Disclosure and Barring Service
Martin Wrigley Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Vikki Slade
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right: assumptions are being made around the country. As the mother of four children, I assumed, as I dropped off my children, that everybody had to be DBS checked. The idea that that is not strictly the case fills me with dread. When I talked to the people from the Campaign for Gigi this afternoon about nursery safety, I shared this issue with them, and they were horrified. Clearly, people working in an early years setting are required to have an enhanced DBS check, but they were concerned about other sectors, too.
As I am sure the Minister can understand, Lauren’s grandfather Paul, who brought this case to my attention, and Lauren’s parents remain concerned that if the coach had been reported to the DBS at the time of the original allegations and potentially withdrawn from working with children, Lauren, who was described as
“a talented singer and dancer with the world at her feet”
may not have been introduced to illegal drugs and could well have been continuing to enjoy a very bright future. Additionally, there does not seem to be a route for the public to report concerns. If the employer has not registered a member of staff, or an organisation has not been deemed to be undertaking a “regulated activity”, as the council told me the dance school was not, there is no one to document the concerns and no register to check.
I welcome the DBS’s new video, which was launched before Christmas, to support faith organisations with the legal duty to refer. The legal duty to refer requires organisations to notify the DBS when they remove a person from a regulated activity because they have harmed or may pose a risk of harm, but it does not protect those in the care of an individual who has not been registered by their employer in the first place. I welcome the changes made in the Crime and Policing Bill, which will close the loophole for supervised staff, ensuring that they will be eligible for checks against the children’s barred list. I also welcome the Minister’s work to ensure that that happened earlier last year.
Those are positive steps, but I have two questions. First, will the Government consider requiring employers and organisations to register their staff, rather than just making them eligible, and will they require the police, local authority or regulator to record allegations made against the organisation where an individual is not registered? Secondly, have the Government considered a simpler system? For example, there could be a system in which an individual applies for a card that could be searched by an employer, a parent or a service user to confirm that an individual has been cleared to work with children or vulnerable people. The card could include a “date of most recent update” section—that way, details of past convictions do not necessarily need to be shared, but a timeline of when people have been deemed safe to be around vulnerable people could be.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
My hon. Friend raises very good points on this matter. There are two issues that I have always seen with the DBS check. First, like an MOT, it is only as good as the date when it is issued, and people do not have to subscribe to the update service. Does she agree that updates should be mandatory? Secondly, a DBS check cannot be passed from one organisation to another—people need a fresh one every time—which seems to be an unnecessary waste of time. Does my hon. Friend agree that her card idea would probably solve that?
Vikki Slade
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People have to pay extra to be part of the update system. Why would anyone pay extra to put themselves under additional scrutiny? Why is that not automatic?
The other option, which has been suggested by some, is that the Government could consider a right to ask/right to know process for family members. That would ensure that the public could not have free and easy access to information that could be risky, but if they had a concern, there would be a route for them to find out. We were simply stonewalled every time that we tried to find out whether this teacher had been registered and whether those allegations had been made.
Let me turn to another situation, which has come up on a number of occasions, relating to people who are caring for family members. DBS checks currently have to be undertaken by an employer, a registered organisation or an umbrella organisation. That increases costs, adds delays and makes it more complex for families using direct payments for the care of disabled children and for those starting the journey of caring for an elderly relative.
Laura contacted me about the direct payments that she receives to fund the care of her son, noting that she cannot directly access DBS checks. She said that
“my very vulnerable son, quadriplegic with cerebral palsy and profound multiple learning disabilities has a team of 15 carers none of whom have DBS checks.”
She asks why the law does not allow parents to carry out DBS checks on carers, who are
“working often alone in our home”.
Another constituent, Sandra, is in a similar position. She said:
“We had a carer a few years ago, who had been lone working with our daughter at night for over a year, with a current DBS check. We had a call from Child Protective Services—the carer had tried to smother her own child”.
They later discovered that the reason why the carer’s other child lived with grandparents was because she had tried to smother the older child, and they had been removed from her care. The man from the child protection services said, “It probably should have been on her DBS,” but it was not. As a result, Sandra said, “What is the point? There is no reason for me to get a DBS check—it would not have protected my child.”
