Protection of Freedoms Bill

Meg Munn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There are also concerns about the use of fraudulent certificates. Once a number has been allocated, people can take certificates to unsuspecting employers and say, “This is my CRB certificate. It’s all fine and there’s nothing to worry about.” Most employers—especially small employers or voluntary and community groups—would accept that at face value. We need to make the system as streamlined as possible, but we also need to make it as foolproof as possible, and to reduce the use of fraudulent CRB checks as much as possible.

On the basis of the points that I have raised, I hope that the Minister can reassure the House on those questions, which in effect are about keeping our children and vulnerable people as safe as possible, and about keeping people who should not be working with children or vulnerable people away from them.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I shall speak briefly on the issues raised by this group of proposals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) has already stated, the all-party parliamentary group on child protection held an inquiry and took evidence from a wide range of organisations. Some people spoke for a number of organisations and some spoke in their own right. I am grateful that the Minister read and responded to the group’s report, that she met members of the group, and that she has taken on board some of the points made.

I echo the concerns of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. We are all concerned about child protection and the abuse of children. However, abuse is at times difficult to prove, and it is certainly difficult to get convictions. Sometimes, it is difficult to get definitive evidence even when suspicions of individuals have run for a long time. Children are told to respect adults, and often the most vulnerable children are targeted by abusers, so information does not come out easily.

That is why barred list information is so important, alongside CRB information. It would be a tragedy if people who have criminal records were allowed to work with children, but we know from years of experience that people who have raised significant concerns in their relationships with children in the past go on to abuse them, and in some dreadful cases—thankfully, a minority of cases—kill them. We have a responsibility to do all that we can to prevent that, because getting this wrong could be catastrophic.

[Mrs Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on the clarity with which she has put her case? I take a keen interest in this matter, and the Independent Safeguarding Authority is in my constituency.

The very people that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) describes are the ones who gain under the Government’s proposals. I have in mind the words of Sir Roger Singleton, who said that the people who will be most concerned about the proposals are parents. Any parent who listened to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North will be extremely worried about what the Government propose.

[Meg Munn]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because it leads to the point that I wanted to make. It is because the risks are so great and the results of getting it wrong are so catastrophic that we need clear information and a clear procedure. That might mean that sometimes more is done than is strictly necessary, but in this area we are not talking about what is strictly necessary. In this area we have a duty to ensure that vulnerable children are as safe as possible. I therefore join my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North in asking the Minister to explain in more detail why barring information would not be more readily available. I am reassured by her statement that currently such information is clearly and easily available. It is inconceivable that we would not want that to continue.

Amendment 117, which deals with criminal record certificates, touches on a matter that needs thinking through. It might seem straightforward for a certificate to go to the person having the CRB check, but my hon. Friend has already raised concerns about that. The Christian Forum for Safeguarding has drawn to my attention correspondence between it and the CRB in which the CRB confirmed that many more certificates are returned marked “undeliverable” when addressed to the applicant than when addressed to the registered body. If only one copy is to be sent to the applicant, it obviously increases the risk that certificates will fail to reach the applicant and so cause further delays. I want to return to a point raised by my hon. Friend. CRB checks can cover a wide range of offences. For example, we could be talking about people—often men—in their 40s or 50s who are volunteering for something and who were involved in a pub brawl when they were in their early 20s. That kind of information might be on a certificate, and it could go to the wrong house and be opened by somebody else. There could be an information breach. Under the Government’s proposal, the system could be a lot more vulnerable to such things than currently.

The crucial issue is about the ability of organisations trying to recruit a volunteer or someone to a paid position to understand the situation. My hon. Friend has already quoted from the Government’s response to the all-party group’s report making it clear that this issue of the e-Bulk system—great name!—has not been clarified. If an organisation is in a position to put in place systems that it has made work, it seems a terrible shame to move to something else. I fully accept, as do my hon. Friends, that the system put in place by the previous Government had problems, but we should be addressing those problems and issues, not creating more. We have systems, such as the e-Bulk system, that are working well and which enable organisations and people—for example, a Brown Owl, a Girl Guider or a Scout leader in a local area—to know, “This is not something that I have to concern myself with. It is done centrally and there are experienced people looking at it who understand the nature of the information returned.” Now, however, they will feel in a completely different position. That will cause us great concern.

