§ [No. 10.]
§
Clause 26, page 16, line 29, at end insert—
Provided that—
(i) the liability of those persons shall be conditional upon the person so employed or his legal personal representatives affording to those persons every facility to prosecute in his name any claim in respect of such expenses and allowing them reasonable discretion in the conduct of any proceedings or the settlement of any claim in respect of such expenses and to the extent of such conditional liability, surrendering to them all rights in respect of such claim;
(ii) nothing contained in this section shall prejudice any right of recovery of such expenses from a person other than a person so employed.
§ The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:—
§ Because the Amendment would be ineffective.
§ LORD BROWNMy Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on Amendment No. 10 to which the Commons have disagreed. Your Lordships will recall that the principle behind this Amendment has been very fully discussed in this House and in another place. I think it is true to say that no one would deny that it is desirable that a seaman should co-operate with his employer in 1210 the employer seeking reimbursement from third parties for the seamens' medical expenses which the employer has paid under Clause 26. The difficulty is that this Amendment would be quite ineffective to achieve that end. If it is felt that there should be some provision compelling the seaman's co-operation—and I hope that compulsion will not be necessary—the right remedy would be for an appropriate provision to be inserted in the contract of employment.
I have already explained in detail on Report stage the reasons why such a provision as this would be ineffective in a Statute, and little more than propaganda, and I will not weary your Lordships by repeating them now. As your Lordships will appreciate, we cannot have an ineffective and useless provision in a Bill, especially when other effective remedies are available. I would therefore ask your Lordships to accept my Motion.
§ Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment.—(Lord Brown.)
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I agree that it would be possible, and I hope will be possible, to deal with these matters in the agreement or the contract. Nevertheless, I regret that it was not possible to obtain a greater degree of symmetry in the Bill between the employer and the employee.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.