I have also been contacted by Louise, from another part of Dorset, who approached me due to my dementia champion work. After her husband Richard was diagnosed with dementia, she decided to try to care for him at home. Her job meant that she went away for a few days at a time, and she felt that the best option was to find a carer to stay in her home with Richard. My colleagues in Somerset may remember this story, as it was in the local paper.
Louise’s experience led to her starting a campaign for Richard’s law, which I said that I would take up. The law has three simple pillars—so simple that I was shocked they were not already in place. Those three pillars are mandatory registration of all care workers; mandatory enhanced DBS checks, with all carers required to join the update service; and mandatory, nationally recognised training for care staff in first aid, medication compliance, manual handling, dementia awareness and safeguarding. I find it hard to believe that a person can be a carer without all of those things being in place.
Asylum Policy
Martin Wrigley Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Shabana Mahmood
I gently point out to my hon. Friend that we have a large number of failed asylum seekers—that is to say, people whose claims have not succeeded and who do not have the right to be in this country who are still here, despite their home country being safe. Many people who claim asylum in this country have passed through multiple safe countries across Europe before they end up in the north of France. We have seen claims go down in Europe and increase here in the UK. I would just encourage her to remember that we are opening safe and legal routes. The whole point of the reforms is to disincentivise the journeys that lead to criminals earning a lot of money and people being in the north of France, and to move to a system where we have safe legal routes and we accept people as refugees before they set foot on UK soil. That way, when they come here they can earn, contribute and be fully integrated through models such as community sponsorship, which we know work.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I thank the Home Secretary for sharing her experiences earlier and thoroughly condemn the sort of behaviour she described. It is unacceptable in any case.
The Secretary of State described rapid decisions on appeals. Does she also believe, as I do, that rapid decision making on the initial application of asylum seekers should be promoted and highlighted? Will she consider putting a timescale target for decision—a matter of weeks, not years—in place in her Department?
In her remarks over the weekend on our Ukrainians guests, she described them going home when peace breaks out. May I remind her that peace will not mean safety? Please can she assure the House that a more considered and considerate response may be found? Will she meet me and Ukrainian guests to resolve that issue?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me just make a point about Ukraine that I think was not understood fully by those who were questioning me at the weekend. It is a bespoke scheme created only for Ukrainians, with its own rules. It is not subject to what we have set out in the asylum policy statement. The hon. Gentleman will know, as is the position in relation to our discussions with the Ukrainian Government, that those individuals are welcome in our country so that we can keep them safe. They are not classed as refugees, because they are here temporarily on that scheme. We will always uphold our obligations under that scheme—we supported it in Opposition, too.
The hon. Gentleman is right on the point about rapid decisions. It is important that decisions made at first instance, but also through an appeals process, are of high quality. That is one of the ways we have to ensure that they do not get constantly appealed. Our current system means that even though we have made huge progress on decreasing the backlog on initial decisions, the appeals backlog has grown. Over time, as people sit in the appeals queue, more rights are accrued. Unlike with any other type of legal order in this country, the order to leave this country not being complied with still allows people to accrue more rights in the interim. We do not run a good and effective appeals system at the moment, which is why we are going to create a new one, but I can assure him that at its heart will be early legal advice and truly independent adjudicators making the decisions, but doing so in a way that allows them to fast-track claims that have a low chance of success and make sure that the right decision is made quickly— one claim, one appeal—with a certain outcome at the end, not subject to years and years of a merry-go-round around the courts.
Draft Data Protection Act 2018 (Qualifying Competent Authorities) Regulations 2025
Martin Wrigley Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I also congratulate the Minister on her new appointment. I thank her for explaining what is going on in this secondary legislation, because I read it a number of times and did not really get it until I listened to her explanation. It raises a number of questions. The answers may be specified elsewhere; if so, I apologise for asking obvious questions.
On the designation notice that these organisations can now ask for, is there a stipulation on the number of agencies in the list that can come together for a single designation notice with an intelligence agency? Is it just one, is it many or is it all of them?
