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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords]

I thank you for those corrections, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have not had an opportunity to look in detail at the clause referred to by the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), so I am unable to respond fully to the suggestion that if someone required support and assistance when looking at their finances, for example, that would make them a vulnerable adult. My recollection is that more than an individual’s needing assistance with their finances would be required to make them a vulnerable adult. I turn to a matter that causes me concern. Last week, I attended an excellent meeting in my constituency, at which I met carers to celebrate carers week and the vital role that they play. A lady whose husband is an active member of the scouting service talked to me about her fears. She has told her husband, who is involved in scout jamborees, that if a young child comes up to him and, for example, wants to hold his hand, he must not do so because that could be misconstrued, and that he must not put suntan lotion on the children when they go to camp for the same reason. The Bill will directly address some of the anxieties that people have about their activities being wrongly interpreted, perhaps leading to their being included on a barring list. I hope that it will alleviate some of the unnecessary fears and anxieties that have arisen. I am especially pleased that parents will be able to check the status of those whom they are going to employ as private tutors. I raised that issue with the commissioner for children and young people in Wales, and with the previous Secretary of State, following an approach made to me by a constituent. She became very alarmed when she found out that a man who had been convicted of stalking her daughter was advertising his services as a private tutor to children, that he was not required to reveal his criminal past, and that there was no way in which someone employing him could find out about it. I am particularly pleased that the Bill removes that loophole. I am pleased, too, that paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 33(6) require people to be referred—and provide the capacity to be referred retrospectively—to the barring board. I am sure that people who have worked with the Protection of Children Act 1999 and the protection of vulnerable adults scheme, the regulatory agencies and bodies such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council will welcome that. I remember a case in which the Nursing and Midwifery Council had issued a number of cautions about a person who had applied to be manager of a care home. The cautions were serious, involving the physical restraint of a service user with a duvet, using cigarettes to bribe a service user to misbehave when a colleague was on duty and other serious allegations that I shall not mention. In fact, the cautions had no status and could not be used to refuse registration to the individual concerned, but that will no longer be the case because the Bill will allow information about someone found to have behaved inappropriately by a regulatory body to be passed to the barring board. In another case, I was involved with members of staff in a care home for nearly six months. Alongside the POVA co-ordinator of the local authority in which the home was based, I made regular unannounced visits to the care home. We gathered a huge amount of information about the abuse that was taking place there, but because of the nature of the service users in the home, no criminal prosecutions could be taken. The police were unable to take statements from the service users and could not put together a case that would stand up in court. Indeed, there was nowhere for us to go with that information. Now there will be somewhere to go—the barring board. The members of staff involved in the abuse left the home, mostly before they were sacked, and subsequently applied for jobs in care homes elsewhere. As no criminal prosecution had been launched, the owner of the home felt very uncomfortable about refusing them a reference. When an application for a reference was made, she would always refer them on to the inspectorate, which mainly said that the person had been part of an investigation into abuse within the home. That was enough to warn people that they needed to explore problems further. Information that does not meet the required standard for a criminal prosecution—sometimes because the people who have been abused have a learning disability or lack capacity on account of dementia or age—is often held in POVA and POCA investigations or in the monitoring of procedures. Such information can now be sent to the barring board, which I am sure will prove invaluable in providing protection. I accept the need for regulation to control how that information is passed on and to provide people with a means of appealing against it, but such information is likely to open up to challenge people who are unsuitable to work in care settings. They will now know that an investigation can have serious consequences. Clause 11 is important, as it relates to the failure of residential homes to carry out checks. Members might be aware that the inspectorate can take only limited steps against homes that fail to carry out such checks. We know that checks are not being carried out because the inspectorate has highlighted and vigorously pursued the issue. It is not always easy to ensure that checks are rigorous and thorough. Again, I cite the example of someone who applied for registration as a manager of a care home. They claimed to have provided full and thorough documentation of their qualifications to the care home’s manager, who subsequently left. The applicant had been operating in a lower-grade position at the home. When they applied to become the manager, they alleged that the documentation had been removed by the previous manager in an attempt to discredit them. It took a long time—I estimate that communications went back and forth for at least six months—before we categorically proved that the individual had none of the qualifications that they claimed and that none of the checks that they claimed had been carried out was undertaken. There are limits to how far an inspectorate can go with a home that fails to meet the regulations. The inspectorate might apply to remove the registration from a home and ultimately seek to close the home by taking it to the tribunal, but if steps are put in place at the very last moment to rectify the failings and to meet the standards, the tribunal has no option but to allow the home to continue to operate. Again, it is hoped that clause 11 and the requirement in respect of failing in the duty to check will place another responsibility on care home owners to ensure that they carry out the necessary checks into qualifications and criminal records.