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Education and Inspections Bill

There is no reason why such a company should not meet the basic standards, or why someone should not check centrally that those standards are being met to enable the school in question to know what they are dealing with. That would take the load of the school, which would not then be required to carry out such checks. The point is that all the safeguards laid out earlier by the Secretary of State are contained in guidance—they are not written into the Bill. As I understand it, the concession that he gave earlier concerning Ofsted would also not be included in the Bill; rather, guidance would simply be issued. So despite all the concessions that have been made, there are still no such safeguards in the Bill or in regulations. The regulatory framework remains that given to charities under the Charity Commission. As the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) pointed out earlier, that is hardly a body with a great record of efficiency. People do fall through the net. Anyone setting up a charity to work with children or vulnerable adults is required to go through a Criminal Records Bureau check. However, as the Daily Mirror highlighted earlier this year, a charity that was set up in the name of a convicted paedophile fell through the net and did not get picked up by the Charity Commission. What kind of CRB check will be required for trust bodies? Will it be the standard check or an enhanced one? Of course, such issues were picked up following the Soham tragedy, which showed that those on the periphery of education are subject to the standard check, rather than an enhanced one. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will say whether these trusts will be subject to the standard CRB check or an enhanced one. That is an important factor to be considered. Of course, in many other fields where we expect there to be a test of character, such a test is written into the relevant legislation. For example, a considerable test of character is included in the legislation governing those who ask for a personal licence to sell alcohol. However, there is no such character test in the Bill before us for those who will run our schools. That is not adequate.