Sarah
Teather: The Minister asked me after I sat down whether I
felt that the Bill’s appeals process was adequate. He will
realise that the appeals process allows only those included on the list
to appeal against it; it does not allow someone who has referred a
complaint and feels that it has not been satisfied to have that
decision reviewed. That is the point that we are trying to make. He
might have misunderstood
it.
Mr.
Dhanda: I take the point, but I must disagree. Those
making the referral will have the right to know whether the person has
been barred, but the reasons why they have or have not been barred will
not be shared with the referrer for understandable reasons. Some
referrals could be vexatious. The evidence might be flimsy. There might
be a range of circumstances. We are discussing individuals who have
lives to lead. After the IBB has made a decision and expertly weighed
up all the evidence, those who made the referral will not necessarily
need to pry into it, although I agree with the hon. Lady that it would
be best to let them know what the IBB’s decision is, and we
intend to do
that. The
IBB will have internal administrative procedures to ensure quality and
consistency in its decisions. For example, I would expect it to have
procedures governing the collection of all the information needed to
make a decision and to ensure that the necessary expertise is brought
to bear on decision making. IBB members and senior management will
establish systems for monitoring and quality control before rather than
after notification of decisions.
The Government envisage that
the IBB will engage actively with employers on the referral process, so
that they know what is required of them and in what circumstances they
should refer information. That will be an important part of the
IBB’s role in ensuring the effective functioning of the scheme.
I hope that I have assured the hon. Lady that the scheme will work well
without the
amendment. I
turn to amendment No. 119, which would ensure that any changes to the
definition of regulated activity are made through regulations subject
to the affirmative procedure. I reassure hon. Members that the
amendment is not necessary, because clause 46(3) already provides for
that. I hope that I have provided the clarification required, and I ask
hon. Members to withdraw their
amendments.
Annette
Brooke: The Liberal Democrats are still not convinced that
we have conveyed what we mean by the amendment. I am sure that that is
due to its wording rather than anything else. We envisage that a
referral from an organisation or individual that does not result in a
barring decision should have a right of review involving different
people making the decision. That would ensure consistency in decision
making. There
will inevitably be a lot of people making delegated decisions,
internally rather than in a rigid appeal process. There must be checks
and balances in the system so that somebody does not fall through the
net simply because a particular group did not act. We envisage that the
person or organisation concerned would have to prove in some way that
they had deep
concern. 5.30
pm
Mr.
Dhanda: I think I am getting a slightly better
understanding of what the amendment refers to. The internal processes
of the IBB will be a matter for itself, as it will be independent.
Although the hon. Lady’s point is fair, I cannot comment on the
internal processes of the IBB. It is important that we have an
independent body, making expert decisions. I am sure that there will be
a process whereby those who have made a referral can send supporting
information to the
IBB.
Annette
Brooke: I thank the Minister. We are
beginning to get on the same wavelength. I have a genuine concern that
something could be overlooked, because there is a lot of information
and some vital pieces of it might not picked up by a small panel of
people. I hope that the Minister, although he cannot dictate the
board’s internal procedures, will give guidance—not
written guidance—that he expects a review process and a test of
the consistency of the board’s
decisions.
Tim
Loughton: I heard what the Minister said, which did not
surprise me. He used phrases that are common when Ministers are
resisting the putting of more detail in a Bill, particularly on tying
down the Secretary of State’s ability to exercise the
considerable powers of regulation that he is given.
We are in no way trying to
limit, as the Minister put it, the IBB’s discretion to carry out
its functions. We support the idea of the board and therefore its power
to get on with the job that we are tasking it to do. Nowhere in the
amendments do we seek to limit the IBB’s discretion. We seek to
limit the discretion of the Secretary of State, whose role should be
subject to ongoing scrutiny by the House. At every appropriate juncture
when he makes and changes regulations, they should be subject to
affirmative scrutiny. That is the case in clause 5, which amendment No.
119 has usefully probed.
I remind the Minister that the
Secretary of State is being given powers to make regulations that, the
Minister says, will be published after Royal Assent. I do not argue
about that; it is the case with all Bills. It would be desirable if a
Standing Committee could look at the regulations in tandem with the
Bill that gives them effect. That rarely happens, and in this case it
was even less likely to happen because of the necessary speed with
which the Bill was introduced after the Government had been rather
dilatory in responding to the Bichard
recommendations. Let
us remind ourselves that the Bichard report was published in June 2004.
It was only the scandals that hit the headlines at the beginning of
this year about
paedophiles and other dubious individuals working in privileged
positions, particularly in schools alongside children, that prompted
the Bill. We welcome it, albeit rather late in the day after the
Bichard report. However, the lead time between the Government
announcing that they would introduce the Bill and their producing it
has necessarily been truncated because of the urgency of the situation.
