Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Lord Pannick Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury (LD)]

My Lords, I agree word for word with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, said in moving his amendment, and indeed with what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, has just said.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

May I remind the noble Lord that there is a list of speakers in this debate?

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I thought that we were debating the amendment.

[Lord Pannick]

There is a list of speakers and next on the list is the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who is expecting to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, unlike some of your Lordships, I am not disappointed by this Bill. When I see that the Lord Chancellor is bringing forward a legislative proposal, I worry about which valuable aspect of our legal system he is going to damage: judicial review, human rights and legal aid have all come under the cosh. It is, then, a pleasant surprise that the Lord Chancellor should be using valuable legislative time on a Bill which is so anodyne and pointless that the only appropriate response is a shrug of the shoulders or the raising of an eyebrow. Since neither of those gestures would be recorded in the Official Report, it is necessary to put one’s response into language.

The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, each quoted Shakespeare. I cannot compete with that, but the Bill puts me in mind of what Basil Fawlty says of his wife Sybil in the celebrated television programme, “Fawlty Towers”. I hope that noble Lords will excuse this unparliamentary language. He said: “She should be a contestant on ‘Mastermind’. Special subject: the bleedin’ obvious”. The Bill is a statement of the legally obvious. I find it very difficult to believe that, if enacted, it is going to make any difference whatever to any case that becomes before the courts. The Government’s own impact assessment of the Bill, says, at paragraph 17:

“Both the possible reduction in case volumes and the size of any compensation payments are unknown, but are likely to be small”.

The Minister is a very fine advocate but not even he can persuade me that the Bill is, as he suggested in his opening remarks this afternoon, significant.

In opening Second Reading in the House of Commons, the Lord Chancellor, Mr Grayling, said that the Bill,

“is about bringing back common sense”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/14; col. 1187.]

Your Lordships have heard about common sense this afternoon; it was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, among others. As far as the courts are concerned, common sense never went away. Leading judgments have established that: they establish that where appropriate and on the facts of any particular case, the court gives weight to what this Bill describes as social action, responsibility and heroism.

Let me give two examples. Sixty years ago, in the case of Watt v Hertfordshire County Council—this is from 1954 and in Volume 1 of the Weekly Law Reports, page 835—Lord Justice Denning, as he then was, said in the Court of Appeal that in assessing claims of negligence, it was necessary for the court to balance the risk against the end to be achieved. He said:

“The saving of life or limb justifies taking considerable risk”.

More recently, there was the case of Tomlinson v Congleton Borough Council, in Volume 1 of the appeal cases 2004 at page 46, which was already mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood. That case concerned a hearing before the Appellate Committee of your Lordships’ House of a claim by a young man seeking compensation after he had dived into a lake in a country park. He had ignored safety warnings and, tragically, broken his neck. The Appellate Committee dismissed his claim. Lord Hoffmann, speaking for the Appellate Committee, said at paragraph 34 that, in assessing a claim for negligence or a claim under the Occupiers’ Liability Act, the court must consider,

“not only the likelihood that someone may be injured and the serious- ness of the injury which may occur, but also the social value of the activity which gives rise to the risk and the cost of preventative measures. These factors have to be balanced against each other”.

In his Holdsworth Club lecture on 15 March 2013, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Dyson, posed the question: “Compensation Culture: Fact or Fantasy?”. We have heard a lot today about compensation cultures. Lord Dyson analysed the case law and summed up for fantasy. There is simply no compensation culture in English law. I ask the Minister which judgments would have been differently decided if the Bill were in force. Mr Grayling’s answer at Second Reading in the House of Commons to such a question was to say that,

“this is not just about what happens in the courts … The Bill is designed to send a powerful message”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/7/14; col. 1189.]

So the Lord Chancellor’s concern was with perception, not reality, and the Minister's speech today was to very similar effect.

If we are to bring forward legislation to deal with perception, three questions need to be answered by the Government. First, where is the evidence that such a damaging perception exists? I entirely recognise the force of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, about her experience. I recognise that, but if legislation is to be brought forward by the Government, I would hope for some thorough analysis of available evidence. Where is it?

Secondly, if we are concerned about perception, why is it that the Minister and the Government think that a message, if sent by Parliament, will be received? As your Lordships have heard, the Compensation Act 2006 already gives power to the courts to consider very similar factors to those set out in the Bill. I recognise that the Bill goes a stage further, in that it would oblige the court to have regard to those factors, whereas the earlier legislation only empowered the court to have regard to such factors, but they are very similar factors. In any event, the Bill rightly still leaves the judges with the power to decide what weight, if any, to give to those factors. I cannot understand why the Government think that the Bill will be more effective in communicating a message than the 2006 Act. It is simply unrealistic to think that someone who is considering volunteering—far less someone who is thinking of jumping into a lake to save someone in peril—will consult Halsbury’s Statutes and reflect on the difference between the 2006 Act and the Bill.

The third question for the Minister on perception is whether this is really the most effective means of correcting a false perception, if false it be. The time, effort and money spent on enacting and publicising this Bill would surely be better spent on press releases and newspaper advertisements. The Bill is a public relations exercise unconvincingly disguised as a prospective Act of Parliament. The Minister is renowned for his ability to present the Lord Chancellor’s proposals in this House in a manner that makes them sound almost plausible—and I stress “almost”. The noble Lord is in this respect, as in all respects, the man who the draftsman of the Bill had in mind. He is concerned only to act for the benefit of society. The noble Lord is responsible and, to all of us, he is heroic but not even his admirable qualities, as utilised in defence of the Bill, can make it remotely credible.

I share much of the analysis of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, but I know that I am going to disappoint him because like the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and others, I regret that I will not be able to support the noble and learned Lord if he chooses to divide the House on whether this Bill should receive a Second Reading. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will not divide the House because that may send precisely the wrong message about what it thinks of the Bill. This is a Government Bill that has been through the House of Commons. Its contents are not objectionable; they are simply pointless. Such a Bill is not worthy of provoking a fundamental conflict between the two Houses of Parliament.