Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

88: Clause 50, page 36, line 39, leave out from beginning to “has” and insert “If a public authority to which this section applies”

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bichard) (CB)]

I should point out that if Amendment 88 is agreed, I will be unable to call Amendment 88A by virtue of pre-emption.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 89 to 92 in this group. These relate to the duty to notify potential modern slavery cases set out in Clause 50.

Modern slavery is a largely hidden crime. If we are to improve our operational response, protect more victims and bring more traffickers and slave-drivers to justice, we need to get a better understanding of the scale and nature of the issue. The duty to notify will help us to achieve this. The government amendments flow from the publication on 11 November of the review of the national referral mechanism which set out wide-ranging recommendations on how the support and identification of victims of trafficking and slavery can be improved. On 28 November the Modern Slavery Strategy was published. It commits to piloting these recommendations with a view to implementation. One of the review’s recommendations is that NRM referrals should no longer be made to the National Crime Agency. Instead, a case-working unit should be set up within the Home Office with decisions on cases being made by regional, multi-agency panels.

Given this change, the NCA is no longer likely to be a suitable central point for the collation of information relating to victims of modern slavery—a function that is likely to sit best with the authority managing NRM referrals, which is likely to be in the Home Office. These amendments therefore change the duty so that rather than notifying the National Crime Agency, specified public authorities will notify the Secretary of State. In order to future-proof the provision, the Secretary of State would also be able to make regulations to alter who the notification will be made to. These amendments are essential to ensure that the duty to notify works effectively alongside anticipated changes to the national referral mechanism. I hope that the House will support them. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lady Hamwee, when she speaks to her amendments, and to responding at the end of the debate. Meanwhile, I beg to move.

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Controlled Activity and Prescribed Criteria) Regulations 2012

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, first, I apologise to my noble friend for missing the first half-minute of his presentation. He managed to polish off the previous group much more quickly than the Government Whips’ Office had predicted and caught several of us by surprise. I hope that he will forgive us.

My noble friend will recall that our main concern about the section of the Protection of Freedoms Act to which the orders relate was not the matter that we are discussing today. Given that the Act has come into law, we recognise that the regulations are needed and therefore support the Government.

However, I take this opportunity to raise a very closely related matter and ask my noble friend whether he would kindly agree to a meeting to talk about it further. In brief, my concern is about the draft statutory guidance to chief officers of police, which has been released to a limited number of relevant stakeholders. The Minister will remember that, following the removal of the controlled activity category, my colleagues and I supported the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, in his amendment to ensure that employers—for example, colleges of further education—could obtain the information they need to enable them to make safe appointment decisions about posts other than those involving regulated activity. The issue is that, following the passage of the Act, employers will not be informed whether applicants for posts that are not regulated are on either of the barred lists.

On 12 March my noble friend the Minister promised that the statutory guidance,

“will allow the ISA or the Disclosure and Barring Service to give to the police information which led to a bar and, if the police judge it relevant to the post applied for, the police may disclose it on an enhanced certificate”.—[Official Report, 12/3/12; col. 53.]

This assurance encouraged the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, to withdraw his amendment. It is now crucial that the final version of the statutory guidance appropriately fulfils this undertaking from the Dispatch Box, which I am sure my noble friend gave in good faith. Sadly, the draft that has been circulated is not considered by some of those stakeholders to be adequate guidance for police officers to understand the nature of the Minister’s undertaking and the consequences of their decision-making. The guidance must make clear through a specific reference that the ISA and the DBS can inform the police about the information that led to the bar, and that the police should request such information from them. This is particularly important where there was no criminal charge in the case.

Secondly, there needs to be clarity about circumstances where the post applied for does not fall under regulated activity but the employer is entitled to receive enhanced criminal records information, including the information to which I have just referred that led to a bar, if the person is indeed on a barred list. I am sure the Minister will agree that to carry out Ministers’ undertakings, statutory guidance needs to assist those for whom it is meant. I hope therefore that he will be so kind as to agree to a meeting to discuss the detail of this draft guidance.

