Clause 2 - Statements of Inherent Risk
Promotion of Volunteering Bill
10:15 am
Ms Fiona Mactaggart (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Race Equality, Community Policy and Civil Renewal), Home Office; Slough, Labour)
We come to the core of the Bill and the critical issue on which we need to focus. We have all agreed that there is a problem and the debates and discussions so far have highlighted the key problems.
The focus of the Bill is on sport and adventure. In those areas, the key issues are fear of litigation, growing insurance costs, anxiety about volunteering numbers, and dumbing down of activities in order to deal with those other problems. The hon. Member for Canterbury pointed out the health and safety impacts that that can have—for example, the impacts on child obesity and on opportunities to take part in activities.
On Second Reading, I said that the Government wished to do things to deal with those issues and that we hoped to explore what they might be in Committee. I worked hard with the hon. Gentleman to see whether we could find a way of dealing with those issues, and we still want to do so, but we believe that this Bill is not the right way to achieve the ambition that we all share.
The key issues are linked. It is inevitable that we have focused on litigation, as that is at the heart of the problem. However, the real heart of the problem is the perception of litigation. I have put a lot of energy into trying to find out the figures on litigation. As hon. Members know, I was tempted to take a similar approach to that of the hon. Gentleman by introducing legislation to deal with the problem. Therefore, I needed to be clear about precisely what the problem was. It seems that there is a significant difference between reality and perception.