Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to publish details of possible new criminal offences to support regulations made under the Childcare Bill [HL].

Clause 1(5) (k) of the Childcare Bill enables regulations to make provision for criminal offences in connection with the provision of information and documents and disclosure of information for the purposes of eligibility checking, mentioned in paragraphs (5) (i) and (j) of the Bill only.

As set out in the policy statement made available to the House of Lords on 25 June 2015, the government’s intention is that any new offences should align with existing offences for schemes involving information sharing and self-declaration. Clause 1(7) provides for a cap on the penalty that may be imposed on indictment, namely a maximum term of imprisonment of two years, with or without a fine. This is an appropriate safeguard, which might be appropriate in large scale fraud cases, or misuse of sensitive personal tax data, whilst retaining the option of imposing lesser penalties.

It would be for the police and the relevant prosecuting authority to decide whether to bring a prosecution and at what level.