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I will make a contribution, although I feel doubly constrained, partly because I was not here at the beginning of the debate for the same reason as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and partly because I should actually be in the Chair shortly, although I suspect that by the time I am there this will be completed. I merely rise to say that I hope the Minister will concede to a meeting, because I share the concerns that have been expressed. That is all I need to say today.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

In responding to these amendments, I hope that the Minister will demonstrate how the Government will take on board the real concerns expressed by your Lordships from all four corners of the House, and make sure that Parliament is not inadvertently creating an appalling loophole that will put children at risk in the future. I beg to move.

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 5, which is in my name. Since it is a complex issue, I hope your Lordships will bear with me while I explain precisely what is in that amendment. Inevitably, I may trespass on some of the ground that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has already touched on.

Essentially, the amendment has four components. The first provides that anyone who permits an individual to work regularly and closely with children, in whatever setting and even if the activity is not regulated, can obtain an enhanced criminal record certificate, which will disclose any convictions and any intelligence held by the police about that individual and which is relevant to that employment. It is important to note that the responsibility for deciding whether such a check is necessary would in future rest with the employer and not be required by law. The employer would be the person who makes a judgment on whether such a check is needed, based on their knowledge of the activity and the local circumstances concerned.

The second component provides that the Secretary of State will offer guidance on what is meant by “regular and close contact”, which will help employers to make their decision.

The third part provides that the guidance should also recommend that enhanced criminal record checks be made where individuals work regularly and closely with children.

The fourth part of the amendment would ensure that the enhanced criminal record checks should also give access to suitability information relating to children under the provisions of the Police Act 1997. Put simply, this would give access to information about individuals who are barred from working with children or vulnerable adults in a regulated activity, and whose names therefore appear on one or other of the so-called barring lists.

The Minister may well find this last component of the amendment difficult. It might be argued that information that causes an individual to be barred from working with children in a regulated activity is not relevant to their working with children under supervision in a non-regulated activity, even if the contact is close and regular. I take a contrary view to that argument for the following reasons.

First, anyone working with a child in situations in which they have an opportunity to develop a bond of trust can groom that child and then exploit the bond of trust when they are not being supervised. No amount of supervision, however intensive, can prevent that bond of trust being established. We all know that the opportunities to exploit it are increasingly available, not least via social networking sites.

The second reason why I do not accept that argument, which was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, is that children build trust with individuals who work with them in, for example, youth clubs, colleges or sports clubs. However, that trust is not exclusive to those settings. If they encounter that adult on other occasions, they are likely to invest the same trust in them and therefore be vulnerable to them. That is why the issue for me is not, and never has been, the quality of supervision, but rather whether the adult might pose a risk to the child. If someone is on a list which bars them from working with children in unsupervised situations, it seems to me that that information should be made available to employers who are considering whether or not to allow those persons regular and close access to children. Not all noble Lords will be aware that one in five of the people on the barring list has not come in contact with the police; they are there because of information that has been provided—for example, by previous employers.

I ask noble Lords to envisage the circumstances whereby an individual is allowed to work with children on a close and regular basis following a CRB check, that individual then abuses a child and the employer subsequently discovers that the individual was on a barred list but that this information had not been made available to them because of this legislation at the time they took the decision to employ that person. That would be very difficult to justify and explain to the employer, the parent, or indeed to the public at large.

This amendment is not about allowing more CRB checks to be made; it is for employers to take that decision. It is not about the state requiring employers to do something which some might regard as unnecessary. It is simply about giving employers the data which are available and which will help them to make an informed decision. I have sought in this amendment to produce a system which is simple and proportionate. Therefore, I have avoided distinguishing between settings such as colleges, schools and clubs. Instead the amendment refers to “regular and close contact” wherever it occurs. I have left the final decision with the employer. I accept that the current arrangements are not proportionate and are too bureaucratic, but we must ensure that any revised arrangements are comprehensible, consistent across settings and place the safety of the child above all other considerations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bichard]

I am seeking clarification in order to be helpful. Am I hearing from the Minister that in future the barring authorities will make available to the police the information on which they have made their decision, but not necessarily the decision, and the police can then decide whether that is relevant information to make available to employers who carry out a criminal record check? To be clear, is that what is now being said?

