Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the scope of Adventure Activities Licensing Regulations to include voluntary organisations.

The Adventure Activities Licensing Regulations 2004 require persons providing facilities for adventure activities in return for payment to hold a licence granted by the licensing authority in accordance with the regulations. Persons are not required to hold a licence where facilities are provided by a voluntary association to its members or members of other voluntary associations by agreement between the associations. Since 2007 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has been the licensing authority for the regulations.

In 2018 HSE consulted stakeholders as part of a review of the delivery and scope of adventure activity licensing. In preparation for that consultation HSE considered and decided against extending licensing to include exempt persons such as voluntary organisations. This was on the basis that:

1. The financial burden on schools, local authorities and voluntary organisations would have created a risk that services would be cut thereby reducing provision of adventure activities for young people which would have been contrary to the purpose of the review.
2. The inspectorate at the time would not have been able to cope with the demand for licenses such a change would have created.