Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 2.

Lords amendment 3, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 4 to 8.

Lords amendment 9, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 10 to 15, 19 to 29, 56, 62, 64 to 66, 70 to 101, 114 to 116 and 134 to 137.

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 30.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this we will discuss the following:

Lords amendment 31, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 32 to 47.

Lords amendment 48, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendment 49, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendment 50, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 53 to 55, 57 and 58, 60 and 61, 63, 67 and 69.

Lords amendment 102, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendment 103, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 104 to 113, 117 to 132 and 138 to 145.

[Diana Johnson]

I wish to put on the record the fact that Lords amendments 33 to 36 are very welcome, as they relate to a matter raised in Committee and on Report, and directly with the Prime Minister. Originally, the Government planned that anyone committing a serious sexual offence against a child would not automatically be placed on the barred list unless they had worked with children or planned to do so. We are pleased that the argument we made in Committee has been accepted by the Government and that now, for all serious sexual offences committed against a child, the perpetrator will automatically be placed on the barred list. The original plans were bureaucratic and appeared to the general public to leave children in a potentially vulnerable position, so we very much welcome the Government’s action.

Both Houses of Parliament have debated extensively the vetting and barring part of the Bill. One of the key issues debated at length was what constitutes “supervision” of a volunteer and how that relates to ensuring that children are properly protected. Initially, in the Commons, the Government turned their face against defining “supervision”, but they have now set out a definition, albeit a very weak one, in amendments 30 and 31, which refer to both children and vulnerable adults.

At this stage, I wish to refer to the excellent report by the all-party group on child protection, chaired with great knowledge by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), which also called for a tightening up the definition of “supervision”. Amendments (a) to Lords Amendments 30 and 31 deal with this issue, and it is important to set out why the definition of “supervision” is so important.

Under the Government’s new system, any employer, voluntary sector body or charity will be aware that, from the Bill’s enactment, they will be able to obtain full disclosure of information about an individual only if that person is in “regulated activity”, which is now much more narrowly defined in the Bill. To take schools as an example, we know that all employees in a school will be in “regulated activity”, so full information on teachers and caretakers, including details of cautions, convictions and barred status, and any soft information, will be available. However, we also know that if we delve a little further in a regulated setting, we find people who might have volunteered within the school—to read with the children in an individual classroom a few times a week, for example. They will not be deemed to be in “regulated activity” if they are supervised within the school. Will the Minister clarify whether the school will be committing an offence if it requests information on the barred status of a volunteer who is supervised? The measures mean that schools will not have the right to any information about whether a volunteer had been barred by the Independent Safeguarding Authority. If a school decides to apply for a Criminal Records Bureau check, they will be provided only with very basic CRB check information.

I will return to this point in relation to Lords amendment 48, but first let me address the question of supervision. There is genuine concern that “supervision” is a very loose concept, which can mean many different things to different people, and that could put children and vulnerable adults at risk.