Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Peston Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I participated in the Second Reading debate in November. I have not participated in the stages since, although I have read the proceedings in Hansard with some care. I intend to ask my noble friend to reject these amendments but, before I turn to the substance of my remarks and because this is such a difficult and emotional subject, I hope the House will permit me a brief diversion.

At Second Reading, I made it clear that I thought the activities of those who preyed on children—or vulnerable adults, as the noble Baroness has just said—were repulsive. That was the word I used then and I use it again this afternoon. I went on to argue for the need for proportionality and the measurement of effectiveness and impact and so forth. Therefore, I was very disappointed when the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—I am pleased to see him in his place on the Front Bench—said in his winding-up remarks:

“It is all very well wanting to reduce regulation, as clearly the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, does, but not if it is at the expense of someone else’s safety”.—[Official Report, 8/11/11; col. 219.]

I regard that as a cheap shot. I am happy to be told that my judgment is wrong, that my understanding of the law is wrong or that the practical implications of what I am proposing are wrong, but I am not prepared to be told that I put the reduction of the regulatory burden before the safety of children. That was unfair.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, gave the House a graphic explanation of her work in this area. I will just add my own few words. My wife’s cousin is a forensic pathologist, and he undertakes for the noble Lord’s department post-mortems of the most searing kind. I talked to him about his work and I asked him if he did not find it rather macabre. He said, “Not really, because I am a detective. Some detectives will crawl across the carpet looking for clues in the fibres. I am finding the clues in people, and I am therefore able to convict the guilty and let the innocent go free”. Because I am squeamish, I also say, “Isn’t it rather strange to be dealing with corpses?”. He said, “By the natural order of things you get used to it but when we have a child brought into our post-mortem room, there is a palpable change in the atmosphere, the tension and the behaviour of the team”. Whatever I am saying about the need to not accept these amendments, it is not because I think that children should not be protected. That forensic pathologist’s stories of the things he has seen are harrowing beyond belief.

On 6 February 2012, the second day on Report, in moving his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, said,

“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”.—[Official Report, 6/2/12; col. 107.]

I say amen to that. I entirely agree with the noble Lord. I further agree that getting the balance right is exceptionally difficult.

However, I argue that to some extent the Government have already got the balance right, which is why I shall ask my noble friend to resist this amendment. I do so for three reasons: first, it changes the relative importance of judgment as opposed to process; secondly, there is a bandwagon effect in this whole area, which will result from some of the wording of the noble Lord’s amendment; and, thirdly, there is the danger that this amendment will contribute to the further atomisation of our society.

On judgment versus process, I follow some of the remarks made by the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. When I was taking evidence on the preparation of the report Unshackling Good Neighbours, it was astonishing how many people saw the official check as the beginning and end of the matter. There is health and safety, and other areas, as well as the CRB. Too often, individuals did not wish or saw no reason to use or trust their individual judgment. My fear is that the more we push the process forward, the less people will feel that they need to use their judgment and intervene, because they feel that it is someone else’s responsibility.

Strangely, in the briefing we received from Fair Play for Children, some of that attitude reveals itself. It states:

“We also point out the possibility that the person, in applying for another post within the organisation, might find himself subject to scrutiny against the barred list, and barring revealed. That places employers at that stage in an invidious position of having had such a person working for them with children and then having to comply with statute to refuse the new job”.

I cannot for the life of me see what is “invidious” about this. It is about a proper, disciplined and clearly run business. If a person changes his job and has different responsibilities involving further exposure and involvement with children, at that point the employer is entitled to say, “I am afraid this is not something which you can become involved with because of the role you are now undertaking”. When I read that the,

“day to day supervision is a reference to such day to day supervision as is reasonable in all the circumstances for the purpose of protecting any children concerned”,

I believe that the Government have got the balance about right.

On the bandwagon effect, subsection (4) of the new clause proposed under Amendment 5 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, states:

“Guidance produced for the purposes of subsection (3) … shall recommend that such organisations as described, should seek to obtain a relevant enhanced criminal record certificate as a matter of best practice”.

The noble Lord may think that he will cut down the number of criminal records checked but, faced with the matter of best practice, individuals running charities, voluntary groups and sports clubs will face ever greater pressure to obtain an enhanced criminal record certificate. It will be argued that this is needed to be on the safe side. Charities have groups of people which depend on CRB checks, so they are not going to say it is not needed; rather they will say that, for access, it is best practice.

We saw lots of examples in the evidence given to us before we completed our report, Unshackling Good Neighbours. It is tragic to see how many people, rightly or wrongly, are put off from volunteering because they do not want to be CRB-checked. In many cases they did not need to be CRB-checked, but the authorities thought they should be in order to be on the safe side. The University of Oxford has advertised for students to help invigilate in its museums. The job requires sitting in a room or corridor and watching the exhibits so that visitors cannot remove or destroy them. But they now have to be CRB-checked. It is hard to see how the job falls within the requirements of a CRB check but, to be on the safe side, that is what the university wants to do.

Last, I turn to the atomisation effect. Social scientists say that our society is becoming atomised, as they call it, and social media mean that we live increasingly isolated lives. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, in an interesting article in the House Magazine this week, talks about how social media provide the opportunity for grooming, and I agree with him absolutely on that. I said in my speech at Second Reading that this is one of the most difficult areas we have to tackle going forward. However, if we are not careful, we will enhance the selfish gene which lies within all of us. People say that they see no reason to help their town, village, street or community. To reverse this trend and encourage people to reconnect and get involved, we need to welcome them, not treat them as criminals.

It is a fact, thank goodness, that a fractional minority of people seeks to prey on children. The overwhelmingly vast majority of our fellow citizens are decent, law-abiding and want to do their best. It is with these people in mind that I urge my noble friend not to accept these amendments.

[Lord Peston]

Is the noble Lord saying that if we accept these amendments, there would be no net increase in the number of children who would be protected?

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

I cannot prove a negative, and that is one of the difficulties of arguing either for or against any form of regulation. You cannot prove what will happen. I suspect that there will be no net increase in the risk to children. I suspect that but I cannot prove it, just as the noble Lord cannot prove the contrary.