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Mr. Brazier: My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. I was grateful for a meeting with Peter Lambert of Business in the Community and for that organisation's support for the Bill.
Mr. Taylor: I referred to that organisation in my pamphlet.
Volunteering goes much wider than the subjects on which we have principally focused this morning. The care co-ordinating agency in my constituency is worried about the burden of the Criminal Records Bureau processes. The Bill does not cover that, but I hope that the Government take it on board. We do not say that the checks should not be made—they are important—but duplication of effort appears almost wilfully to be required of the caring organisations.
Leisure and sporting activities have been considered. There is no doubt that we are beginning to see in this country implications that ambulance-chasing lawyers in the United States have appreciated for some time. Some of the claims there have stopped all school sports. Although there has been some banter about the role of lawyers and current legislation that enables lawyers to take fees for success, I am afraid there is no doubt that the compensation culture is beginning to bedevil British society. It is interesting that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras was a former Secretary of State for Health, given the problems in the national health service in this country at the moment. It is being brought almost to its knees by the cost of self-insured claims for negligence, many of which are opportunistic in the extreme.
If that compensation culture enters the voluntary arena, we really will have trouble, and there are signs that it is beginning to do so. I do not have the same depth
of knowledge as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury, whose research is very impressive. I listened to his speech, and I hope that the House noted carefully the worrying indicators that volunteering is beginning to be affected by that compensation culture. I did a little research in my constituency to see whether that was borne out by my experience. It was interesting that of the groups that responded to our telephone trawl this week, many said that they had a problem and none said that they did not.Some of those groups were more forthcoming than others. For example, the Hersham youth trust in my constituency is a completely independent charity that has built a new youth club in Hersham through volunteer labour—including, incidentally, my own. Mine was a very modest brick in a rather large wall—that has nothing to do with Pink Floyd, I might add. The important point is that that club exists because of volunteers, and it was difficult to ensure that there were proper safety measures and that all the necessary checks were made and legal obligations met. That was almost the easy bit. The difficulty for that club will be once it opens, because there will then be all the problems of public liability insurance and the headaches that come with that. Some of the costs involved have a big implication on how many people will be prepared to volunteer, and how many can be allowed to volunteer, to help in the club, which will have an impact on how extensive the help to the local people of Hersham can be. That is one good volunteering arena that is beginning to have the troubles that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury outlined in his speech.
My local guides, who are enthusiastic supporters of the Bill, are another group with a problem: shortage of volunteers. The number of girls on the waiting list to join the guide groups in my constituency on which I have done a survey is 416. The current number of adult volunteers is 114, so we need more volunteers. However, there is a hesitancy to come forward for a variety of reasons, including the worries about liability so clearly expressed today. Although the scouts nationally have not been totally supportive of the Bill, one pack in my constituency has said that it is now seeing in volunteers a fear of taking responsibility for activities, particularly, in one case, land yachting, which people think might represent a risk.
Esher cricket club has mentioned that it does not only have problems with the Criminal Records Bureau in relation to its youth matches; in addition, the
- "fear of litigation will begin to impinge on their ability to bring sport to children".
Hinchley Wood school in my constituency has said:
- "Parents have told the school that they are concerned that they might be subject to litigation"
- "coaching and attending team competitions"
Mr. Luff: I am sure my hon. Friend understands that his concerns are widely shared geographically, and are not found only in London and the south-east, although that region has dominated the debate so far. I received an e-mail this week from Flight Lieutenant Steve Booth, commanding officer of 2516 (Droitwich) Squadron Air Training Corps. It reflects exactly the points that have been made about liability and the impact on activity for young people, the country's obesity problem, and the contribution of volunteers. That corps really hopes that the Bill passes, because it is having real difficulty in finding volunteers. The Bill would make an important contribution to solving its problems.
Mr. Taylor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point, which reinforces those that I have made.
We are not yet in crisis—it would not be fair to say that—but I anticipate that we soon will be if something is not done. We have seen what has happened in the United States, and we are now beginning to see that in this country. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras clearly has a much better understanding than I of playgroups, and he has produced a report on that sector. That provides a classic example of the problem of where children will go if they do not go to organised groups and playgrounds. It is equally true that if people do not become cadets, or are not allowed to become guides, or do not play games after school, they will do something else with their time. That will be a social problem that, frankly, I do not wish to begin to contemplate.
