Promotion of Volunteering Bill

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Mr. Brazier: I must apologise for not welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Taylor. With your interest in rugby league, I cannot imagine a more suitable person to chair us.

I should like to make a few quick points. First, to clear up any confusion, nowhere does the Bill touch on criminal prosecutions. The Minister raised a bit of a canard about that, but we are dealing purely with civil litigation.

Secondly, the need for the Bill derived originally from representations from my own National Farmers Union branch. Fewer and fewer farmers in my part of the world are willing to make their land available. Any hon. Member who attended the reception hosted by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) and organised by ''linking environment and farming'', a group that tries to bring farming and wider communities together, would have heard more about such problems.

The Sea Cadets is a voluntary organisation and would probably be covered as a result of amendment No. 63, without a special provision of its own, whether its volunteers are paid or unpaid. As far as the public are concerned, the other two cadet forces are, for practical purposes, very nearly the same, although they are administered directly by the Ministry of Defence. Instructors give their evenings for free. At my local branch, one is a channel tunnel manager, another a policeman and another a teacher. Instructors are paid for such things as camps, when they go away for a week. Providing them with protection for their hard work in the evenings, when they are working towards more difficult activities, but not doing so when they are actually doing the more challenging activities would be manifestly silly.

Objections were made to amendment No. 63, which was drafted Mr. Michael Harbottle, a lawyer who has provided pro bono assistance and has assisted as a parliamentary draftsman on two previous charity Bills. He assures me that using ''employees'' to cover two different categories of people, exactly as drafted, avoids a lot of consequential amendments. He is satisfied with the amendment, and the Minister did not identify a problem, although she said that there was one.

10.15 am

I urge the Committee to resist amendments Nos. 30 and 31 and to support the rest of the group.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment made: No. 29 in clause 1, page 2, line 2, at end insert

'(other than a person acting in his capacity as an employee of that organisation or body)'.—[Fiona Mactaggart.]

Column Number: 50

Amendment proposed: No. 30, in clause 1, page 2, line 3, leave out paragraph (b).—[ Fiona Mactaggart.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 3, Noes 11

Division No. 1]

AYES
Burnham, Andy Mactaggart, Fiona
Mountford, Kali

NOES
Boswell, Mr. Tim Brazier, Mr. Julian Burnett, Mr. John Dobson, Mr. Frank Hoey, Kate Hoyle, Mr. Lindsay
Lait, Mrs. Jacqui Öpik, Lembit Reed, Mr. Andy Taylor, Mr. Ian Wyatt, Derek

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: No. 65, in clause 1, page 2, line 7, leave out paragraph (c) and insert—

'(c) an instructor of the Combined Cadet Force, the Sea Cadet Corps, the Army Cadet Force, the Air Training Corps or any other uniformed youth organisation administered by the Armed Forces or Police whether or not such person is paid.'.—[Mr. Brazier.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 11, Noes 3

Division No. 2]

AYES
Boswell, Mr. Tim Brazier, Mr. Julian Burnett, Mr. John Dobson, Mr. Frank Hoey, Kate Hoyle, Mr. Lindsay
Lait, Mrs. Jacqui Öpik, Lembit Reed, Mr. Andy Taylor, Mr. Ian Wyatt, Derek

NOES
Burnham, Andy Mactaggart, Fiona
Mountford, Kali

Question accordingly agreed to.

Amendment proposed: No. 63, in clause 1, page 2, line 8, at end insert—

' ''paid employee'' means any natural person employed by a voluntary organisation whether or not paid at the time and ''employee'' in the Act shall be construed accordingly as including any such paid employee.'.—[Mr. Brazier.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 11, Noes 3

Division No. 3]

AYES
Boswell, Mr. Tim Brazier, Mr. Julian Burnett, Mr. John Dobson, Mr. Frank Hoey, Kate Hoyle, Mr. Lindsay
Lait, Mrs. Jacqui Öpik, Lembit Reed, Mr. Andy Taylor, Mr. Ian Wyatt, Derek

NOES
Burnham, Andy Mactaggart, Fiona
Mountford, Kali

Question accordingly agreed to.

Fiona Mactaggart: I beg to move amendment No. 32, in clause 1, page 2, line 10, leave out 'which' and insert 'to the extent that'.

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 33, in clause 1, page 2, line 11, after 'business,' insert 'it'.