[Lord Henley]

That is what I want to make clear, but as long as the information is relevant. We do not want irrelevant information passed on because of the damage that could possibly cause to the individual concerned.

[Lord Bichard]

This dialogue cannot and will not go on for ever but, of course, under the current arrangements, the police make a decision about whether the information they have on convictions is relevant. Therefore the Minister is suggesting that they would make the same decision about information they receive from the barring authorities about individuals. Is that correct?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I will again remind the noble Lord and the House that we are at Third Reading. I shall repeat the words I used. If the police judge it relevant to the post applied for they may disclose it on an enhanced certificate—no more and no less.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Bichard]

5: After Clause 64, insert the following new Clause—
“Voluntary application for relevant information: children
(1) The Secretary of State shall by regulation ensure that any person who permits, or is considering whether to permit, an individual to engage in any form of work, for gain or otherwise, which involves regular and close contact with children, may be permitted to obtain a relevant enhanced criminal record certificate.
(2) In this section “relevant enhanced criminal record certificate” means an enhanced criminal record certificate issued under section 113BA of the Police Act 1997, which includes by virtue of that section, suitability information relating to children.
(3) The Secretary of State shall produce guidance on the interpretation of the terms “regular and close contact with children” under subsection (1) of this section.
(4) Guidance produced for the purposes of subsection (3) of this section shall recommend that such organisations as described, should seek to obtain a relevant enhanced criminal record certificate as a matter of best practice.
(5) In table 1 of Schedule 7 to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, at end insert—

“20. Person who permits, or is considering whether to permit, B to engage in any form of work, for gain or otherwise, which involves regular and close contact with children, but does not fall within Part 1 of Schedule 4.

Children””

[Lord Bichard]

I thank the Minister not just for the discussion today but for discussions before today with other Members as well as myself. I thank, too, all those who have participated in this debate, which has on occasions lapsed into criticising the existing arrangements. I agree with those who say that we have too many checks too often and that they deter people from volunteering. There is no question about that, which is why the Government have put forward those proposals. My amendment accepts the Government’s fundamental position and, let us be clear, does not produce more bureaucracy or ticking of boxes. It concerns only those adults working regularly and closely with children, not those who just happen to have some contact with children on an irregular basis.

At the end of the day, what matters is that employers who will now make the decision have the information that we have to enable them to make the best possible decision. As someone said, that will not guarantee that children will not continue to be abused, because you cannot guarantee that; but it is very difficult for us to justify a situation in which information is available but not made available to those who will make the decision.

The question therefore comes down to whether or not the undertakings given today are sufficient to enable me not to press the amendment to a Division. I am conscious that in this House a lot of people feel very passionately about this issue and are very concerned about this vote. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that the proposal made in the Bill is convoluted; it is not one that I would have thought was the obvious way forward. On the other hand, it ensures that the information that society has available about an individual is available to the person who makes the decision if the police make their own decision that it is relevant. It is difficult for me to pursue the amendment purely because we are not giving information that an individual has been barred or not barred from regulated activity. On the basis that the information that led to the barring or not barring is available to the police, who can then make a decision about whether it should be made available to the employer, I shall not press my amendment.

Amendment 5 not moved.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Will the Minister clarify his initial statement about there still being some flexibility in regulations, and answer the specific question as to whether there is some ability on the part of the employer to ask for the enhanced CRB check and the IBB information?

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I do not want to detain the House by repeating any of the points that I made in speaking to Amendments 53 and 54 the other evening, but I do not think that we have yet reached an entirely satisfactory outcome on these issues. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to further discussions, which he has repeated to me since that debate. I hope that we will able to have those discussions before Third Reading, because I think there is continuing unease about this issue within the House and among children’s charities and the wider public.

