|

Promotion of Volunteering Bill

I apologise for my late arrival but I sat through the whole of Second Reading and every minute of our Committee proceedings.

I welcome the money resolution and especially some training for judges. Judges who resort to their intellectual musings have led us to our current position, which was caused by a combination of the effects of an Act that was passed in 1977 and judges' extension of the concept of liability to people who are trying decently to provide play and other opportunities for children, young people and adults.

It may be worth reminding judges that all the measure does is to take us back to pre-1977 days for some aspects of activity by restoring to statute the concept of the voluntary assumption of risk. It used to be part of common law but was removed in 1977. Since then, some judges have gone far too far and they need telling about that. It could form part of their training.

Perhaps the judiciary in general would benefit from a little training so that, when it considers the rights of the individual, every now and then, it might consider the rights of society as a whole and reflect that a decision in favour of one or two individuals could be deleterious to many others, especially children who could be denied access to sport and other activities.

I hope that that kind of thing will be included in the training for which this £1 million is to be made available. I also hope that one or two of the lessons learned from this could be offered more broadly across the judiciary in a combined effort by Parliament and the judiciary not to extend the law or to encourage people to resort to litigation every time they fall over and bruise their knee. We need to shift things back in the opposite direction. We all need to recognise that, as the judiciary has extended the concepts of liability and negligence in this sphere, we wish to restrict and restrain it in that regard. Such restriction and restraint will benefit most people, although a few who might otherwise successfully have sought compensation will not get any. The answer to them will be "Tough", because everybody else will benefit.