Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)

My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 25, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and to which, as he set out in opening the debate on this group of amendments, I added my name. I did so because this amendment sits very well alongside the other amendments that he has brought forward on behalf of the heritage rail sector and which we debated earlier in Committee. As with those amendments, it applies to a huge range of organisations, well beyond heritage rail or indeed heritage alone. It follows the thoughts that we expressed previously in Committee, and as many noble Lords did at Second Reading, about the importance of volunteers to so much of the cultural, sporting and heritage voluntary sector that we are championing and have very much in mind as we look at the Bill. I am very glad that noble Lords have had smaller venues in mind as they have looked at this amendment. They are particularly reliant on volunteers—some of them all the more so since the changes in the Budget to national insurance contributions, which have made organisations that are run on a very tight margin more reliant on people who give their time freely. There are so many barriers to people being volunteers. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, mentioned briefly the cost of transport: if you are travelling to a heritage railway, you often travel many miles at your own expense, filling the car with petrol in order to get there. There are many barriers that put people off volunteering and enriching our lives, and we must make sure that this does not become another of them. The people who volunteer and look after the public in these venues are no less diligent, professional and concerned about the safety of those who come to enjoy those venues, but they certainly need the help, assistance and training that the noble Lord envisages through his amendment. It must be provided in a different way from the way in which is mandated and applied to full-time employees. As the noble Lord says, many volunteers are seasonal and sporadic, so it is important that they are able to refresh their training—for example, students who have volunteered, gone away to university and come back, will need a way of being trained up again and refreshed in these responsibilities. It is important to note that, because of the serious nature of these new duties on people who look after our cultural venues, they might appear scary. It is important that the training disabuses volunteers of such notions. As the noble Lord, Lord Mann, rightly says, we want to avoid the sort of panic and chaos that come if people are not prepared mentally and practically for how they will deal with the sorts of scenarios that we envisage as we look at the Bill but hope do not come to pass. As the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, says, the alternative, if there is not the provision that the noble Lord sets out in his Amendment 25, is the snake-oil salesmen that we heard about at Second Reading. They are already offering their views on how to implement the provisions in the Bill before it is an Act of Parliament, and charging small venues huge amounts of money to do it. They are leaving them worse prepared and more frightened about the scenarios that they have to think about. The noble Lord, Lord Falconer, has been very modest in his amendment: it is a “may” and not a “must” duty. There is much to commend the amendments in this group from the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Hamwee, but those are “must” amendments while that in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, is a “may”. It would make the voluntary job of people who look after these venues a lot easier, and I hope that the Government will look favourably on it.