Protection of Freedoms Bill

Under new clause 18, the barred status of an individual would be revealed in a CRB check. The House will know that at present, an enhanced CRB check may reveal all convictions and cautions, regardless of whether they are relevant, and allegations made to the police that were not turned into convictions. One gets barred status information only if the person will be working in a regulated activity, and the Bill has produced a narrower definition of ““regulated activity”” than previously existed. For example, all employed positions in a school are involved in regulated activity and barred status information would be provided for those jobs. A standard or enhanced CRB check does not reveal barred status. An enhanced CRB check would not reveal that a person had been investigated by experts at the Independent Safeguarding Authority. It would not show that allegations had been verified and references sought, and that the person had been able to make representations. It would not reveal that the Independent Safeguarding Authority had come to an informed decision that the person posed a significant danger to children or vulnerable adults. What is more, many people on the barred list are not even known to the police. That came out in Committee. The reason could be that the parents do not want to put their child through the ordeal of making a formal complaint to the police, but the school notifies the Independent Safeguarding Authority of concerns about an individual teacher or member of staff. Another scenario is that a supply teacher moves from school to school and, although it is quite clear that there is a problem, the schools just decide not to have the supply teacher back and do not notify the police of their concerns. Eventually, the local education authority may take the view that the ISA should find out why there are so many schools where that supply teacher is not welcome. The ISA might then receive complaints and look at the employment history of the individual and see a pattern of allegations, and the teacher moving on quickly. Again, that might all happen without any formal complaint being made to the police. With vulnerable adults it is often difficult to substantiate allegations—for example, of theft from dementia patients. A care home might decide not to notify the police, but just to dismiss the employee and notify the ISA. Even though the police do not always get involved in or know about complaints and allegations, such people are clearly a danger to vulnerable people and children, and that information should be made available to their future employers. It would be a great help to employers, particularly charities and small voluntary sector organisations, if they were informed of concerns that the Independent Safeguarding Authority had looked into, on the basis of which an individual had been barred. The Committee received a number of submissions from sports clubs and organisations that wanted to know that any information about barring would be made available to them when working with, teaching or training young people. I would like to give the Minister an example and ask her whether such a person will be covered by the proposals in the Bill. X is a former teacher who is barred from working with children following substantiated reports of inappropriate behaviour from three schools. None of the allegations was passed on to the police, as I have explained is common. X presents himself as a retired teacher and volunteers at a primary school. At the primary school, he hears children reading and works one-on-one with the same 10 children every week. Under the current law, the school must check his barred status and would find out about his history. The school would know that information quickly. I understand that schools can obtain barred status within 24 hours. My understanding is that under the new law, it would be an offence for the school to check his barred status and it would not be given that information. Even if the school followed best practice and conducted an enhanced CRB check, that would reveal nothing, as no allegations had ever been made to the police. There would be no soft information and no criminal convictions on the CRB check. However, this person would clearly be a threat to children in the view of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, and would be on the barred list. As I understand it, under the proposals he would not be prevented from working with children. It would be helpful if the Minister explained why she feels it appropriate that information from the many trained experts at the Independent Safeguarding Authority—specialists in this area who are able to analyse information and allegations—should not be made available to schools and other organisations that wish to rely on that expertise. I am sure that the Minister will also want to respond to my point about the Bichard inquiry, which as hon. Members know came out after the dreadful Soham murders. The major thrust of the report and recommendations on how to avoid another case like the Soham murders was that information should be properly shared between all interested parties. The Independent Safeguarding Authority is the body that has the most information. All employers, charities, voluntary groups and sports organisations should be able to benefit from its expertise and insight. Moreover, when a CRB form is processed electronically, barred status comes up immediately. If an employer needs to recruit someone urgently and needs the information speedily, as often happens in the adult care sector because people become ill