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Mr. Burnett: I am sure that the Minister will have heard the comments from both sides of the House that premiums are going up not just because of the incidence of litigation. One of the main reasons why they are going up is because insurance companies settle before action is taken. That is a real problem. I hope that she understands that—I am sure that she does—but will she also remember that the Government have initiated the Clementi review of legal services? The review is not limited solely to the legal profession; it also encompasses often unregulated personal injury claims companies. Will she therefore send a copy of the report of this debate and subsequent debates in Committee and on Third Reading to Sir David Clementi?
Fiona Mactaggart: I shall be perfectly happy to pass on a copy of the report to the Clementi review. It is important to get the fact rights. I hesitate to bandy words with a lawyer on some of these issues, as the hon. Gentleman will know more than I do that some of the reforms to the law have been designed to increase the
likelihood of settlement rather than litigation. I understand what he is saying but, that is one of the reasons—not the only reason—why there have been more settlements.I asked carefully about the issue, because I recognise how widespread the concern is. It is true that the number of claims issued in the courts has been reducing over the past few years so I asked, as the hon. Gentleman did, about the claims made to insurers. Although it is counter-intuitive, it is really interesting—I hope that we can discuss this in Committee, because the part of the Bill that deals with this issue is quite flawed—that the number of personal injury claims made to general insurers has remained static over all. The figure has not increased even though we have been given to believe that it has; it has stayed at about the same level.
Mr. Burnett: Did the Minister then ask the next logical question about the extent of the payouts on those claims and how they have increased? I think that she will find that they have increased significantly.
Fiona Mactaggart: The hon. Gentleman may well be right, and the issue might properly be addressed by the Clementi review. One problem is the issue of how much people receive. In fact, it is right that, if someone has been negligent, the victim of the negligence should be properly compensated. If, in today's world, the proper compensation is assumed to be higher than it used to be, that will impact on claims. However, I do not believe that a single Member of the House believes that the victim of negligence should not be compensated. I do not therefore think that the fact that the amount of compensation thought to be right might have increased should somehow lead to the possibility that someone might be able to get away with negligence.
Mr. Burnett: The Minister will presumably agree that if a certificate of inherent risk or a similar formula were arrived at, it would be likely to reduce premiums.
Fiona Mactaggart: That is what we need to find out. I am taking a risk by not doing what Ministers usually do at this point—let us be clear that it is what makes their lives easier—and saying, "Oh, it is a very good idea", and talking for so long that we do not have the opportunity to give the Bill its Second Reading and thus do not give it the chance to get into Committee. I am not taking the easy way out. I am saying that there might be value in the measure, but also that there might not.
If a certificate of inherent risk were to allow people to be a bit negligent, I would not want it. Volunteers should not have the right to be a bit negligent. However, if, as may be possible, a certificate of inherent risk would improve the quality of information provided to participants—changing the impact of the present law under volenti non fit injuria with people being aware that an activity involves some risk—by helping people to be aware of and to understand the nature of a risk in an activity and thus making them feel more comfortable about participation, and if it would ensure that voluntary organisations would take their training more seriously, it might be a good idea. If it were thus to create confidence in the insurance industry that safety was properly managed and treated sensibly and that risk assessments were properly done—one would expect all
those things to happen under good practice and they lie behind the concept that we are discussing—I would expect premiums to decline.Let me give hon. Members some good news. We have tried to bring together the industry and voluntary organisations through the insurance cover working group. We have tried to get voluntary and community sector groups to band together and bulk-buy insurance cover through umbrella groups with agreed safety arrangements and protocols. That is starting to bear fruit, and I have received a message from an organisation that said that its insurance premium had stayed exactly the same from one year to the next for the first time in some years, which was different from the previous pattern. That was a result of the working group getting organisations to band together and of people ensuring that they had appropriate safety strategies. It is clear that it is possible to make a difference to insurance premiums by dealing with the situation intelligently, but I am not yet clear whether the certificate of inherent risk would be the way to do that. I know that the certificate is the core of the Bill.
The hon. Member for Canterbury has graciously accepted that parts of the Bill will require amendment. For example, he gave a commitment to amend the unhelpful provision on sharing risk. I would have had to stand in the way of the Bill reaching Committee if he had not have made that commitment, as I would have done if he had not said that he would co-operate. He has co-operated with the Government today in trying to determine whether we can make sense of things. I see the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) getting twitchy because his Bill is next, so I shall return to the points made.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras raised an important issue, although the Bill does not cover it, about the problem of drilling out the adventuressness of adventure in every setting. One reason why the Bill merits further debate is that the deadlines in the House will allow us to put salt on the tails of all those in the sector who are responsible for such issues to find solutions to the problems that he identified. I certainly want to do that.
Mr. Dobson: My hon. Friend talked about joint enterprises to reduce premiums. I suspect that most voluntary organisations, and certainly most of the voluntary groups that run the playgrounds with which I am familiar, have no idea that that arrangement exists and can be exploited. It would help if the addresses of useful organisations were contained somewhere—perhaps on a vast governmental internet site— with an explanation of how to get on such a scheme. That would go down very well.
