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)
I fully appreciate that it would be a bad thing if that were what I am proposing, but it is not. Amendment No. 10, to which I spoke first, would require the court to have regard to
“the extent to which the person undertaking the activity obeyed the instructions given by the person providing the activities”
and whether the person was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Neither of those would apply in the case that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Amendment No. 13 relates to a person who willingly accepts a risk with the intention of committing an offence. Of course the fireman would not intend to commit an offence. Proposed subsection (3) begins:
“In determining whether a risk was accepted for the purposes of paragraph 2(a)”,
which refers back to entering a premises willingly but with the intention to commit an offence. I am alive to the concern raised by the hon. Gentleman, but it need not exist.
One could call amendment No. 13 the Tony Martin defence. It covers a situation in which somebody enters premises willing to commit an offence and thereby exposes himself to risk.