or move on quickly, they may be tempted to put people into sensitive positions even though they are waiting for a CRB check. I wonder whether the Minister could refer to that issue. This matter is so important that I would like to test the opinion of the House on new clause 18. Amendment 111, which would amend clause 66, relates to people who commit serious offences. Such people are currently put on the barred list automatically. Since 1933, people who have been convicted of serious offences against children have been banned from working with children. In the Bill, the Government propose that a person convicted of a serious offence should not automatically be barred from working with children. For example, under the new proposals a man working as a lorry driver who had been convicted of raping a child would not automatically be put on the barred list. The test that the Bill sets out is that he would be put on the list only if he was, had been or might in future be engaged in regulated activity relating to children. As I said, the formal procedure whereby people are automatically put on the barred list is more than 70 years old. It was introduced not by the last Labour Government but a long time ago, and I am yet to be convinced by the Minister that it is necessary to change it at this point. I do not understand why she wants to end a process that is simple and straightforward and, I think, has the support of the vast majority of the population. There is a very good reason why someone who commits a serious offence is barred from working with children—because they pose a serious risk to children. That should mean that they are automatically barred from working with them. The amendment would reinstate the provision of automatically putting them on the barred list. Under the Bill, a person could be put on the list only if the test that I have just set out were passed. If the advice was that they should be put on it, the Government would allow them to make representations to the ISA before that finally happened. The amendment would go a little further. As I have set out, it would mean a presumption that an individual who had committed a serious offence would automatically go on the list, but it would give that individual the right to present evidence in person and to call witnesses to argue that they should be taken off the list. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for that, and it would strengthen the already robust barring procedures employed by the ISA. The report of the Bichard inquiry made it clear that if we want to prevent further brutal murders, we have to do everything we can to aid information sharing—yet the Government have introduced an expensive and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that will inhibit information sharing. I have yet to hear from the Minister why she thinks bringing in the new test will assist in keeping children and vulnerable adults safer. I thought it might help the House if I examined some of the characters who, if the Government's proposals were carried, would not be on the barred list in future. Levi Bellfield, who, as we know, was the murderer of Milly Dowler and other women, would not be on the barred list, because he was a car clamper. Under the test that the Government have set out, although he clearly posed a threat to young girls, he would not automatically go on the barred list. Because Delroy Easton Grant, who preyed on vulnerable elderly victims and has been linked to more than 100 offences, was a taxi driver, he would no longer be placed on the list of those barred from working with elderly people if the ISA were applying the test that the Government want to introduce. Such people pose a threat to vulnerable people—children and adults—and should automatically be placed on a list of barred people, to help employers and activity providers identify those who pose a threat and keep them away from children and vulnerable adults. I believe that the Government's new measures will cost more money, and when we know money is tight and we have to watch where every penny is spent, I fail to understand why the Minister wants to introduce the new test. I also believe that it will cause confusion and that, as I said, the vast majority of the public do not understand why the Government are pursuing it. The public want people who commit serious offences to be put on the barred list. A survey by Fair Play For Children found that 96% of the population wanted those people to be put on the barred list automatically. Will the Minister explain to the House why she refuses to acknowledge public opinion, and exactly what she hopes to gain by keeping them off the list? I will wish to test the opinion of the House on amendment 111, as well as new clause 18. Amendment 117 is Labour's final amendment in this group. It would amend the Police Act 1997 so that the Secretary of State must ensure that the registered person who had co-signed a CRB check application would be informed when the certificate was issued. It would further amend the Act by insisting that the Secretary of State make provision to allow the CRB check certificate to be issued directly to that registered person—when, of course, the individual in question had consented. That would effectively maintain the status quo so that a CRB check would go, for example, to a prospective employer and to an individual at the same time, with the consent of the applicant. We tabled the amendment because many concerns have been raised about the proposals for CRB checks. There is a great deal of support for the portability of CRB checks, which is welcomed