New all-party adventure group launched

Tuesday, 21 September 2004 12:00 AM

A new all-party Parliamentary group has been launched, which aims to protect the adventure industry from the "compensation culture."

The group, which is calling itself the All Party Group for Adventure & Recreation In Society (ARISc) aims to find a way to prevent companies being pushed out of business because of unsustainably high insurance premiums.

Defeated Liberal Democrat presidential candidate, and leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, Lembit Opik, launched the group today in conjunction with Conservative MP Julian Brazier and Labour MP Derek Wyatt.

All-party groups have an unofficial status, though they are required to register the names of officials and any sources of funding, and aim to lobby the Government of the day about changes in policy and/or legislation.

They typically are concerned with areas of cross-party, or specialist, interest, such as football.

Explaining the purpose of the new group, Mr Opik, said: "This new All Party Group will seek changes in the law to protect the adventure and sports sector from the worst effects of the compensation culture. Although the wheels have begun to turn slowly, there remains much more to be done and we aim to work with the Government to find solutions to this problem.

"We must remember that not only are the sports, adventure and recreational fields important in terms of creating opportunities for young people to experience risk-taking and excitement in a responsible environment, they also make a significant contribution to the Welsh economy. Although there are no figures for the whole of Wales, a study commissioned by Snowdonia-Active found that the Adventure tourism industry contributes over £140 million per annum to the North West Wales economy, and creates over 8,400 jobs in the area.

"We want the Government to realise that risk cannot be eliminated, but that it can be managed. We want the Government to realize that the compensation culture is slowly strangling the sports, adventure and recreational fields and we want to ensure that adventure and outdoor recreation climbs higher up the Parliamentary agenda."

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