I beg to move Amendment 10, in Clause 4, page 2, line 17, leave out

“and without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests.”

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 11, in Clause 4, page 2, line 18, leave out “or other interests.”

Amendment 12, in clause 4, page 2, line 18, at end insert—

‘( ) This section shall not apply to members of the emergency services.

( ) In this section—

(a) “acting heroically” means the person undertook an act for which they received a recognised bravery award or life-saving decoration;

(b) “emergency” means circumstances in which life is threatened.”

The amendments would do slightly different things. I can deal quickly with Amendment 11, because it makes the same point as we made in relation to amendment 7, which is that we cannot see a point, other than a damaging point, in bringing in this concept of “other interests” in addition to safety. If the Minister is against me on amendment 10, I shall pray in aid amendment 11 and say that that phrase is at best vague and at worst brings in matters irrelevant to the matter under consideration, which is the safety of the individual, and that it should be left out. I shall say no more about that.

Amendment 10 is the one that has given most concern to some of the commentators. It is succinctly summed up in the brief from St John Ambulance:

“Clause 4 of the SARAH Bill refers to individuals acting ‘without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests’. This is contrary to first aid practice—for example, the First Aid Manual states: ‘Protect yourself and any casualties from danger—never put yourself at risk’. We cannot support this clause in its current form.”

That is further than I am prepared to go. I am not prepared to vote against the clause, but I hope that the Minister will go away and think again about this provision. It is not the first time the matter has been raised. It was raised on Second Reading by his own colleagues, including his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough. It is not about the health and safety culture; it is not trying to limit risk. We have heard about good practice: it is in the interests of the person who is being helped to ensure that the helper does not put themselves in danger or at risk. There would probably be universal agreement about that. It does not mean that heroic acts do not take place and that people do not put themselves at risk from time to time. I do not think anything we say here or any piece of legislation that we pass will stop people doing that.

The police often advise people not to have a go, but people still carry on having a go. Just as one can agree with the police, one can praise and respect people who  act in those circumstances. It is simply one of life’s conundrums. But I do not think it is good practice to put it into legislation per se, and I am not sure that in many cases it will be of assistance to the victim or endangered person who is being helped.

Amendment 12 is a probing amendment, I suppose. It tries to tease out from the Minister whether he makes any distinction between professional and amateur heroes, if I can put it that way. We heard from the Fire Brigades Union. I preferred the evidence from the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service in terms of priorities both in terms of the safety of firefighters and also in doing the duty that they do every day in protecting the public, keeping them safe and saving lives. Matt Wrack made the point very clearly that they rely upon very high professional standards of training, equipment and experience, and that in their relationship with their employer and the general public, the union has a role and of course their own professional training has a role. That is what ensures they are in the optimum position to give assistance when it is needed.

Heroes could be members of the emergency services who ignore their training and act recklessly, or they could be members of the public who put themselves in danger by rushing in, and consequently—we heard some examples of this—put the emergency services in danger. It seems there is some encouragement of that in the way in which the clause is drafted. The specific purpose of the first part of amendment 12 is to see whether the Government make any distinction between professionals and amateurs acting heroically. The law would say different standards apply in terms of duty of care and breach of that duty, but I do not know whether the Government extend that to the clause. I genuinely do not know and I would like to know.

The second part of amendment 12 draws attention to, and asks the Government to go away and think about, how these phrases are going to be interpreted by the courts. I think it was Mr Whitehead who ventured to ask in our evidence session what we would lose by leaving the word “heroically” out, so that the clause read “when the person was acting by intervening in an emergency to assist an individual in danger”. I am not sure that we would lose much.

Adding the word “heroically” certainly creates a problem, however, because it has to be defined. That is why I posited the definition—I do not say it is perfect—in proposed paragraph (a) of amendment 12. Otherwise the Bill again sets hares running in the course of litigation: what will be classified as heroic actions and what will not? One person’s heroic action may be another person’s foolhardy one. A similar point can be made about the word “emergency”. What is an emergency? Often, it is in the eye of the beholder.

