Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 73 I shall speak also to Amendment 82. Within this group we shall also consider Amendment 75, tabled by my noble friend Lord Addington, and Amendment 75A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and others. It might assist the Committee if I first set out what Clause 79 intends to do before speaking to the government amendments in this group, as this is the first amendment in Chapter 2 of Part 5 of the Bill. At present, a criminal record certificate is simultaneously sent to the individual applicant and to the registered body that countersigned the application, for example an employer or sports governing body. This means that the employer or voluntary organisation gets to see any conviction or other information included on a certificate before the individual applicant has an opportunity to contest the accuracy of any conviction information or the accuracy or relevance of any non-conviction information. The Government’s independent adviser for criminality information management, Mrs Sunita Mason, concluded that this approach was unfair to the applicant. We agree, as indeed does the Information Commissioner. Clause 79 therefore provides that henceforth a criminal record certificate should be sent only to the applicant. This allows the applicant to review and, where they deem it necessary, challenge any information on the certificate before it is passed to an employer, prospective employer or voluntary organisation. This change will also allow the individual to approach a prospective employer and provide background about why a particular record exists or provide further explanation or context that might not be apparent directly from the disclosure. Some sports governing bodies and voluntary organisations, such as Girlguiding UK, have expressed concern about the impact of this change on their recruitment processes. I was able to hear about these concerns at first hand when I met a delegation of bodies referred to in the first amendment led my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint, and I know that yesterday she had further meetings of a constructive nature with officials in my department. I can assure your Lordships that in implementing this change, we want to minimise any disruptive effect it may have on current recruitment processes. Having listened to the representations from the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Football Association, Girlguiding UK and others, we recognise that Clause 79 as originally conceived did not get that all-important balance right, which I have referred to on a number of occasions. We believe that the government amendments in this group address the concerns that have been raised. Amendment 73 provides a clear legislative basis to enable a registered body to track the progress of an application online and be informed about its status. This tracking facility would also enable the registered body to ascertain whenever a certificate is clear: that is, that it contains no convictions or other police information. This is a significant point, as currently some 92 per cent of criminal record certificates are clear, so such a facility will ensure that in the overwhelming majority of cases the recruitment process can proceed with confidence, even if there is some small delay in the certificate being sent by the applicant to the registered body. Government Amendment 82 ensures that the same arrangements will apply to the up-to-date arrangements. For the one in 10 cases where a criminal record certificate is not clear, the registered body will know the date on which the certificate was issued and, as such, will be able to take appropriate follow-up action if the applicant does not provide a copy of the certificate within a few days of that date. I should stress that there is no reason why sports governing bodies and others should not continue to run their recruitment processes from a central team. It follows that there is similarly no reason why these changes should require the local football coach or scout leader to become involved in individual recruitment decisions. I also want to allay concerns that this change will put children at greater risk. That is absolutely not the case. Where a position falls within the scope of regulated activity the employer or voluntary organisation will be obliged, as now, to undertake a barring check before a person takes up that position. In any other case—that is, where the position does not fall within the regulated activity—it will be for the employer or voluntary organisation, again as now, to undertake a proper risk assessment and consider whether it is safe for a new employee or volunteer to be given supervised access to children before all the appropriate vetting processes have been completed. Having spoken to the two government amendments, the first of which I will move formally in a moment, I will wait to hear what my noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, or perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, have to say about their amendments before I respond to them. I beg to move.