Fiona Mactaggart: I thank my right hon. Friend for his comment. One reason why it is proper to allow the Bill to proceed is because we can use it as a vehicle to get a better awareness of what is happening and to test the quality of that. We do not have all the solutions. I am not certain that the Bill offers a solution; I have not had enough time to determine that. Of course promoting volunteering is a good thing. Every hon. Member agrees with that. However, the original version of the Bill contained some things that we could not have supported in any way. The hon. Member for Canterbury helpfully
abandoned one of those measures en route, and I am grateful to him for that. There are other measures that the Government will not support in their current form, but if Parliament can come up with ideas or even promote information, schemes and strategies to deal with the anxieties and problems raised, that will be a worthwhile exercise even if our debate uses up the time of many hon. Members and civil servants. It is worth getting more volunteers, making activities safe and reducing the insurance premiums and other barriers to successful organisations.I hope to deal with all the points raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) said that the law on frivolous claims has not changed and that the courts can prevent such claims from being made. He mentioned shared responsibility. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Canterbury for accepting that there is a problem with the wording. We do not expect that to survive scrutiny in Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Mr. Gardiner) referred to BrAVA, an organisation in his constituency, which I hope to visit shortly. He explained that there are other barriers to volunteering than those that are dealt with in the Bill. For example, I have been doing a quick consultation. Usually we have a 12-week consultation period when preparing for a Bill, but that is not possible with private Members' legislation. That is one reason why the Government might like the idea of a private Member's Bill but not its detail. Such a Bill might be designed to solve a problem of which we are all aware but the Government are not sure that the proposed provisions will solve that problem. That is because we have not been able to consult widely enough.
I approached Dame Elisabeth Hoodless of Community Service Volunteers, an organisation with which we work closely. I know that all hon. Members have experience of "make a difference day". I have seen on the website of the hon. Member for Canterbury information about his involvement in a local vinery on "make a difference day". In a typical forthright response, Dame Elisabeth wrote:
- "We understood that the law had just been tightened to address these issues and are not clear what this Bill aims to achieve. CSV feels it is important to stress that day to day living can be a dangerous activity. We feel that the Bill, in particular the statement of inherent risk, will lead to a highly bureaucratic process that would exclude many young people from the activities that they enjoy."
The Pre-School Learning Alliance thinks that many provisions in the Bill are standard practice and that the measure might be bureaucratic and deter people. We need to ensure that that does not happen. In a way, I shall agree with part of what the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) said. She said that this is not an easy issue and that the hon. Member for Canterbury has come up with an ingenious solution. It is ingenious, but I am not certain it will work. However, it is worth testing. It is worth consulting voluntary organisations to ascertain whether parts of the Bill will help. We all share an aim. I disagree with the hon. Lady's points on food and tobacco. In all circumstances, tobacco is always dangerous to people's health. We should not eat the
wrong sort of food in excess. However, as the hon. Member for Mars, or Masterfoods, I can be assured that a Mars a day, if that is part of a balanced diet, can genuinely help us work, rest and play.I have outlined how the Government are committed to promoting volunteering. We need to take whatever steps are practical to remove barriers that prevent people from becoming involved in their communities. However, we need to guard against making provisions that create an imbalance of responsibility and duty between the voluntary sector and public and private sectors. There is a risk that that will create confusion and possible resentment, and undermine our belief that the voluntary and community sectors should be considered on the same footing as other sectors and can rival market and state because of their unique way of working.
I am promoting voluntary organisations in their capacity to provide public services, which is a fantastic capacity. When we use their imagination, talent and flexibility, we can do some exciting things.
We recognise that the concerns that the hon. Member for Canterbury seeks to address through the Bill are real. They are being faced by sections of the voluntary and community sectors. We have already been working on some of them through organisations such as the insurance cover working group. I have promised that we shall engage with voluntary organisations to focus on the subject raised by the Bill. I hope that we shall be able to feed that into consideration in Committee. We shall examine the identification and resolution of barriers that prevent some people from engaging in volunteer activity. That might result in the statement of inherent risk. However, I must advise the hon. Member for Canterbury that Ministers are not confident that the Bill can be amended not to give a free pass to the negligent. If it is not possible to amend it, or if it creates a barrier of the kind suggested by Dame Elisabeth Hoodless, I cannot support it, but the matter is worth further consideration.
Sport England's research, which has contributed to the thinking of the hon. Member for Canterbury, shows that volunteers must be better supported to enable them to contribute time and effort. We can achieve that by continuing to work on our volunteering strategies, but the Bill might have something to offer. I am not certain on that point, but it is worth further work.
In conclusion, we should not fall for a myth that has developed in this debate. The Home Office citizenship survey, to which I referred earlier, provides an evidence base to support our work. It helps to assess how we are doing on the target to increase volunteering. The emerging findings from the 2003 survey—as with all research, these things take time to analyse—show that volunteering did not, as we have heard today, decrease between 2001 and 2003; over that period, the number of people participating voluntarily in their community at least once a month increased by 3 per cent. That translates into an increase of more than 1 million in the number of volunteers, which exceeds the challenge set by the Prime Minister in 2000 to get 1 million more volunteers by 2006. We are making progress on the
matters that the Bill seeks to address, so let us not say that things have been going backwards, because they have been going forwards.If the provisions in the Bill enable us to make further progress, I look forward to working with the hon. Member for Canterbury. If, on close examination in Committee, it turns out that the fears expressed to me by ministerial colleagues from across the Government are insurmountable, we may lose the Bill. However, we will end up with a process that will increase volunteering and the safety of volunteers and those who engage in activities and that will promote the kind of active, engaged society to which the hon. Member for Canterbury, every hon. Member who spoke in this debate and I are committed.
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