Although I know that we trying to reduce bureaucracy, I am beginning to worry that we are in danger of making an extremely complex system even more confusing by the way in which we are distinguishing between places, whether they are specified or not, and organisations —we have heard the distinctions drawn between colleges and schools and between paid and unpaid workers. I hope that we can perhaps move to a much simpler statement. The amendment may not be the right form of words, which is why I welcome the further discussions, but I would like to think that we could say quite simply that all organisations employing adults, whether paid or unpaid, to work regularly with children, in whatever settings, should be able to carry out enhanced CRB checks, and that should be recommended by the department as good practice. Regulated activities and the barring system are an additional protection, but we should have a basic position which ensures that anyone working with children regularly can be checked by the organisation, because that is the only way in which an organisation can be sure that it is doing all it can to reduce the risk to that child. My concern will always be how we reduce the risk to the child, rather than how we drive down the bureaucracy.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, I want to say how much I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, but I would want to go a little further than she did. She was applying her remarks very much in the context of colleges and so on, but the principle applies to a younger age group as well. I hope that when the Minister responds to the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, and, I hope, indicates that further discussions can take place before Third Reading, he will consider the points that have been very clearly made.

The Minister has talked about the importance of proper supervision in reducing the risk of improper conduct. He said that it would also reduce the risk of improper relationships developing. The real difficulty in this category is that there will be individuals who have not been checked who will be in close, regular contact with children. They will be supervised, so nothing untoward can happen in that context, but something may happen elsewhere. A relationship may build up. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about relationships that were pursued in pubs, with underage drinking, but with younger children the context could be very different. It could be a kick-about in the park or whatever. That is where the difficulty arises.

When we debated these issues the other night, the Minister talked about the proper role of parents. I do not think anyone here doubts that parents have an incredibly important role in this, but parents’ main message to children is about stranger danger, and these individuals are not strangers. They are individuals whom the child or young person meets in the context of what is regarded as a secure and safe setting. When the Minister responds, I hope that he will address that issue and how we might take it forward. Can he give us some indication as to whether his concept of supervision includes some means of ensuring that contact is not developed outside, whether by way of e-mails, Facebook or anything else?

Also, there has been a lot of discussion that has muddied the waters about enhanced CRB checks and checks using the information available to the Independent Barring Board. The reality is that 20 per cent of those who are on the lists maintained by the Independent Barring Board have not been through the criminal justice system, so they will not show up through those criminal record checks. The point that has been made about providing a facility whereby colleges, schools or youth clubs can ask if they think it is appropriate for those checks to be made does not necessarily go far enough unless you are able to take on board the issue of the information that is held by the barring authorities.

Nobody is pretending that these are simple issues, but I hope that when the Minister responds he will recognise that they are issues that need further work and that we can try to get this right before Third Reading.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Bichard]

50: Clause 64, page 51, leave out lines 22 to 24

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 53 and 54 in my name and in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who has kindly allowed me to lead on this issue. Everyone in this House understands that one of the most difficult responsibilities for any Government is to manage risk, whether that risk is the security of our nation or the safety of the most vulnerable members of our society. It is one of the most difficult responsibilities because very few risks of any significance can be entirely eliminated, and decisions must therefore be made about what is an acceptable—sometimes an unavoidable—level of risk, and what action is proportionate in seeking to minimise that risk.

That is why I emphasised two things when I published my report on the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman at the hands of Ian Huntley in Soham: first, that we cannot create a risk-free society; secondly, that the steps we take to minimise risk should be proportionate. For those reasons, I very much sympathise with and support the Government in seeking to strike the right balance in this very difficult area. Some reduction in the level of bureaucracy associated with vetting and barring is necessary and achievable, and I welcome the Government’s attempts to do so. However, I cannot agree that these clauses strike the right balance, even with the amendments tabled by the Minister or by other noble Lords in this House. That is why I am moving this amendment.

To be clear, these clauses relate to those who train, supervise, teach or instruct children outside a specified place, such as a school or a children’s home, or to those who are unpaid volunteers in whatever setting. In such circumstances, a person will not in future need to be CRB checked if they are under the supervision of another person who is engaging in a regulated activity and is therefore subject to CRB checks. We can, and probably will, debate how close or intensive that supervision should be. My contention, inconvenient though it may be for those of us who want to reduce the level of bureaucracy, is that no amount or quality of supervision can be sufficient to prevent someone developing a bond of trust with a child that he or she can then exploit at a time when they are free of that supervision. That is how grooming takes place.