Is there a duration on the designation notice? Is this something that can be applied for for a week, for a year or forever? Clearly, if it is forever, and all of them, we have a very interesting situation here.
Will the data used in this way be allowed to be analysed in the new Government data-mining AI systems, such as the Palantir systems? There is clearly a danger of leakage into the health systems, in which they are also used. That brings extra concern about crossover of data between those, especially under AI data mining. What reassurances can we give our constituents that that will not happen?
Phone Theft
Martin Wrigley Excerpts(6 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for bringing this important debate. I rise to support her and to bring urgent attention to an issue that continues to disrupt lives not just across the UK, but in my constituency: the rising tide of mobile phone thefts.
This is not a petty crime or just about the loss of a device. This is about identity theft, financial vulnerability and, in many cases, the complete disconnection of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities from the services they rely on every day. The numbers for the last two years speak volumes. Between December 2021 and November 2023, West Yorkshire police recorded over 560 mobile phone thefts in Dewsbury and Batley alone—293 in 2021-22 and 269 the following year. On average, more than 20 people in my constituency fall victim to this specific crime every single month, and that is just what is recorded. We know full well the real figures are likely higher. Many do not report these crimes, believing that the police have more serious matters to attend to or that nothing can be done.
As the hon. Member said, mobile phone theft is serious. These are not just communication tools; they are banks, medical records, job applications, childcare arrangements, emergency lifelines and priceless memories. I read about a constituent—a single mother—in Dewsbury Moor whose phone was stolen while shopping. It was not just the phone she lost; she missed three job interviews, could not access her new universal credit account and had her personal photos and private medical records compromised. That is not an isolated story. Mobile phone theft is a systemic threat to digital safety and personal dignity.
Nationally, hundreds of thousands of mobile phones are stolen annually, and many of those devices end up in highly organised criminal supply chains. Some are exported; others are wiped and sold locally. In some cases, victims are followed or even assaulted for their devices. What is worse is that recovery and prosecution rates remain disturbingly low. Across many police forces, less than 5% of mobile phone thefts result in charges.
What must we do? First, we need to treat mobile phone theft as organised crime, not petty theft. The links between phone theft, fraud and even violent crime are well established. Police forces must be resourced and mandated to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Secondly, we need stronger action from telecom providers and tech companies. Why are some phones still so easy to wipe clean and resell?
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
On that very topic, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee had an inquiry where we put this to Apple and Google. It turns out that phones that are reported stolen in this country go on something called the GSMA blacklist, which stops the hardware from working and the phones cannot be reused in this country. The police says that most stolen phones go abroad to networks that do not use that blacklist. I put it to Apple and Google that they could use this blacklist. They said yes they could, but no they did not want to. Does the hon. Member agree that these companies should enable that blacklist, which would—in my humble opinion—effectively stop the theft of phones on the streets of London?
Iqbal Mohamed
I thank the hon. Member for his informed contribution to the debate. I agree with him and the hon. Member for Brent East, who indicated that companies are not doing enough. It should be easy to disable phones so they are beyond use both in this country and abroad, and so the only value they have would be in the spare parts they contain.
We need stronger action from telecoms providers and tech companies. They must put the protection of their customers’ data above profits from their customers having to buy the same or a similar replacement. Why are some phones easy to wipe and resell? Why are tracking systems so easy to disable? The Government must act to force companies to make tracking systems stronger and less easy to disable.
Thirdly, we must support local policing. In Dewsbury and Batley, neighbourhood policing teams are overstretched, trying to deal with phone snatching, shoplifting and antisocial behaviour with limited boots on the ground. They deserve the tools, the people and the political will behind them to make our streets safer.
Finally, we must support victims. Many cannot afford to replace their phone or reclaim their digital identity without support. Let us explore emergency tech funds or digital safety grants for vulnerable individuals and families.
We live in a digital world in which stealing someone’s phone is tantamount to stealing their identity, their access to society and, for some, their only link to help. We must not stand by while our constituents are targeted, their privacy violated and their future interrupted. Let us act not just with concern, but with conviction.