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Compensation Bill [HL]

Going back to an earlier amendment, what the Minister said reminds me of a real example. A farmer’s field of wheat caught fire and a dense cloud of smoke drifted over the neighbouring road. The first car to come across the smoke crawled through it and, having got through the smoke, stopped in the road to admire the scene. The next car went through the smoke at 60 miles per hour. The second car was clearly 100 per cent negligent, but the first car was not entirely sensible either. There can be circumstances where the claimant is 100 per cent negligent even though the other party is negligent too. One ought to recognise that there are circumstances when balancing is not what should be done. There should be an ability to say that someone is absolutely negligent and therefore the negligence of the other person should not be taken into account.