The internet provides enhanced opportunities for the bond of trust, once established, to be inappropriately exploited. Therefore, the focus of our concerns should be not on the quality, intensity or nature of the supervision but on whether the person involved in training, instruction, teaching or supervision presents a risk to the child. They should therefore continue to be subject to checks that can help establish whether they are a risk to children. This will hold out some hope that we can prevent them gaining privileged access to children.

We know that checks cannot be foolproof, but surely we owe it to our children to take reasonable and quite simple steps to prevent those whom we know are a risk from gaining privileged access to children, even if they are subject to supervision. They must do that because children assume that adults who are trusted to offer guidance or instruction to them can be trusted—not just in limited circumstances such as the youth centre or playing field but wherever they are encountered. That is why supervision can never be enough, and why sometimes we have to place the safety of our children before our desire to minimise regulation and bureaucracy. I hope that that is what we will do this evening. If we do not, I fear that we will very quickly find that dangerous adults will realise that there are some settings and some ways in which it will be easier in future for them to gain access to vulnerable children. The people we are talking about are manipulative and clever. They will take advantage of those opportunities.

Finally, I hope that the Minister will at least be able to confirm this evening that the Act will do nothing to prevent organisations, with their local knowledge, making checks where they think they are required. For example, a school with its local knowledge will be able to carry on checking volunteers if it believes that that is necessary and good practice. I beg to move.

[The Lord Speaker (Baroness D'Souza)]

My Lords, I should advise the House that if Amendment 50 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 50A and 51 for reasons of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not know whether it will be next Wednesday when we come back to this. I remind the House again that we are on Report not in Committee, and I think I have been interrupted and intervened upon more than one would expect. I will try to write to my noble friend before the next day on Report on this Bill. Whether it will be next week, I do not know.

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, I very much welcome the tone of the Minister’s response. I respect his position entirely and we have known each other long enough for me to be able to say that. I particularly welcome his confirmation that schools, if I understand it right, and organisations that want to carry on with checks will be able to do so. I assume that that means that they will have access to the intelligence that those checks would normally disclose. That issue might well need to be looked at, but I very much welcome that assurance.

I welcome the sympathetic way in which the Minister has responded to the debate. However, let us be absolutely clear, this is not for me, or I think for other noble Lords who have spoken, a question of bureaucracy and whether we need less of it. We all agree that we need less of it. The report that I produced after Soham was not implemented in full. Checks, for example, are not routinely updated, which is why we have the bureaucracy that we have. I said specifically in the Soham report that I wanted a system that was proportionate, and I do not think that we have ever achieved that.

This is therefore not a question of whether we need to reduce bureaucracy or of supervision. The core of the argument and of my contention is that we should be concerned about risk and not allow people who are a risk to have privileged access to our children—and it is privileged access. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has said, we have to draw a distinction between access that someone has in a school or a club and a chance encounter. If people build up trust in a school, it is a much more powerful relationship than it would be through some serendipitous or irregular meeting and much more likely to lead to secondary access, and to secondary access being exploited. I do not think it fair to say that we should expect parents to be able to monitor those kinds of situations. Parents expect schools, clubs and centres to be places where they can leave their children with some confidence. That is why we need to make sure that in those places we do not have people who are a risk having access to our children.

I welcome the tone of the response, as I said, and the possibility of further discussions, but let us never underestimate the importance of this issue. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that it is unfortunate—it is no one’s fault—that we had this debate without a larger number of noble Lords present, because this is a really important issue. Had I not heard the Minister’s assurances at the end about further discussions and about schools and other organisations being able to carry on with the checks as they do now, I would have had to withdraw the amendment—I have no alternative but to do so—with a heavy heart and a great deal of apprehension. The reassurances that we have received enable me to withdraw the amendment with more optimism, and I look forward to those further discussions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 50 withdrawn.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Bichard Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 59, 63A—which is on the Marshalled List but was not included on the list of groupings—60, 64 and 65. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, and the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. However, I do not think that they go far enough and I am looking for a more comprehensive approach to the problem we have before us today. In relation to Amendment 61, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, I ask the Minister how he would define “recreational”. I wonder if the word would encompass all after-school clubs, youth clubs et cetera. I need further clarification on the definition. Amendments 59 and 63A reverse government provisions to admit supervised volunteers and supervised employees in places other than schools, children’s homes or children’s centres from the scope of regulated activity. Amendments 60, 64 and 65 would tighten the statutory definition of supervision from “day to day” to “close and constant”.

