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Mr. Joyce: Does my hon. Friend not think that the age of majority—16—is a perfectly reasonable point at which to draw that line?

Mr. Dismore: It depends on the activity in question. The problem is that the Bill as drafted applies different age limits for different things, and children are expected to appreciate different risks at different ages. I am happy to accept the legal age of majority—in fact, it is 18—for all things, but in practice one could have the sliding scale of appreciation of risk proposed by the hon. Member for Canterbury, which begins at age 11 and ratchets up to 16. I would prefer a scale running from 14 to 18, because one should err on the side of caution when asking for an appreciation of risk and taking away people's rights.

We then come to amendment No. 117, which takes us back to the duties of a parent. We heard earlier about the townie who does not understand country ways and a caving accident. The problem is that, although an adult who is experienced in the ways of the country may understand the risks, townies may not; and giving a risk assessment to the parent is not necessarily good enough. I believe that the voluntary organisation must ensure that parents themselves understand what is involved in the activities so that the parent can then explain it to the child. We are imposing an obligation on the parent to make sure that the child understands what is going on, but if the parent does not understand it in the first place, how on earth can it be explained properly to the child? There is a double duty on the organisation to ensure that parents fully understand as well as the children. That is another matter left out of the Bill.

Lawrie Quinn: Does it not also pose the question of the potential age of the leader of the activity? In many voluntary young people's groups—scouts and guides, for example—part of the challenge for the young person is to advance by taking on more responsibility. We could end up with a contradiction if the young person leading a group activity does not have enough competency in the Bill's terms.

Mr. Dismore: My hon. Friend has hit on a very important point. I recall being in the sea scouts and I was often engaged in leading activities about which I knew far more than the parents. I recall one occasion when I was about 17 and I cancelled a sailing expedition that I was leading because the weather was so bad. A parent came up and played hell with me because I had cancelled the activity. He simply could not understand why I had cancelled it. I told him that there was a force 9 gale blowing and he said, "What's that got to do with it?" That is a clear example of what my hon. Friend is illustrating: sometimes people do not think things through because they do not understand the risks. Sometimes someone under 18 might have to explain things to people who are over 18. I have not tabled an amendment to cover that point, which is unfortunate,
 
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because my hon. Friend has made a very important point. If the Bill progresses further, I hope that it might be dealt with in the other place.

I was dealing with amendment No. 117. Amendment No. 118 is an alternative to amendment No. 60, which deals with imposing duties on a child. I am extremely concerned about the extent to which we may be doing that.

Amendment No. 61 effectively deals with the risk of a creeping defence. I am trying to specify that a defence could apply only to risks that have been exclusively identified in the statement—not to unidentified risks that go beyond that. If we are to take away legal rights, exclusivity—not open season—should be the nature of the game. The Bill currently allows open season to extend beyond the risks that people have undertaken to risks that they might not be aware of because they have not been specified in the risk assessment.

Amendments Nos. 64, 62 and 65 deal with the question of exceptional risks, not regular ones, if I may put it in those terms.

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Amendments Nos. 112 and 67 deal with an important aspect of the Bill. The question is when the statement of inherent risk should be presented to the person undergoing the activity. As things stand, it would only have to be done once and then people would not be reminded about it again. That is a major concern. As I said earlier, we all yawn when the air hostess does her little pantomime, but it is done every time we get on a plane—and for a reason. We may know the warnings back to front, but we are reminded of the safety issues involved and what we should do in an emergency. The circumstances are similar for dangerous activities. If someone undertakes a dangerous activity—perhaps every six months or so—they should be reminded on each and every occasion of the safety precautions and the assessments that have been made. I am very concerned that the Bill contains no such obligations.

Amendment No. 113 requires the statement to be updated in advance of every activity, because risks change. In the hiking analogy, the risk assessment done in the summer would clearly not apply to hiking in the winter. Therefore, it would be appropriate for a risk assessment to be prepared in advance of every activity. It is also peculiar that people would not be required to date the forms at the time that they signed them. That is a self-evident requirement, but it does not appear in the Bill as it stands.

Amendment No. 108 is important. At present, the statement does not have to be presented to the parent or the individual undergoing the activity by the person who is supervising it; it can be presented on their behalf. So someone could spend a lot of time and effort drafting the statement, but hand it on to somebody else to hand on to somebody else, in a form of Chinese whispers. By the time it reached the intended recipient, the person presenting the statement might know nothing about it. It is important that the statement should be presented by the person who prepared it and who is supervising the activity. Then if there are any questions about what the statement means or intends, the person can answer those questions and the activity can proceed safely in the circumstances. Not to do that would be regrettable.
 
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Amendments Nos. 109, 70, 162, 71 and 110 deal with the age issue, and I shall not rehearse those arguments again. I draw hon. Members' attention to amendment No. 111, and my argument is that the statement should be strictly construed. If one takes away people's rights, one has to ensure that safeguards are in place, and that is what amendment No. 111 would achieve. I mentioned earlier the argument about activities that happen occasionally but are repeated. There is a counter-argument that a statement would not be needed every time, but if activities are repeated, it would pay for them to be revisited. Amendment No. 113 would provide that for continuous or repeated activities the statement would be checked at least once a year.

Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 deal with the exclusion of civil liability. From new clause 79, it appears that the hon. Member for Canterbury has accepted at least amendment No. 76, because breaches of statutory duty would not be excluded as a cause of action. There is no reference to breach of statutory duty in new clause 29. The hon. Gentleman can tell us later, if there is time, whether that was a drafting error by his pet High Court judge. I hope that it is because the hon. Gentleman agrees with me for once.

