Clause 1
Compensation Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Oliver Heald (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Assisted By Shadow Solicitor General), Constitutional Affairs; North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
Mr. Atkinson, I reiterate my welcome to the Chair that I gave to you and your brother Chairman, Mr. Caton. It is good to be under your firm but wise leadership.
All three amendments deal with the question of whether the law should encourage the public to behave in a responsible and safe manner when enjoying leisure pursuits. Their purpose is to look at whether there should be a legal duty to comply with safety instructions and similar such points, because it is important that somebody who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or behaving in an obviously reckless way, should shoulder the burden rather than others. The British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions, the Field Studies Council and others make the point that in other jurisdictions it has been possible to make that more clear than in English law.
New South Wales, for example, has a clear formal position for dealing with claimants who are drunk or under the influence of drugs when they behave in a particular way and damage themselves. In the case of Radcliffe v McConnell Jones and the Governors of Harper Adams Agricultural College, his honour Judge Brunning found the college 60 per cent. liable for the claimant’s tetraplegia. In that case, a student who had been drinking dived into the shallow end of a college swimming pool. The Court of Appeal, in overruling the decision, made the point that the risk—that in diving the claimant might hit his head on the bottom of the pool—was common and obvious to most adults, and that it was important to bear that in mind. One of the judges said:
“It is unfortunate that a number of high spirited young men will take serious risks with their own safety and do things that they know are forbidden. Often they are disinhibited by drink and the encouragement of their friends. It is the danger and the fact that it is forbidden that provides the thrill. But if the risk materialises, they cannot blame others for their rashness”.
Another similar case was Donoghue v Folkestone Properties Ltd. in 2003. Is there scope for clarifying the law and making it clear, as clause 1 does in other contexts, that it would be a defence if people undertaking activities completely ignored the instructions that they were given by, say, the leisure park or organiser of the activity, or were drunk or high on drugs?