Business of the House

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. As a near neighbour of his, I am familiar with Riverside and many of the issues he raises. I hope that Riverside has heard the case he mentioned. He is absolutely right that some leaseholders find themselves trapped in homes that are unsaleable or unaffordable, with high and rising insurance costs. They often find that they are voiceless in the future of their building, with costs going up and up. That is why, first and foremost, we are implementing the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. Just this week we published our commonhold White Paper, which is the beginning of the end of leasehold for good, and later this year we will introduce a draft Bill on leasehold reform.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

This week the BBC uncovered the shocking case of how a man convicted of a horrific murder in Bradford went on to spend almost two years working with vulnerable children and schools after he was wrongly cleared by the Disclosure and Barring Service in 2021. In response to that major safeguarding failure, the DBS now claims that although serious offences committed after 2006 may lead to someone being automatically barred from working with children, offences committed before 2006 may not. That is clearly wrong, and I suspect that this case in Bradford is not a lone one. May we have a debate in Government time on the wider system of DBS checks, particularly for individuals seeking to work with vulnerable children, so that we can get to the bottom of this?

[Lucy Powell]

This is a shocking case. The hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to be able to have confidence in the DBS checking system, which underpins the safeguarding of children in this country. If we cannot have confidence in it, that throws up a whole number of questions, as this shocking case has done. I therefore thank him for raising it. I will ensure that he gets a Government response about that case and what steps are being taken to ensure that this never happens again.