Amendments Nos. 79, 78 and 77 deal with one of the meaty issues in the Bill: promoting volunteers. I am holding out an olive branch to the hon. Member for Canterbury, because the amendments would enable the volunteer to avoid personal liability, while maintaining liability on the part of the organisation. The amendments would deal with the problem that an individual might fear they could be sued as first defendant in an action for negligence; the way that I have phrased the provisions ensures that the individual could not be sued, but that the organisation would still be held liable. That is the best of all possible worlds. The victim could still recover compensation without loss of their rights, save against the volunteer—which is of course a legal fiction at present—because the action would be transferred to the organisation concerned through the legal principle of vicarious liability.

I want to turn to some of the other amendments. Amendment No. 84 deals with an irrelevancy in the Bill, as the courts already take such action.

I realise that I have been going on for some time, but although I need another hour properly to do justice to the Bill, I am being prevailed on to allow other hon. Members to speak, so in deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West, who has been patiently waiting to speak, and to other hon. Members, I shall draw my remarks to a close. [Hon. Members: "More, more."] That is not to concede that I have no arguments on my other amendments—I do.

I have tried to explain to the House why the Bill is bad and why it takes away people's rights; it is an unlimited charter to injure, kill and maim young children and it should be defeated.

Mr. Joyce: I want to direct my brief comments to new clause 29. I came to the debate instinctively supportive of the new clause, and even after listening to the magnificent lawyerly exposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who made some interesting and, perhaps, valid points, I am not sure that he has changed my mind. He has certainly not changed my view of the dangers of a compensation culture.
 
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Before the debate, I took the precaution of asking a few people about that issue. I spoke to members of the Camelon Labour club in my constituency, which organises activities and outings for children in the local area during the summer months. They tell me that there is no question but that people are more reluctant to volunteer nowadays, due to the perception that there is a greater risk of the law prevailing on them.

I spoke to a couple of people who run judo clubs. I know the sport fairly well; it has a lower risk of injury than many others. Those people had exactly the same opinion about the compensation culture. I spoke to people who run outdoor activities for schools; they held the same view. It seems pretty widespread. I also spoke to people at a marvellous organisation in my constituency—Westfield community centre, which, rather like the Camelon Labour club, runs summer activities for children. Mrs. Betty Cook, who runs that organisation extremely effectively, held the same opinion, so although I recognise the expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, I find it a little odd that he describes the compensation culture as an urban myth, because that claim is neither scientific nor proven. I think that Members on both sides of the House would agree that there is some foundation for the idea that there is a compensation culture.

A number of hon. Members received quite a lot of correspondence before the debate. I looked through some of the arguments—clearly, they were offered independently and individually—and they had a certain interesting pattern. Different arguments were offered for disagreeing with the Bill, particularly the new clause, which represents its essence, and I shall share with the House a couple of those arguments, which were, frankly, rather shallow.

One of those arguments came from the Association of British Insurers, which said that the courts would interpret the Bill's provisions in such a way that people could not delineate voluntary activity from professional activity. We have heard a great deal lawyerly language today, but common sense can apply in these circumstances. Not every word that goes through someone's mind when reading a Bill needs to appear in the Bill. It is entirely possible to make that delineation.

Volunteering England does not support the Bill, but strangely—although this is not entirely contradictory—it agrees that there is an increasingly litigious culture. That is important. I do not think that the new clause was particularly badly drafted. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to have been drafted by someone who knew their business. However, I am not professionally qualified to make that point.

Another organisation, called Playlink, is sympathetic to the concerns that have been expressed, but it says that it does not support the Bill because the issues involved are very complex. There is a grave danger if we just give up. All issues can be complex, particularly where lawyers are concerned. I have enormous respect for lawyers, especially when I occasionally avail myself of one, although they are clearly very expensive. Nevertheless, we should be careful about accepting the argument that we should shy away because things are terribly complex. That is not a particularly good argument for not supporting the Bill.
 
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Another excellent organisation, Youth Action Network, was against the new clause and the Bill in general because it thought that the provisions would not be clear to the voluntary organisations that used them. Again, that relates to the argument about complexity. It is like saying, "Well, it's all a bit too complicated. Not everyone is a lawyer." My view is that common sense can solve much of that problem.

The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers thought that, instead of the Bill, more insurance should be taken out, and the Association of British Insurers might agree. Frankly, I have my doubts about that suggestion and I wonder whether other agendas might lie behind it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Stewart) referred to the Samaritans. Although the Samaritans do not engage in what we would normally consider as dangerous or risky activities, I suppose that risk might be involved in the advice that someone is given down the phone. I have not seen the correspondence, but the Samaritans did not like the Bill either. They thought that the Bill would make it more difficult to recruit and retain volunteers. I could not follow the logic of that argument. The Bill is about exposing risk, making it public and reducing the risk to volunteers, thus making it easier to recruit and retain people.

Another organisation broached an important issue, perhaps unintentionally. Student Volunteering England argued that

"volunteering is becoming increasingly professionalised",

so we should not separate professional staff from volunteers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) made it clear that a distinction must be made between a volunteer and a professional member of staff. We all understand that that distinction is important, irrespective of whether it is based on training, competence or whatever. If we say that volunteers must have professional expertise, it would be a sure fire way to get rid of any possibility of people volunteering. Of course, volunteers are not paid, but if they achieve the same standards of training and competence as professionals, they would reasonably expect to be paid.

Finally, although I could mention many more organisations, Volunteers in Action argued—this is my understanding of its argument—that we should not make the risks more transparent as a greater awareness of the risks would make it less likely that people would want to volunteer. Again that seems to be a back-to-front way of approaching the matter. We want to expose the risk so that people understand it and can ask themselves whether they want to help in the activities. We then want the courts, if necessary, to use their common sense to recognise that there was an element of risk.

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