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.