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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

My Lords, I must first declare an interest as president of the Royal Mencap Society and as a father and a grandfather. Those are three roles that have allowed me to spend a great deal of time with some of the people this Bill is intended to protect; namely children and adults with a learning disability. I welcome the Bill as an important step towards increasing the protection they, and other vulnerable people, need, but I have a number of concerns too. I hope that the Minister will be able to allay them as this debate continues, and as the legislation makes its way through the House. We all know that people with a learning disability—children and adults—are among the most vulnerable in our society. We all know that people with a learning disability are at much greater risk of sexual abuse and assault than the general population. The incidence of abuse among people with disabilities is four times higher than it is among the non-disabled population and, of those, people with a learning disability are at the greatest risk. Many cases of abuse occur in places that are beyond the scope of government regulation: in the home, or by people known to the victim who are not employed in a caring role. But that is no reason not to take steps, where we can, to make sure that known abusers cannot work in places where they have access to vulnerable people. Research suggests that at least 1,400 adults with a learning disability are likely to be reported as victims of sexual abuse each year, most of them, but not all of them, women. A recent report by Action on Elder Abuse found that of a total of 639 abuse cases in nine English local authority areas, 210—around one-third—were against people with a learning disability. There are clear patterns to such abuse. Most of the people abused have moderate to severe learning disabilities, as well as additional physical disabilities. Abusers are predominantly male, and known to the victim. Many of them are in positions of trust, power or authority, and take advantage of that in order to carry out their abuse. They also, of course, take advantage of the fact that people with both learning and physical disabilities may find it difficult to resist, difficult to communicate and report the abuse, and difficult to be taken seriously. While physical and sexual abuse are what most people think about when considering protection from abuse, we should not forget that abuse by neglect can also have very serious consequences. Harm is not always inflicted deliberately. But when staff in a care home for severely disabled people run a bath without checking the temperature, causing severe scalding when the disabled person is lowered in, that is abuse. When an epileptic man is left unattended in his bath, has a fit and drowns, that is abuse. When inadequately trained agency staff fail to follow proper manual handling procedures, and leave a girl with profound and multiple learning disabilities covered in bruises, that is abuse. When people who find it difficult to drink unaided suffer dehydration because care home staff do not feed them, or when people who cannot turn over in bed get pressure sores because hospital staff do not move them, they are suffering as a result of the actions of others and they are being abused just as much as a patient who is assaulted by a nurse. Neglect of vulnerable people in care settings denies choices to families. Mencap’s report into the support needs of families caring for children and adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities, No Ordinary Life, found family after family who knew that their children would one day have to be moved away from home, but whose experience of using respite care services had given them no confidence that they would be well provided for. One parent said of her daughter:"““I care for her by choice rather than abandoning her to the mercy of inadequate service systems””." Until abuse by neglect, as well as deliberate abuse, is stamped out, vulnerable people will not be properly protected. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me that the barred lists will contain people who have caused harm to vulnerable people by neglect, or whose behaviour has led to a risk of harm as opposed to actual harm, and not just those who have inflicted pain on purpose. Perhaps such reassurance could be provided by placing a definition of ““harm”” in the Bill. Another of my concerns with the Bill—and here I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe—is its proposal to set up two separate lists, one for children and one for vulnerable adults. I fail to see why someone who harms vulnerable adults should be thought safe to work with children, or vice versa. There is no obvious reason to think that a person who fails to use proper manual handling procedures on a severely disabled child would take more care if they were moving a severely disabled adult. And when it comes to deliberate abuse, the same applies. Many crimes of abuse, such as physical or sexual assault, are crimes of power. The age of the person over whom they have that power simply does not matter; their powerlessness does. Research by the Ann Craft Trust, as we have heard, has shown that one in five people who sexually abused older people had also sexually abused children. Having echoed the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, I now follow in the formidable footsteps of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Thornton. If there are good reasons why we need two lists instead of one, then at the very least the default assumption should be that a barred person should be placed on both lists unless there is a very good reason why they should be on only one. The different rules governing the two lists are also a cause for concern. Many disabled adults, including adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities, are more vulnerable than most non-disabled children. And yet there are more restrictions around working with children—all children—than there are around working with adults, even the most vulnerable adults. The bar will apply to all posts in schools and in other services for children, even for posts which do not require day-to-day contact with children. But the adult list, while it covers all posts in registered care homes for adults, otherwise applies only to people whose job brings them into close contact with vulnerable adults. If it is not safe for a person on a barred list to work as a school receptionist, why is it safe for him to work as a receptionist for a day centre used by disabled people? There are many people who, while they do not regularly work directly with vulnerable adults, could on occasion have unsupervised contact with them—administrative staff, caretakers, or cleaners, for example. Is it really appropriate for identified abusers to hold these positions? If it is appropriate, can the Minister explain why he considers it inappropriate for them to work in equivalent positions in schools? My final concern is about the danger of creating a two-tier workforce in social care, with different levels of registration. The introduction of direct payments for the purchase of care and other services is a welcome government initiative which promises to make a real positive impact on the independence of people with a learning disability and other disabled people. It enables vulnerable people to exercise real choice and control over their own lives rather than being prescribed particular services which may not meet their needs. But it is vital that the same safeguards are in place around services provided through direct payments as around other services. At present under the Bill, the recipients of direct payments are not classified as regulated activity providers, which means that they do not have to check prospective employees against the list. Why should the employees of direct payment services be an unregulated workforce? Although it is important to ensure that it is as straightforward as possible for people to use the direct payment system, it is even more important to ensure that people on the adult barred list, who will not be able to find employment in most settings where they may have contact with vulnerable adults, do not gravitate to working for direct payment services instead, finding employment directly with vulnerable people who know absolutely nothing about their background. I am especially concerned about that because of the number of direct payment recipients who have a learning disability. It is vital that safeguards are in place to ensure that they are not exploited by abusers who, because of the regulations imposed across the rest of the care sector, cannot find work with vulnerable people elsewhere. Many people who use direct payment services, including people with a learning disability, have limited capacity. In some cases, a person who lacks capacity can receive direct payments through a trustee account, with an agent or a family member making decisions about risk on their behalf. Agents have a duty to ensure that services are purchased that promote the service user’s well-being. That duty ought to extend to ensuring that they do not employ people who are barred from working with vulnerable adults. Other people with learning disability who use direct payments and who manage their own bank accounts may need to be given support to understand the vetting and barring process, so that any decision not to check prospective employees is properly informed. It may be safer to start with the assumption that people employed by the recipients of direct payments should be checked, and then to allow the recipients of direct payments to opt out of checking their employees. Although I wholeheartedly support the Government’s intention to protect vulnerable adults through the Bill, the inconsistencies and potential loopholes that exist within it leave me with real concern for those most at risk. I hope that the Minister will address those issues, to ensure that the Bill offers the maximum protection possible to every vulnerable member of our society.