HOUSE OF LORDS BILL TO LIFT RESTRICTIONS ON YOUNG VOLUNTEERS

New legislation to lift restrictions on young volunteers has been put in motion by the House of Lords.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester (president of the Heritage Railway Association) is sponsoring a Private Members Bill, the Heritage Railways and Tramways (Voluntary Work) Bill [HL] 2019, which was officially introduced to the House by Lord Grocott at a first reading on October 21.

It is in response to the discovery by the All-Party Parliamentary

Group on Heritage Rail that, under the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920, under-16s were legally barred from working on preserved lines (SR483 and SR494).

Section 1(1) of the 1920

Act states: “No child shall be employed in an industrial undertaking.” The definition ‘child’ is taken to mean under-16s, while ‘industrial undertaking’ includes railways – and the Education (Work Experience) Act of 1973 interpreted ‘employment’ as including volunteers.

The new bill states: “Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty… Nothing in Section 1(1) of the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920, or in any other enactment relating to the prohibition or regulation of employment, shall be taken as preventing young persons from undertaking voluntary work on a heritage railway or tramway.”

For the purposes of the proposed Heritage Railways and Tramways (Voluntary Work) Act 2019, a ‘young person’ is defined as 12 years of age “for the purposes of providing benefit to that body [a heritage railway or tramway] directly”, and ten years of age “for the purpose of providing benefit to the young person concerned regardless of whether incidentally any benefit may also be conferred on that body.”