throughout the House and throughout the various sectors that use them. However, many companies that submit CRB checks using the e-Bulk system—a practical requirement for large companies that employ many people in registered activities such as care home work—are concerned that the way in which the Government have designed the system will cause chaos. The Bill will cause those companies massive practical difficulties that I do not think the Minister fully appreciated or addressed in Committee. The result of those difficulties, I believe, will be fewer CRB checks being undertaken and more loopholes being exploited. We know that people who wish to do harm, particularly to children, can be very imaginative and manipulative when there is any sign of a loophole in the law, and will use whatever means they can to get access to children. I am concerned that the new system may present them with opportunities to do that. We must also consider prospective employers who are being asked to make CRB check applications for prospective employees. They are currently expected to pay £26 for a standard CRB check, £44 for an enhanced check and £6 for a barred status check. Employers can spend the best part of £100 on each prospective employee, but under the Government's proposals they would not receive a copy of the CRB certificate directly. They should be informed of the fact that a CRB certificate has been issued, and of the outcome of the check, with the individual's consent. I worry that within the group of manipulative and imaginative people who want to get access to vulnerable children and adults, some will delay presenting the CRB certificate that is sent directly to them. They may well be able to build up all sorts of excuses for why they will bring it in next week, the week after that or next month. Perhaps it got lost, or perhaps the dog ate it. I am concerned that that could leave employers in a difficult position, and that a number of charities and voluntary sector groups will find the system very difficult to deal with. Amendment 117 would allow an employer to know that a CRB certificate had been issued, and to know when an employee was stalling in presenting it to them. The e-Bulk CRB check is also important for activity providers. We have had several submissions on the subject, but the two key ones that I want to mention were from the Football Association and Girlguiding UK. At the moment, those groups have teams of experts who receive and review CRB checks from all around the country. They tend to get them back within a week of the application, and they make decisions quickly. If someone is on a barred list they know even more quickly—as I have said, usually within 24 hours. CRB forms are quite technical, and it is important that they are analysed by trained people. Large employers and charities employ complex risk management techniques to assess individuals and, where appropriate, introduce special procedures to manage any risk that they could pose. It is also likely that the new measures will discourage people from volunteering. We know how important volunteers are to the Government, and we know all about the big society and encouraging people to give their time as volunteers. CRB checks are handled centrally by, for example, the FA and Girlguiding UK, as I have described, and they are anonymous. A person who wants to volunteer with the girl guides fills in their application, which goes to the central Girlguiding UK office, where it is dealt with by a team of experts. Because that is dealt with centrally, there is no embarrassment if that person has a conviction or other information on their CRB check, but it might be embarrassing if they had to deal with the local Girlguiding commissioner, who may also not be an expert in CRB checks, and who may feel that it is better to be safe than sorry, and refuse that person the right to become a volunteer. Will the new system help people to feel confident about volunteering? There is another issue under the new arrangements that the Government have not recognised, and which they need to address. Under the leadership of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), the all-party parliamentary group on child protection helpfully produced a report that contained a number of recommendations, one of which dealt with this very point. The Government need to work with organisations that use the e-Bulk system, such as the FA and Girlguiding, to fully understand the implications of their CRB check proposals. In their response to the all-party parliamentary group report, the Government state:"““We are considering what””" the changes"““will mean for the e-bulk system, and…in particular, what information should be made available to employers…once that is clear.””" Will the Minister update the House on her current thinking on CRB checks and the e-Bulk system? What will the proposals will mean for volunteering with big organisations and charities? It is also worth mentioning the small organisations that do not have access to specialist help and advice on CRB checks, and that are not familiar with the complexity of the system, in which individuals receive different types of CRB checks. Has the Minister given any thought to what she said in Committee on making information on the new system available to voluntary and community groups, and on providing the information required so that people fully understand what the system means? They also need to understand what is happening when someone is trying to hoodwink them, as I have described, by pretending that the CRB certificate is not available for some spurious reason.