The Minister will no doubt say that that is a matter for the court to judge in every case and every circumstance. I say—this is in danger of getting repetitive—that courts would do that anyway. I challenge him to name an example of someone acting heroically who was then sued by the person they were trying to assist, or indeed by a third party. In so far as the terms need to be defined, the courts are capable of doing that. Rather than individuals, it is behaviour we are talking about—it is about acting heroically. The same act could be heroic in one case and not in another.

All cases turn on the facts, and court is the best forum in which to address such matters. I do not think that the clause adds anything other than through its rather unwise final phrase. I ask the Minister to respond to all those points and in particular to give an indication of whether he is willing to go away and think about adopting amendment 10, as suggested by us and others.

Amendments 10 and 11 would both remove part of the wording in Clause 4 that provides clarification of what is meant by “acting heroically”. The Government do not consider that that would be appropriate. The wording provides helpful clarification of the type of behaviour that we wish the clause to capture. A person who sees somebody struggling to stay afloat in a fast-moving current, for example, will often jump in to help on the spur of the moment without first deliberating whether they might be putting their own life at risk.

We do not consider that the clause will be misinterpreted by the courts as somehow excluding people who did in fact have regard to their own safety or other interests—perhaps in the split second before they dived in—but decided to intervene anyway. Nor do we think that it could reasonably be interpreted as sending a signal that members of the public should recklessly expose themselves to danger.

On Amendment 11, it may be helpful if I explain why the words “or other interests” have been included. There are a wide range of circumstances in which a person may be faced with a decision on whether to intervene in an emergency to assist someone who is in danger. In some cases intervening may put their own safety at risk, but that will not always be the case. A person might be faced, for example, by other considerations, such as the possibility of failing to catch a train or missing an important appointment for a job interview. The wording we have used is simply intended to cover all the circumstances that might arise, and to make it clear that a person acts heroically by intervening to assist someone in danger regardless of the fact that doing so might risk his or her own safety or might otherwise not be in his or her own interests.

Those examples are helpful, but, however inconvenient it might be, I am not sure that missing a train or a job interview—possibly even missing a sitting of a Public Bill Committee—could be considered heroic.

It is a matter of interpretation. I am sure the learned judges will be able to come to the right conclusion.

Amendment 12 would restrict the application of Clause 4 in a number of ways, which taken together would severely limit the number of cases in which it is used. We do not consider that those changes would be appropriate.

First, the clause would not apply to members of the emergency services. That would mean that the court would not be required to have regard to their having acted heroically in the event of their being sued for negligence. As the evidence provided to the Committee by the Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service amply demonstrates, actions for negligence can and do arise against the emergency services.

The clause does not reduce the standard of care that members of the emergency services have to show, or do anything to encourage them to act recklessly. We can  therefore see no valid reason for treating them differently from others who act heroically by excluding them from the scope of the clause.

The amendment would also restrict application of the clause to circumstances in which life is threatened, and in which the person intervening has received particular types of bravery award for their action. Again, we can see no reason why the clause should not apply to situations in which the individual concerned is at risk of injury, as well as those in which loss of life is threatened, or to situations in which the person’s bravery is not formally recognised.

In any event, we see no need for definitions of the terms “acting heroically” or “emergency”. The Bill already clarifies what is meant by the former, and the latter is a word in common usage and readily understood.

We want the clause to apply in as wide a range of circumstances as possible, so that all those who intervene in emergencies have the reassurance that the courts will have regard to the context of their actions in the event of their being sued. I hope that the hon. Member for Hammersmith is prepared to withdraw the amendments.

I indicated that I do not intend to press any of the amendments to a vote. I suspect the Minister will return to some of these points of definition, as they do need further investigation. I certainly think the Government need to give consideration to Amendment 10. That is not our amendment but is part of a critique of the subject that I have adopted.

Even in the example of Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service staff tripping over hoses, yes, in most cases if people are rushing to put out a fire and somebody trips over a hose they probably could have seen what was going on, and the court could decide that. If that were a blind or elderly person and an injury was sustained, one has to ask what insurance is for. There it is; the Minister has set out his stall. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.