Column Number: 51

No. 34, in clause 1, page 2, line 12, leave out from 'gain;' to 'or' in line 14.

No. 35, in clause 1, page 2, line 16, leave out 'school'.

Fiona Mactaggart: These are drafting amendments, which do not change the impact of the clause. We are merely trying to make sure that commercial organisations that provide services without profit can fall under the term ''volunteering body'' in respect of those services only, rather than in a more general way. Provided that the organisation delivering the activity did so without profit, it would be brought under the scope of the term ''volunteering body'' for the purpose of the legislation. The amendments do not have any impact on the apparent intentions of the original draft of the Bill.

We also seek to remove the word ''school'' where it appears for a second time—again, a drafting amendment.

Mr. Brazier: I am happy to accept most of the amendments, but my legal adviser tells me that we should resist amendment No. 34. It could leave an area of ambiguity; an example that was given was the McDonald's clean-up squad. Those are people, in their McDonald's T-shirts, who are employed by McDonald's but work in their free time to help clean up a community. There could be a grey area as to whether they would be included under the measure. As Business in the Community was one of the early groups to support the Bill, I am anxious that those people should be included. On the strength of the legal advice on that quite complicated point, I urge the Committee to oppose amendment No. 34. I am happy with the other three drafting improvements.

Fiona Mactaggart: I am not confident that amendment No. 34 would have the effect that the hon. Gentleman fears, but in the spirit of compromise I am happy not to press the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments made: No. 33, in clause 1, page 2, line 11, after 'business,' insert 'it'.

No. 35, in clause 1, page 2, line 16, leave out 'school'.—[Fiona Mactaggart.]

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Fiona Mactaggart: I am prepared to accept that clause 1 should stand part of the Bill. It is important that we know what a volunteer is, although I have reservations about some of the conclusions that we have come to.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Statements of Inherent Risk

Fiona Mactaggart: I beg to move amendment No. 37, in clause 2, page 2, line 21, leave out from 'person' to 'who' in line 24.

Column Number: 52

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 45, in clause 2, page 2, line 33, at end insert—

'( ) If the person undertaking the activity is aged less than sixteen, the Statement of Inherent Risk must require the person's parent or guardian to explain the risks set out in the Statement to that person.'.

No. 48, in clause 2, page 2, line 46, at end insert—

'(3A) The Statement of Inherent Risk shall be signed—

(a) by or on behalf of the person presenting the Statement;

(b) if that person is an employee, on behalf of the voluntary organisation or volunteering body by whom he is employed;

(c) if the person undertaking the activity is aged at least sixteen, by that person;

(d) if the person undertaking the activity is aged less than sixteen but at least eleven, by that person and by his parent or guardian;

(e) if the person undertaking the activity is aged less than eleven, by his parent or guardian.'.

No. 50, in clause 2, page 2, line 49, leave out from 'and' to 'in' in line 1 on page 3 and insert

'the Statement has been duly signed in accordance with subsection (3A),'.

Amendment No. 59, in clause 2, page 3, line 25, at end insert—

'( ) In this section ''guardian'' means a guardian of a child within the meaning of the Children Act 1989 and includes a special guardian within the meaning of that Act.'.

Fiona Mactaggart: We come to the core of the Bill and the critical issue on which we need to focus. We have all agreed that there is a problem and the debates and discussions so far have highlighted the key problems.

The focus of the Bill is on sport and adventure. In those areas, the key issues are fear of litigation, growing insurance costs, anxiety about volunteering numbers, and dumbing down of activities in order to deal with those other problems. The hon. Member for Canterbury pointed out the health and safety impacts that that can have—for example, the impacts on child obesity and on opportunities to take part in activities.

On Second Reading, I said that the Government wished to do things to deal with those issues and that we hoped to explore what they might be in Committee. I worked hard with the hon. Gentleman to see whether we could find a way of dealing with those issues, and we still want to do so, but we believe that this Bill is not the right way to achieve the ambition that we all share.

The key issues are linked. It is inevitable that we have focused on litigation, as that is at the heart of the problem. However, the real heart of the problem is the perception of litigation. I have put a lot of energy into trying to find out the figures on litigation. As hon. Members know, I was tempted to take a similar approach to that of the hon. Gentleman by introducing legislation to deal with the problem. Therefore, I needed to be clear about precisely what the problem was. It seems that there is a significant difference between reality and perception.

 

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Prepared 12 May 2004