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Compensation Bill [HL]

This has been a very helpful opportunity to consider the position of children. I take the point made by my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale and am grateful to the Minister for having kindly agreed to let me have a letter responding, which I shall make available to other Members of the Committee. Before we move on to the clause stand part debate—I hope that I am not pre-empting what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, may say in that debate—I should point out that the Herrington case gives us a good example of the right way to proceed in introducing legislation of this nature. The case highlighted a mischief that then had to be dealt with by statute. The matter was referred to the Law Commission, which produced a report and then recommendations, which then took the form of the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1984. That gives us an example of the right way to proceed when you are amending legislation. If I have a criticism of the Government that is stronger than the other criticisms, it is that in allowing this legislation to come forward they have missed out the Law Commission. I may be wrong about that—the Law Commission may have been consulted on Clause 1. But if it really was the right way in which to proceed to overcome the problems that we are all agreed exist in the element of risk that young people in particular undertake, it would have been a good idea to ask the Law Commission whether it could come forward with a clause. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and I may have some doubts about the clause because it has not been through that process. But the Minister may be about to correct me.