Clause 5 - Persons assisting those injured or suffering
Promotion of Volunteering Bill
4:25 pm
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury, Conservative)
I shall be even briefer on this clause than on previous clauses, because I know that the Committee wants to get on to debate clause 1.
In America, with which I shall draw parallels when we debate clause 2 next Wednesday, the good Samaritan provisions relating to people who assist at, for example, road traffic accidents and who have, from time to time, been sued, have been pursued on much the same agenda as that for people who have tried to sort out the problem of the litigation culture in sport. It seemed logical to introduce this clause in a Bill, even if it primarily dealt with another issue. I was particularly encouraged to do so by many people in the voluntary sector and received a charming letter from, among others, St. John Ambulance, supporting me. None the less, the practical fact is that, while this side of the Atlantic has a whole mass of case law, which we shall come to next Wednesday, relating to the main substance of the Bill, it has not yet had any bad cases drawn to my attention that clause 5 would cover. So, without too much delay, I urge the Committee to disagree to it.