I welcome the fact that the Minister has sought to respond to the points made by the all-party group when producing the report, but the proposed measure is not the best that this, or any, Government can do. I therefore ask her to address those issues.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have always believed that on both sides of the House we are doing what we believe is best for the protection of children and vulnerable adults, while balancing that with common sense. As mentioned, the previous scheme would have had 11 million people under its auspices. As we know from all the reports and everything that we have heard, that was creating a world of suspicion. We got to the point where a parent volunteering to read to a child in a class had to get a CRB check, even if they were known and so on. We wish to strike a balance and bring back a common-sense approach to safeguarding, always with the proviso that the protection of children and vulnerable adults is foremost in our minds, as I am sure it was in the mind of the previous Government when they first conceived of this scheme following the Bichard inquiry into the Soham murders.

I shall try to answer some—I hope all—of the points raised today. New clause 18 returns us to our debate in Committee about whether barred list information should be provided on all enhanced criminal record certificates. As I said then, our policy is that barred list information should be provided only in respect of posts that fall within the scope of “regulated activity”. Although we accept that there should be certain specific exceptions—in the case of applicants to foster or adopt a child, for example—we are still not persuaded that barred list information should be provided in other areas. As barring applies only to those who come within the scope of regulated activity, it would not be right for an employer or a volunteer organiser to make a decision based on barring information where the post falls outside regulated activity. Bars from working with children or vulnerable groups apply to regulated activity: it will be a criminal offence to employ somebody in a regulated activity who is barred. However, it does not make sense to disclose barring information for posts that fall outside that scope.

[Meg Munn]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I understand that she is trying to explain the overall situation. However, is this not precisely where the argument falls down? The whole system is interlinked and questions will arise about what is a regulated activity. The Government propose that not all contact with children will be a regulated activity, but if somebody poses a risk to children, all contact with children, even when it appears at that moment to be well supervised, will pose a risk to children. That is the point. If someone is considered a risk to children and if information about them is on the barring list, that information should be provided, regardless of whether the activity is regulated, in order that the person taking on that individual to do the non-regulated activity can decide whether the information on the barring list is relevant.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I shall come on to that because it is a complicated matter to discuss—there is “regulated”, “unregulated”, “supervised”, “unsupervised” and so on. Obviously, if an activity is unsupervised, it is regulated, so I shall come on to the issues of supervision. In an establishment such as a school, it will be difficult to persuade authorities not to pursue enhanced CRB checks. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) argued that if a referral to the ISA had not been referred to the police, the barring information would not be on the certificate. It would be helpful if I could progress with my remarks in that regard. We disagreed in Committee and I have no doubt that we will end up disagreeing today as well, but I want to assure the House that we are acting with the best of intentions and drawing the line where we believe appropriate.

As I said, bars from working with children or vulnerable groups apply to regulated activity, so it does not make sense—

--- Later in debate ---

[Diana Johnson]

As I was saying, these amendments deal with regulated activity relating to children and we discussed that, and the closely related issue of supervision, at length in Committee. I should make it clear that these are probing amendments and I will not press any of them to a Division. I would, however, be interested to hear the Minister’s views on the issues that the amendments address.

We have concerns about the current drafting of these provisions. If a person has contact with a child it will generally be in regulated activity, but that is not always the case. For instance, a volunteer in a school classroom where there is a teacher present would not be seen to be in regulated activity so would not be subject to any form of Criminal Records Bureau check or barred status check.