We welcome that. The
point that I am trying to make is that in those
circumstances—less so than those with other Bills that have been
on the back burner for many years—it would not be reasonable to
expect all the regulations to have been done and dusted and thought
through. That is why it is important to tease out some of the
Government’s thinking, to give us an indication of whether we
think that they are going far enough and will achieve the right balance
between protection and the civil rights of individuals who are in the
frame. Nothing we are
suggesting limits the flexibility of the board to do its job when it is
up and running. We are purely asking for checks and balances on the
Secretary of State in what is currently a grey area. Secretaries of
State might find it inconvenient to have to appear before regulation
Committees occasionally. However, it is preferable that they are put on
the spot to justify why various regulations are being fashioned in the
way that the Government propose than to let those regulations go
through without the proper scrutiny that they
require. This is
pioneering territory. The board is a new body. We welcome it, but it is
particularly important that we get it right. We are not just talking
about the initial regulations that the Secretary of State will fashion
after the Bill receives Royal Assent; the Bill will also give him
powers to change those initial regulations. He can change the
regulations for the procedures to be followed, the terms of reference
on which certain people are referred to the board and subsequently
barred, and the timescale over which they may be barred. He is being
given the powers to change an awful lot of things even after he first
sets them out in regulations after Royal
Assent. It is
important that, where possible, the Secretary of State should ensure
that those regulations and subsequent changes to those regulations are
subject to full and proper timely scrutiny by the House. That is what
the amendments are all about, and that is a point worth making. The
Minister is quite understandably trying to give us reassurances about
when those regulations would be proposed, but that is entirely
irrelevant, given the various points that I have just made. I want to
put that on record. I
know that we will not get anywhere if we seek a vote on the amendment,
but it is important. These are enormous powers, the manifestations of
which both ourselves and the Minister are unclear about at this stage,
because the provision has not been completed. That is why we need to
make sure that they are scrutinised properly. On that basis, I beg to
ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Schedule
2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
3Barred
Persons Question
proposed, That the clause stand part ofthe
Bill.
Tim
Loughton: A few clauses are coming up for which no
amendments have been tabled. However, there are items of clarification
that it would be useful for the Committee to seek and for the Minister
to give. Clause 3 is
short. It deals with barred persons. In paragraphs 3(2) and
(3): “A person
is barred from regulated activity relating to children if he
is— (a)
included in the children’s barred
list;” which we
understand
and— “(b)
included in a list maintained under the law of Scotland or Northern
Ireland which the Secretary of State specifies by order as
corresponding to the children’s barred
list.” Again, we do not
know what that will amount to. We do not know what type of list may
exist or are intended by, for example, the Scottish Parliament, which
has competence in those areas. I ask the Minister for his comments on
the Scottish
system. The
development of IMPACT—the computer database—is essential
to the process of collating and sharing information. That system will,
we hope, successfully identify individuals who should not be working
with children or vulnerable adults, so that the required information
can be given to the IBB, which will do something about
it. The Opposition are
concerned that IMPACT is behind schedule and over budget, which is a
common theme when the Government handle computer projects. Originally,
it was proposed that the IMPACT scheme would be available by 2007. Soon
after, the Minister’s colleague, the Under-Secretary of State
for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Joan Ryan)
announced that, in fact, it would be ready in 2008.
Subsequently, on 21 April, the
Minister without Portfolio, as a Home Office Minister, confirmed what
many of us had understood to be the case from Police Information
Technology Organisation documents: the full computer system would not
be up and running properly until 2010, at the latest—a four-year
gap between the Bill and a computer system that will effectively enable
it to happen. That is a big worry. What is going to happen in the next
four years? On the
Floor of the House, we have just debated concerns over recent
revelations about the treatment of people with learning disabilities,
particularly the scandals in Cornwall. Problems are happening as we
speak. That computer system needs to be able to deal with such
instances to ensure that they do not happen in the first place or that
such people, when identified, are dealt with
appropriately. I
understand that Scotland is steps ahead of us—in many things it
is; in others, it is not, including football. The Scottish intelligence
database computer system is up and running already, and rather
effectively, I gather. Apparently, that system was offered to English
police forces as at least a stop-gap measure before IMPACT comes into
effect.
The cost of
IMPACT, as estimated in the comprehensive spending review, was some
£160 million. I think that that figure will be revisited and
will accelerate considerably. The cost of transferring or extending the
SID system to England and Wales was put at £55 million, and it
could be rolled out over 18 months. That roll-out could have started
some time ago and been considerably cheaper and
quicker. I have a
query about clause 3: what discussions has the Minister had with his
counterparts in the Scottish Parliament and colleagues in the Northern
Ireland Office about the structures operating in those two parts of the
United Kingdom? Has he learned any lessons from sharing intelligence
and about the systems already in place to bring that about? Are the
list systems, and the information feeding into those systems, in
Scotland and Northern Ireland superior or lacking compared with the
English and Welsh system that we are looking to put in place under the
Bill? 5.45
pm It is vital
that we have a system that will work across the United Kingdom. There
have been many cases of abusers of one description or another easily
flitting across borders. There is a problem at the moment with abusers
flitting across county authority borders. Let us take the example of
foster carers taken on by a local authority in, say, Newcastle. The
foster carers fall foul of the local authority because of a degree of
abuse that may not quite have warranted a prosecution, or in respect of
which there was insufficient intelligence to prosecute, but which
should certainly have flagged up serious question marks as to the
carers’ suitability to deal with children. They then leave
Newcastle and turn up in, say, my neck of the woods, on the south coast
in Brighton, and present themselves as willing foster carers to the
local authority, which would have no knowledge of their previous
background and which may engage their services. That might turn out to
be completely
inappropriate. People
who abuse vulnerable people—be it children or adults—tend
to be quite devious and clever in getting round the system, which is
why it is essential that we have a proper and appropriate sharing of
information between authorities in our own country and around all the
different parts of the United Kingdom as well. It also makes it
essential that when the legislation comes into force it is compatible
with the measures that are already up and running in Scotland and
Northern Ireland, or that are intended to be up and running there. That
is particularly the case for Scotland, with the information-sharing
system that the police already have in place, which as things stand
today is superior to ours. Will the Minister comment on the United
Kingdom
dimension?
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