On entering government in 2010, the coalition announced that it would suspend the rollout of vetting provisions under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 and undertake a review of vetting and barring procedures, with the aim of restoring common-sense levels of safeguarding. This was despite the implementation of key recommendations from the Singleton report by the previous Government, which would have reduced the total number of individuals required to register with the vetting scheme by almost 2 million. The upshot of the review is that regulated activity will no longer include supervised volunteers or employees. This will, we believe, have serious implications for the safety of vulnerable groups. The key arguments put forward by the Government’s review into the vetting and barring scheme are that the requirement for CRB checks deters volunteers and creates additional layers of bureaucracy for organisations. Of course, we welcome the introduction of an electronic portable system so that individuals will no longer have to apply for new checks each time they move jobs. However, the Government’s criticisms of the scope of CRB regulations are not an accurate reflection of attitudes towards CRB checks in general.

Representations from the Sport and Recreation Alliance described safeguarding requirements under the 2006 Act as “welcome burdens”. Girlguiding UK, of which I am proud to be a member, says:

“We would like to reiterate that in our experience the requirement to undergo a CRB check, along with Girlguiding UK’s own stringent checks to ensure the protection of the girls and young women in our care, does not deter potential volunteers”.

The Government’s other principal argument is that overreliance on the state to certify safety of employees leads to complacency among employers on safety and a perception that it is solely the responsibility of the state to ensure safety. However, we do not believe that that conjecture is supported by the evidence. Of course, CRB and ISA checks are not the be-all and end-all of child protection and neither is that borne out by the attitudes of the industry, with many organisations having developed their own independent standards of best practice on child safety. For instance, 76 per cent of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s local clubs either have or are working towards independent child protection accreditation. The view from children’s charities and voluntary sector organisations such as the Sport and Recreation Alliance is clear. For example, the NSPCC says that a new definition of regulated activity excludes many people who have regular and close contact with children. This creates a risk that unsuitable individuals may gain and exploit positions of trust, and there are numerous other organisations that feel similarly. For example, Fair Play for Children has stated:

“We believe that this Bill ignores entirely the major issue of secondary access”.

I could cite many case studies, but one example is from 1998, when Barry Bennell, aged 44, was jailed for nine years for the serial abuse of young boys from 1978 to 1992, when he was the scout for north-west and Midlands junior football teams. For over a decade, he used his position to invite boys to stay with him at his home and take teams on tour, where he sexually abused them. Critically, the issue was not whether he was supervised in the workplace but that without proper checks he was able to establish a trusted position and gain unsupervised access to vulnerable adults. The Government’s changes to the scope of regulated activity take a clear system and open it up to discretion and abuse, admittedly by a small minority, but nevertheless by predatory individuals.

In relation to Amendments 60, 64 and 65, our view is that the Government should scrap altogether their proposed distinction between supervised and unsupervised work with children and vulnerable adults. However, if the Government are not prepared to move on this, we would probe the Minister’s opinion on a consensus position which would at the very least tighten the statutory definition of “supervised” better to capture the sort of roles that we feel should be included in regulated activity. On Report in another place, the Government conceded that greater clarification was needed and agreed to publish draft guidance on the definition of supervision, as the noble Baroness said. We welcome that step and ask the Minister whether he agrees to publish that draft guidance before the end of the Committee. However, like many voluntary organisations, we are concerned that the issue of guidance still leaves too much room for discretion and that, while the best organisations will continue to co-operate with the highest standards of protection, others with fewer resources will shrink back to the legal minimum.