The Sport and Recreation Alliance, Fair Play for Children and other charities have highlighted the problems in using the notion of supervision for deciding whether a person is in a position to exploit their relationship with children. That person could, as I have just said, be a volunteer in a classroom listening to children read, or a volunteer helping the school caretaker, and they are therefore able to build relationships with the pupils as they carry out their voluntary role. The problem is not the activity they are performing, which could well be properly supervised; rather, it is the fact that they are building relationships with children which they might go on to exploit. The charities I mentioned point out that supervision is an inappropriate notion in this context as it ignores this secondary access that can be used to build up a relationship with a child or vulnerable adult. If someone is in such a position of trust, they might later take action that could be detrimental to the child or vulnerable adult.

[Meg Munn]

May I reiterate the concern that is felt? The failure to provide barred status information on people in these unregulated areas is precisely the loophole that the Government should be closing, because if somebody is a risk to children and is having regular contact with them, albeit supervised, the person who is taking them on as a volunteer should have the necessary information to decide whether that is appropriate.

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend puts the case very well, and I hope the Minister will reflect on the issue of barred status information not being made available—which we have just voted on—and on this whole area of supervision, and consider whether to redefine or remove entirely the concept of supervision.

Let me discuss the example of David Lawrence. For many years he was a football coach volunteering for a team in a junior league in the Avon area. In the late 1990s, working with Fair Play for Children, the Football League tightened its safeguarding procedures and uncovered a string of allegations made against Mr Lawrence dating back to the 1970s, but he had no convictions. He was removed from the football club and shortly afterwards was convicted of an offence against a young boy. Shockingly, just two months after release, in the early 2000s, he was once again volunteering at a local football club. It was a club in a league affiliated with the Football Association, but it was not conducting even basic checks on those who volunteered with it. Mr Lawrence was in a series of supervised volunteer positions, but if this Bill is passed in its current form there will be no legal requirement to conduct any checks on his background. The case shows that statutory regulation is needed to force activity providers to conduct background checks on individuals. Because so much of the relevant information is often soft information—we have just debated that at length—these background checks should go through the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

A redefinition of “supervision” is set out in amendments 114 to 116, which seek to deal with the Government’s definition of the term. We discussed that at great length in Committee, including a number of different options for the definition. Using a definition of “day to day” supervision to cover people such as a football coach or an assistant in a school classroom is not sufficient, as it allows individuals to be left unsupervised for long periods. For example, a football coach could take the same group of children to a different part of a playing field regularly—on a weekly basis—and that is of concern. The definition would also allow a volunteer at a drama group to teach mime to a group of children in a different room from the person supposed to be supervising them. Someone with that ability to take part in activities away from where their supervisor is should be subject to background checks.

A survey conducted by the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations suggested that three quarters of parents want background checks to be carried out unless they have personally chosen the person who has access to their child. The brief on which the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children led stated:

“We are concerned that the proposed definition of regulated activity does not cover some groups of people who have frequent and close contact with children. This creates risks for children. Those who seek to harm children can be predatory and manipulative. If certain types of work are exempt from vetting and barring, in some sectors or settings, but not in others, dangerous adults are likely to target those organisations with weaker arrangements.”

It continues:

“Our key outstanding concern is about the exclusion of supervised work from regulated activity: The Bill exempts many positions from regulated activity simply by virtue of them being under ‘regular day to day supervision’. However supervised employees and volunteers are still able to develop relationships with children which could be exploited. For example, a volunteer teaching assistant in a classroom of 30 children, with only light-touch supervision by the classroom teacher, has plenty of opportunity to develop inappropriate relationships and groom children.

The definition of ‘regular day to day supervision’ is not sufficient because it could be understood to include individuals who have a ‘supervisor’ on site, but who are able to work with groups of children on their own for significant periods of time, with no one directly supervising their work.”

The first recommendation in the report by the all-party group on child protection was to tighten up the definition of “supervision”. In its response to that report, the Home Office said that it agreed that regulated activity should cover all those positions where individuals have close contact and can develop trusting relationships with children. Unfortunately, the Government have not tabled any amendments to allow us to deal with that.

We welcome Government amendments 22 and 63. We are glad that the Government have heeded the calls made by the Opposition and by leading charities in the area, including the NSPCC, to introduce statutory guidance on the issue of supervision.