The Bill has another important dimension. Some organisations in my constituency have many volunteers and do not yet feel that they have a problem, Molesey boat club, of which I am a president, among them. It is on the Thames, and is one of the oldest boat clubs in the country. It has done an enormous amount of work voluntarily to help schools that have not previously had a rowing tradition to participate in rowing. I have visited it, and launched boats and so on. At the moment, that boat club feels that it is covered because it gets overall insurance through the Amateur Rowing Association. However, as one or two Members have said, we need to be careful that such overall coverage is not affected by some of the problems faced at individual level. If that were to happen, and insurance were not available to umbrella organisations, there would be a dramatic reaction in many of the clubs that at the moment do not feel threatened. In a sense, the Bill
anticipates that. As long as those clubs can get liability cover through the umbrella organisations, they feel that they are all right; but I am concerned about whether that will continue unabated, if current legal trends are not stopped.The establishment of a certificate of recognition of inherent risk to help to protect volunteers and organisations from unreasonable litigation is an important part of the Bill. We are not, of course, talking about criminal liability. That is not part of the Bill, and I do not wish to mitigate criminal liability. However, where someone has done something with proper intent that is designed to help someone else, they should not be accused of some legal infringement and be subject to unreasonable litigation. Particularly in relation to games of rugger, it is quite clear that the courts are moving in the direction of deciding that any risk is legally unacceptable. That is sheer nonsense, and very dangerous. We all take risks in our lives, and we have to have the ability to assess them. If we try to create a risk-free society, we shall create social chaos. Today's Bill is a warning signal, and I hope that the Government will give it a reasonably fair wind.
11.20 am
Roger Casale (Wimbledon) (Lab): When speaking to a Bill to promote volunteering, it is incumbent on us to preface our detailed remarks with an acknowledgement of the value of the work of volunteers and voluntary organisations across the country. Praise for those people and organisations cannot be given often enough or loudly enough, and I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House are united in our appreciation of their work. They contribute enormously not only to the economic well-being of the country but to the health and strength of our communities. I regard the act of volunteering as an important way of engaging with our local communities; indeed, I see it as an act of citizenship.
The voluntary sector, working in partnership with other statutory bodies such as local councils, health organisations or the police, is increasingly exercising a leadership role in the decisions being made in our communities about how money is spent and how improvements are made. The rather old-fashioned idea of the volunteer should no longer apply; people have many different motives for volunteering, and, within reason, every motive should be encouraged. We should see volunteering as being at the forefront of social change, involving volunteers leading change in our communities in partnership with other organisations. All of that is to be welcomed and encouraged.
We should also remember how well qualified many volunteers are today. Volunteering is by no means restricted to amateurs or people lacking skills. There has been a great professionalisation of the voluntary sector. We must not give the impression that there is a distinction between work done in a professional capacity and volunteering. Many volunteers have considerable expertise and professional skills, and the voluntary organisations place great emphasis on skills and training, and on having volunteers with appropriate qualifications. They will often help the volunteers to get those qualifications if they need them. The organisations are run very professionally.
This debate brings us together to sing a hymn of praise to volunteers and voluntary organisations. I imagine that all hon. Members have had direct experience as a volunteer or worked with voluntary organisations in their constituencies. There is currently a fashion for reality TV programmes showing Members of Parliament having real-life experiences, although I would question just how much of a real-life experience it is to have one's own television show. We should always remember that the national voluntary organisations, through the volunteer bureaux and Community Service Volunteers, have been getting Members of Parliament involved in real-life volunteering experiences for many years.
I always try to take part in national volunteer week each year, as a way of promoting volunteering in my community. One year, I spent a day with the Wimbledon Guild, which suggested that I come to its luncheon club and asked me to be the waiter. After about 15 minutes, I was told, "You'd better go back to being the MP. Sit down and have some lunch, then go round and do the glad-handing afterwards." Another year, I was invited by Merton Mencap to spend an evening with the many young professionals who give up one evening a week to connect with young people with severe disabilities. I had a marvellous evening, and I was particularly struck by the debriefing after the children had gone. The volunteers were working together very professionally as a team, and brought their expertise from their professional lives to bear on their voluntary work.
We all have such experiences through keeping in touch with voluntary organisations in our constituencies, and I shall mention later some comments that have been made by the organisations in my constituency. We all acknowledge the importance and the value of volunteers and voluntary organisations, and we speak of that from direct experience in our own lives and our work as Members of Parliament. We are united in wanting to promote volunteers and volunteering. On the surface, therefore, we should all be in favour of the Bill.
I accept that there is a problem with the growing compensation culture, how we deal with risk, and the increasing cost of insurance. However, when I read the small print of the Bill, I asked myself whether those issues were the key barriers to promoting volunteering. We all know that there is a problem. Every organisation that I have spoken to in my constituency has a problem with recruiting volunteers. That is why it is important that we support measures that will genuinely promote volunteering and help to bring the barriers down, but is the problem that I have just outlined really the No. 1 problem that voluntary organisations face? A number of organisations have been referred to in this debate, and, as the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr. Taylor) said, we all have our own direct experience of organisations in our constituencies to fall back on. We are here this morning because we want to promote volunteering, so we must keep in focus the question of whether that is the No. 1 problem that we should be attacking.
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