Health and Safety: Common Sense Common Safety

My Lords, as a result of my noble friend Lord Young’s introduction to this debate, it seems to me we ought to amend our Standing Orders to include the phrase ““re-maiden speech””. I thank him for his reappearance and for agreeing to meet me towards the end of his inquiry. Health and safety is a subject that concerns every one of us; it gets the blame for a whole range of activities being stopped, and all noble Lords have their own pet stories. These activities bear little or no relevance to the current law on which the Health and Safety Executive depends. The one good thing that the previous Government did in this area was to combine the commission and the executive. Their failure, however, was not to put a stop to the culture of blame which has pervaded this country for many years and stopped the incorrect attribution of no-risk policies to the HSE as the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, will know only too well. Almost exactly a year ago, I received a letter in which my correspondent asked, ““Why can’t we enjoy warming ourselves around the school bonfire on 5th November any more?””. She also asked, ““Why can’t our children have a few sparklers?””. The answer in both cases was that someone might burn their fingers and sue. She was quite right, as is my noble friend’s report. He cites the reasons for this on page 19—the introduction of conditional fee agreements, the growth of after-the-event insurance and the proliferation of claims management companies, which my noble friend Lord Hunt described as claims farmers. I am not sure whether that is an accurate description; to me, farmers proliferate themselves and their crops, whereas I am not sure whether claims management companies do. This report makes the point that the enormous number of claims management companies are a direct, if unintended, consequence of no-win no-fee legislation. Like any business, these companies are in it to make a profit; they clearly do, or they would disappear. Although they are regulated, my noble friend believes that more regulation is necessary, especially in the field of advertising, which is done in such a way as to make individuals believe that they can claim compensation for the most minor of incidents. In this connection, I was alarmed to find a text message on my mobile on Tuesday this week saying, ““Our records show that you may be entitled to £3,750 for the accident you had. To claim for free, reply YES to this message””. Needless to say, I have not had an accident. I believe that there are two reasons for successful claims—first, the leniency of the courts towards the claimant, and, secondly, the cost of court proceedings, which includes staff time and costs over and above those of instructing a solicitor and leads, in many cases, to out-of-court settlements. If the report of Lord Justice Jackson was acted upon, conditional fee and insurance claims would cease to be recoverable from the losing party in litigation. This would immediately put a damper on the number of court cases. My noble friend Lord Young told us that the Ministry of Justice is consulting on this report as a whole. That is important, because among Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals is the suggestion that lawyers’ fees should be capped at 25 per cent of the reward and that general damages should be increased by 10 per cent. We have been told of screams of anguish from some claims management companies and the solicitors in question, but it seems to me that here we have a carrot and stick proposal. As in the case of breaking the opticians’ monopoly on the supply of reading glasses almost 25 years ago, if the Government conclude that the proposals of Lord Justice Jackson are correct, they should get on with it. I am also told that although contributory negligence is well established in law, very often the courts do not give it enough weight in coming to their judgments. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on this when he winds up. It may be a little provocative but we should consider two organisations—or rather aspects of organisations—that it should be impossible to sue directly. The NHS runs an insurance scheme that seems to work to a greater or lesser extent, but neither schools nor the police seem to be properly insured—and, if my somewhat off-the-wall suggestions are accepted, nor would they need to be. I do not see why teachers on school property or the policeman on the beat should be sued at all. I would continue to make teachers responsible for their charges on, say, a visit from Tunbridge Wells to your Lordships’ House, as occurred the other day; and the police responsible for the mistreating of arrestees in police stations. I am, however, convinced that the absence of a clip around the ear of a misbehaving youth is one of the reasons for youth crime. If parents will not or cannot control their children, or give them the sort of guidance that we were all blessed with from our parents, let us leave it to the people whom we, as a society, charge with keeping law and order. Over the years I have identified two employees that exist in every local authority. The first is a planning officer, who has nothing to do with this debate. The second is the environmental health officer, who most certainly does. I believe he sees his job as preventing the local authority being sued. This is the wrong attitude and it is not what he is there for. I agree with the report that, if the environmental health officer bans such events as bonfires or playing conkers on school grounds, he should give his report in writing and, in extreme cases, have his actions referred to the local authority ombudsman. I also agree that it is ridiculous that parents should have to sign a consent form for every school outing. The ideal would be for the pupil to hand it in on the first day he attends a new school. The present situation is a complete and utter nonsense. I have just time to refer to the adventure activities licensing scheme, which my noble friend in his report suggests should be abolished. I will not go into detail but I observe that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, agrees with me that it is not in the Public Bodies Bill. Since my noble friend says that his report is being considered favourably on the whole, could the Minister tell us what has happened to that proposal?