted. It was this change which is set out in the Bill presented by my colleague, Anne McIntosh. In the speech to which I referred earlier, the Prime Minister talked about people taking responsibility for their actions. There is nothing in this Bill which achieves that. This is just one of a series of points that we are raising on how the concept of responsibilities plays into the law of negligence in an undesirable way. Certainly, that is what the majority of the public believe. I hope that that is a sufficient explanation for the noble Baroness. I beg to move.