Offender Management Bill

That leads me on to the issue that the hon. Member for Hornchurch raised about what we are doing to stop people giving addresses such as ““in the woods””. Although I have some concerns about ““in the woods”” being an address, the reason why that was done was that offenders had to tell people where they were and to say ““no fixed abode”” was not appropriate either. To make sure that people comply, in addition to what everybody accepts as the proper arrangements—involving the multi-agency public protection bodies that deal with high-risk offenders—we will also make it a requirement that the offenders have to report regularly to a police station. We will bring legislation forward to do that. This point relates to the question of why we have no central records. The issue is about the MAPPA—multi-agency public protection arrangements—authorities, of which there are 42, making sure that they know where their sex offenders are and making sure that they know the interfaces that take place when people move around. The big issue is about denial and the way in which child sex offenders operate.