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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 45:"Page 39, line 24, leave out ““a conviction for”” and insert ““the commission of””" The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 45, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 51, 52 and 174. These amendments all relate to barring within the vetting and barring scheme. They clarify policy by putting further details in the Bill, as I think the Committee would wish us to do. Amendment No. 174 makes clear that the regulations prescribing offences, orders and overseas lists for automatic barring are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, so that we have the precise parliamentary sanction that will underpin the important decisions that we will make in these areas. This responds to concerns of Members of the Committee and to issues raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in relation to our use of this power, given the seriousness of automatically barring someone from engaging in certain activities. Amendment No. 51 limits the criteria which can be prescribed for automatic barring to those specified in the Bill, rather than saying that those specified in the Bill may be included. That ensures that this is now an exhaustive list of criteria, rather than an open-ended one, and it will provide the Committee with further reassurance that the intention is not to go beyond a limited range of relevant criteria for automatic barring, currently only offences and orders. As a consequence, and to ensure that the scheme can tackle those who would cross borders to abuse vulnerable people, Amendment No. 52 adds to the list of prescribed criteria those of inclusion on an overseas list and being made subject to an overseas order or direction. We would not be able to consider such lists as a full set of prescribed criteria without this amendment. By way of explanation, I should say that we do not envisage an immediate need to specify particular overseas lists as criteria for inclusion on our barred lists. However, we feel that in the future there will be circumstances where we may need to take account of overseas lists, for example in relation to the Republic of Ireland which, as a result of our land border and longstanding cultural ties, has a high degree of labour exchange with the United Kingdom. Amendment No. 45 relates to discretionary barring. Our barring scheme will exist alongside the current disqualification order regime and we have been careful to ensure that the IBB cannot take a decision to bar someone in cases where a court has already considered whether to impose a disqualification order and has chosen not to do so. This amendment will ensure that this is the case not only for convictions which lead to consideration for a disqualification order, but also in cases where there was no conviction but where the court gave consideration to a disqualification order—for example, where the individual has been admitted to hospital following the offence without there being a conviction. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.