---

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

I will speak to Amendment No. 15. I agree with virtually everything the noble Lord, Lord Rix, said in introducing his amendment. I suspect that a number of these amendments seek to achieve the same thing: the maximum possible appropriate read-across between the barred list for children and the barred list for vulnerable adults. That is important because, in most instances, people who have harmed, or are likely to harm, children may well also be a risk to vulnerable adults and vice versa. If you look at the serious categories of sexual abuse, which are clearly intended to be part of the automatic barring process, and the schedule of offences that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has circulated to most of the Members in the Committee, you will see that most of them are about not only sexual abuse but sexual abuse in the nature of an abuse of power; it is about the power over the individual. While there may be individuals who are fixated about particular age groups or age ranges, the underlying feature in many of those instances may be the desire to subjugate another to their sexual will. Therefore, individuals who would sexually abuse young people may also be risky as far as vulnerable adults are concerned, and vice versa. That case stands very clearly on its own. On other areas of harm, the noble Lord, Lord Rix, talked about fraud, and I associate myself with the sentiments that he expressed. But if the reason an individual is considered to be of risk, say to a vulnerable adult, is that they have been violent towards them in a certain context, it may well be that they find people who are inarticulate or who do not respond frustrating, and that that frustration leads to violence. That seems just as feasible a response if they are confronted with children who are recalcitrant or do not respond. Again, a read-across may apply. The third important category is individuals who may be barred in respect of one group or another because of a history of serious neglect. Surely we would assume that the danger of them revisiting that history of serious neglect with someone from the other group, whether children or vulnerable adults, must remain. There ought to be some system of read-across between the list for vulnerable adults and the list for children. I am quite prepared to take the view that that should be an automatic list, but I am advised that there may well be a view that if it is simply done automatically, without some consideration of whether there is an age-related factor, it might conflict with the human rights of the individuals concerned. That is why the amendment is framed in terms of a presumption. The responsibility of the IBB would be to look at each name, and under normal circumstances would include that name in the other list unless there were compelling arguments that suggested that it would be inappropriate. That would presumably have to be evidence that suggested that the nature of the sexual fixation or of the frustration that might lead to violence was very age-specific. Those cases would be comparatively few, and any sensible IBB would err on the side of caution and would, by and large, wish to include names in both lists. I look forward with interest to the Minister’s response on how best we can achieve the maximum read-across between the list for children and the list for adults.