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Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con): I am grateful to the Minister for moving the motion, thus allowing further debate on my Bill. As she explained so lucidly, the money resolution arises only from a small part of the Bill that makes provision for judges' training. That training is sorely needed, and the cost will in fact be much smaller than she suggested.
At a time when obesity and antisocial behaviour are both increasing among young people and, indeed, disfiguring our country, the efforts of volunteers, voluntary bodies and teachers who work in their spare time to provide sport, recreation and adventure training is more important than ever. Much of that work, however, has been undermined by a number of regrettable court judgments in the past few years. Five consecutive surveys have shown that the blame culture and the threat of litigation are the primary barrier to volunteering in sport and adventure training.
I hope that it is in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to touch on one judgment and a related case to illustrate why more judicial training would produce results more in accordance with common sense. The Royal Yachting Association has provided me with details of the case of Richards v. Wanstall, which was considered in 1995 by the Queen's Bench division of the High Court. A lightweight 25-ft racing yacht was manoeuvring to leave a marina berth in Plymouth when the skipper realised that it had been caught by a gust of wind and might hit an adjacent moored yacht. He therefore asked an experienced crew member to run forward with a fender, but the crew member stumbled. It took the High Court five days to consider something that I first did as a six-year-old—putting a fender out when a wind is blowing. At the end, it ruled in favour of the litigant.
That case must have been considered by the insurance company dealing with a subsequent case that never reached court, because it decided to make a horrendously large settlement.
Paddle sport relies heavily on volunteers at all levels. At a marathon last year, crews were competing over a 30-mile course in racing kayaks. Part of the race course passed through a narrow half-mile-long cutting. A volunteer marshal was positioned at each end to warn crews entering it that powered craft could present danger of a collision. A powered boat entered the cutting, followed a few minutes later by a kayak crew. The marshal allowed the kayak to enter on the strict understanding that the crew were not to try to overtake the powered craft. They ignored the instruction and
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there was a collision. A case was brought against the volunteer marshal. The insurance company decided, on legal advice, to settle out of court. That has had a devastating effect on future insurance for the event. The volunteer has resigned and will never volunteer again. The issue is not just money.
Lastly, I shall deal with costs. I was interested to hear the Minister's comments. I should stress that there are any number of voluntary organisations that would be willing to provide a one-day course, or perhaps even a longer course, free. The Girl Guides made that clear from the beginning, and they are the biggest youth movement in the country. This morning I had an e-mail from the Boy Scouts legal adviser, stating that they would be delighted to lay on something similar. There is no reason why we should lose sitting days. If their lordships were willing to give up a weekend for such a course, which it hardly seems unreasonable for them to do, no sitting days need be lost. As much of the activity takes place over a weekend, it would be a convenient time to organise such a course.
There could be some travel costs, but those would verge on the minimal, only just reaching the threshold where we would need a money resolution at all. I thank the Minister for tabling the motion and I urge the House to support it.
4.56 pm
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham) (Con): I appreciate the opportunity to support the Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier), and the motion. I accept my hon. Friend's argument that the Minister is generous in her estimate of the cost, and that, acting judiciously, the judiciary may be able to reduce the cost so that it would not be too great a burden on its training budget.
In the two Committee sittings on the Bill, there was an interesting exploration of the issues, so many of which are directly related to legal judgments and to the consequences of the compensation culture that continues to bedevil the volunteering movement. That includes not only the volunteers who work for charities, but teachers and people who are paid in some areas in order to ensure that kids as well as adults have access to the sort of adventurous lifestyle that I expect most of us in the Chamber were used to when we grew up. I think of some of the things I do now, and I know why my mother said, "Don't do it", but I would hate to think what would happen to us as a country and a culture if we could not provide adventure training and risk-taking ability so that our future generations can learn to assess risk effectively.
Unfortunately, the compensation culture drives organisations to be careful and volunteers to give up volunteering. With the changes in our lifestyles, there are greater and greater opportunities for people to volunteer, but if we cannot assure them that they will not appear in court, having taken all the professional and training opportunities necessary for them to be effective leaders and trainers, we will have a poorer life. We need to ensure that members of the judiciary have access to the best information so that when then come to make up their minds in compensation cases, they are well qualified—as is the entire legal profession—to assess risk in the context of volunteering.
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I do not intend to cite cases, because other hon. Members are better at it than me—indeed, they are trained to do it. Listening to the debate in Committee, I was conscious that it is important when such cases come to court—the Bill's main purpose is to introduce a statement of inherent risk, so hopefully fewer and fewer cases will come to court—and imperative for the good of the UK and future generations that judges base their decisions on a true and clear view of risk, that they take that view properly into account in reaching a decision, and that that view coincides with common sense. I therefore take great pleasure in supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury and the Minister.
5.1 pm
Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier)—we bat together in Kent on so many things—for his persistence with the Bill, which is so important to the glue that makes up our communities. Without volunteering, communities would not exist, and the cost would ultimately return to the state, which we are trying to avoid.
I shall give one example. A boy broke his neck playing rugby. Whom did his parents sue? It was not the school, the union or the school's union, but the referee—and guess what? The referee lost. What an appalling situation. Referees in not only rugby, but any active sport are worried and nervous about whether they can afford not the time but the risk of a court case.
The crux of one part of our society depends on volunteering, probably because of the religious side of our nature which goes back hundreds of years. I hope that the House eventually supports the Bill, but for the moment, let us support this money resolution.
5.2 pm
Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): I praise the Minister for acting in good faith on the money resolution, which she promised to do at an earlier stage. The sum of £1 million may sound like a lot of money, but it is actually small considering what the country, and indeed the Government, will get from it.
Training is important to make sure that legal judgments are right. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) mentioned the importance of common sense. On several occasions, my father has said to me, "Sense is not common," and I think about what could go wrong if we do not invest in training the judiciary to apply the law correctly.
I have had a fair number of accidents, most of which were self-inflicted. In 1971, at the age of six, I fell out of a tree and on to a post, causing considerable damage to myself—I did not land on my head, before anyone suggests that. In today's litigious society, I might have attempted to sue my parents.
In 1998, I nearly died on a hillside in Wales in a paragliding accident. I could have sued the descendents of Owain Glyndwr or myself for reckless use of gravity. Under the regime that the money resolution makes possible, I hope that those who make legal decisions will receive sensible training and that such frivolous and vexatious claims will not be made.
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I am sure that the relatively small investment that the new regime requires will be repaid to not only the Government, but society as a whole. The Government will benefit because, as the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) said, volunteering saves them a lot of money, and any disincentive to volunteering costs them a lot of money. Moreover, in terms of being a public-spirited country, there is an enormous advantage in taking away the fear of being sued from individuals who act in good faith for no financial reward, but simply because they think that is a good thing to volunteer.
In that context, the money resolution is a sensible, proactive effort to ensure that the Bill can work. I hope that the positive spirit in which the Minister approached this small part of the Bill is a promising sign that she will consider positively the intent of the Bill as a whole, which can bring great credit not only to the hon. Member for Canterbury, but to the Government, for finally coming to terms with a situation that has concerned many volunteers for a considerable period.
5.5 pm
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