I wish to place on record the fact that although we wish to ensure that the scope of regulated activity is not restricted, we absolutely do not wish to discourage sporting and other organisations from employing those who have previously been in prison or who have been young offenders—that is, those people who do not have a history of violence or sexual abuse. I say this because yesterday, together with other noble Lords, I met with User Voice, a charity led and delivered by young offenders. Some of those young offenders who have not offended for three, four or five years now wish to give something back to society and have been working with young potential offenders to deter them from offending, because as offenders they have been through exactly the same process. They said that they found it very difficult to find work or recreational activity in sporting clubs, precisely because they have a record. Those young people have turned around their lives and it is important that, in ensuring that people are properly checked, we do not deter sporting organisations and others from employing those who have turned the corner and, as I say, wish to deter other young people from following in the steps that they have already trod.

[Lord Bichard]

My Lords, as chairman of the Soham inquiry there are perhaps some who think that I was the instigator of the arrangements in place for child protection, which this legislation seeks to change, and that I would therefore inevitably be opposed to these proposals. In fact, if your Lordships looked at the Soham report, you would see that I was looking for proportionate arrangements. I believe that, in some respects, the arrangements that were subsequently introduced were disproportionate and I am not therefore in principle opposed to some amendments. I want to make it clear that I will be looking carefully at the proposed legislation when it leaves Committee to see whether the new proposals are, in my view, proportionate. If I do not think that they are, I will want to move some amendments on Report.

However, it is right to say at this point that I have particular concerns about the issue of supervision. As has already been said, we are dealing on occasions here with people who are extremely manipulative. I seriously doubt whether any form of supervision will prevent the likes of Ian Huntley from perpetrating their evil. As someone who has led and managed many organisations, of course, I am also aware that the quality of any supervision is extremely variable but I believe that it is difficult to supervise the likes of Huntley to the point where we can be satisfied that they will not work their evil. It is particularly regrettable to use words such as “day to day supervision”; I have no idea what that means. I can begin to understand “close and constant”, which is suggested in Amendment 60, but I have serious doubts whether any supervision can be close or constant enough to satisfy my requirements.

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

My Lords, I have anxieties about this concept of supervision because the Bill does not actually define what that means. As I understand it, the definition is to be left to employers, although guidance is planned. But the Bill and these proposed amendments do not quite recognise some of the challenges that we face in a church environment. Just imagine a youth club worker, for example, who may well be supervised during a formal session but who may well have other, unsupervised contact with children and young people at other church activities, thus leaving plenty of opportunity to develop inappropriate relationships and, indeed, to groom children. It should also be recognised that those who are being supervised can still develop relationships with children who could be exploited. The limitations on regulated activity, based on this rather nebulous concept of supervision, seem to leave a great big gaping hole in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

We can have a meeting if the noble Baroness wishes; my door is always open. I just think that “close and constant” goes far too far and more or less negates the point of what we are trying to do in this area. Obviously, we would also listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, has to say on these matters, and I will give way in a minute; we welcome his experience. I remind the noble Baroness, however, that he was not totally uncritical of what followed his report and what was done; if I can paraphrase the noble Lord, he said it was not quite as proportionate as it might be.

[Lord Bichard]

My problem, which is not yet being addressed, is this: we have checks to ensure that inappropriate people do not get access—particularly to young children because they are vulnerable. That is why we have the checks. The Government’s new proposals seem to be based on the belief that supervision—whether it is close, constant, day-to-day or whatever—can make an individual who is inappropriate appropriate to work with young people. That is an issue about which I have serious doubts, because I do not believe that supervision can ever deal with that issue conclusively, not least because you can supervise somebody on a day-to-day or constant basis in his work, but that does not stop him grooming the young person and meeting them at the weekend, outside of work or the activity. Therefore, I am worried that we seem to be accepting—on all sides of the House—that coming up with a definition for supervision deals with this problem. I am just not sure that it does. The Minister may want to comment on that; I certainly believe there is room for further discussion.

[Lord Henley]

The noble Lord seems to be suggesting that we get rid of the idea or the concept of supervision in its entirety. I simply do not accept that. I think there is a role here for making it easier for people to get involved, with the appropriate degree of supervision where necessary. I take it that the noble Lord does not agree with me on that and it might be that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, does not agree with me on that: in which case, we will have to differ. We on this side see a role—and so do many other bodies outside—for the appropriate supervision to allow people to take on such a role. For that reason, I am not sure that a meeting on this matter would necessarily be fruitful.