Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Lord Harris of Haringey (Labour). It was answered on Wednesday, 21 March 2012.

Criminal Records Bureau

Question: Further to that question, the noble Baroness suggested that it would be discretionary for the ISA to pass such information to the police. I had understood the Minister to say that his intention was for that information to be passed to the police automatically, so that they could use their discretion. Does he agree that having two sets of discretion in this area is likely to lead to individual cases falling through the net, which could be very damaging to the children who might subsequently be abused?

Answer: My Lords, I do not have the precise words that I used on that occasion, but the noble Lord is probably right to imply that we were offering discretion to the police.

Secondary information