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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the amendments. As a practitioner, I find this list totally extraordinary. My personal experience concerns situations where people take their clothes off. That gives an absolute invitation to harassment and abuse, particularly of young women with learning difficulties who use alternative therapies or in a number of sporting situations where abuse takes place. Many of the organisations concerned could cite examples throughout this list. I recognise that the Criminal Records Bureau is pretty overwhelmed. Recently I was told—I hope it is not true—that an organisation with fewer than 100 volunteers could not be checked despite the fact that those volunteers had face-to-face contact with children with a condition that makes them vulnerable. So I realise that there are some real difficulties in the way the system is working. But that is no reason for legislators to behave in a way that does not protect the groups for which this Bill is supposed to provide. Further, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that the introduction of these measures could be staggered by the use of regulations. If the list is left as it is, vulnerable adults will be left open to a whole range of abuse. I hope that the Minister can reassure us on that point.