Clause 2
Compensation Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
Simon Hughes (Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs & Shadow Attorney General, Constitutional Affairs; North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Atkinson. My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) gave my excuses this morning. I was at the funeral of a friend and former councillor colleague in Southwark. I have added my name to the amendment because clause 2 is a very good clause, and the amendment seeks to clarify one aspect of it that might be regarded as something that somebody might not want to do because it might suggest a liability. It adds something extra, and I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic. It is about ensuring that people are not deterred from being courteous and humane because they see that as a risk to liability.
In that context, we heard the terrible report the week before last of the little girl in Aylesbury who was injured by the side of a road while a large number of people went past her and did not stop. The proposal is about trying to minimise that sort of society and ensure that people feel that to assist others, whether or not they had been involved personally or had responsibility for the injury or harm of those people, should be regarded as separate from the later matter of liability. The Minister may have better ideas, but such an extension would not contradict the purpose of the clause, which points in the right direction and which we support.