Compensation Bill [HL]

One of the great joys of being a Minister is that sometimes you get an amendment where you can talk about something quite irrelevant. When I saw the amendment on notices, I was brought back to the one bit of law I know. I actually did A-level law—you would not believe it, I know. I did contract law, and can remember the bit about having to bring the notice to the attention of the person before the contract is made. The lawyers in the Room are all nodding, so I have clearly remembered it well. The amendment warmed my heart, because at least I knew something about notices. Although that is not relevant to this part of the Bill at all, I had to get the fact that I did A-level law on the record somewhere, as I have tried to do in a variety of guises in this role. I have enormous sympathy with the question, ““What is it reasonable for people to do to draw attention to something, and when does it come down to the individual to take care and be aware of the risks involved?””, which underlies the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, used the example of a playground. Information that we received on 17 November indicated that some bodies, perhaps including local authorities, might use an excuse rather than give the real reason when they want to change or close a facility. Before a local authority writes to me to say that it was not true in this case, I must say that I am not suggesting that it was. A number of facilities that we can think of are closed on other grounds, but people believe that saying that something poses a risk is unarguable. I did not know that—it was not the Government saying that. Evidence was presented to us from organisations that have been looking at the issue. We always have to be mindful that it may happen in certain circumstances. Members of the Committee may be confronted with circumstances in which an activity is curtailed when the reason for curtailing it is not this issue at all. There is a difficulty with the amendment. While we recognise that people take risks and that you draw attention to the risks that might be involved, one cannot exclude a liability simply via a notice. I am not suggesting that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, wants to do that. There are circumstances in which a notice is inadequate in itself, particularly in areas where there is great danger. A notice to say, ““If you run further down this pathway, you should know that it drops 150 feet””, may be appropriate for an adult, but it certainly would not work for a child. It might not work for someone who is dyslexic or blind. There are loads of different cases in which one cannot effectively determine all circumstances. I take the point about common sense and wanting to recognise that individuals take risks, but my reason for not wanting to pursue this is that we cannot take away the responsibility of people by saying that it would be enough to put a notice up. While I do not think that that would be the intention, we might have the difficulty that it would be the effect. While we are ensuring that we do not stop activities, we must also protect people who could suffer loss because of someone else’s negligence. That is also a way of curtailing activities. My children participate in activities run by good organisations because I know that they are as safe as they can be within the elements of risk that they undertake. If I thought that they were not taking the safety issue seriously, they would not be doing those activities. If it were thought that a notice was sufficient when I knew that in reality it might not be, my children would not participate. Again, that would take us in a different direction and we would not see the activities happen. Although that is not what the noble Lord intends with the amendment, we run the risk of that being the effect. I hope that on that basis alone he is able to withdraw it.