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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords]

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I apologise for not being here for the Minister’s opening speech. I told the Speaker’s Office that, unfortunately, I had to attend a meeting with a Minister at the Department for Education and Skills on a local matter. I intend to speak—briefly, the House will be relieved to know—on some specific points that arise from work that I have been doing with children’s charities in recent years, and which I believe are relevant to the Bill. However, I should first say how much I wholeheartedly and warmly welcome the Bill. The safety of children and vulnerable adults has to be a top priority: their interests have to come first. I am proud that our Government have done a great deal on those issues. I am also proud to have been a sponsor of the private Member’s Bill on the subject that was successfully steered through the House by Debra Shipley, the former Member for Stourbridge. I came to the House this afternoon after attending the annual general meeting of the East Derbyshire domestic violence forum in my constituency, at which we launched a poster campaign warning people about domestic violence and offering a helpline. At that launch, I raised the impact on children of domestic violence, because often, if women in a family are abused and beaten, the children are physically and sexually abused, as well as traumatised by what goes on within the family. We are trying to protect vulnerable adults and children in a domestic setting—in their homes. Everyone is entitled to be safe within their home. However, it is also important that through the Bill we are trying to protect vulnerable adults and children in other settings, too. Everyone has a right to be safe, wherever they are. It is the responsibility of all of us and all the agencies to do everything we can to protect children and vulnerable adults, and everyone must play their part. That is why I welcome the Bill. However, we have to make sure that we get it right and that the agencies work together properly. I am sure that many of the issues that have been raised will be the subject of detailed scrutiny as the Bill goes through its stages. I have three specific points to make which I think are relevant and which I hope will be taken into account. It is unfortunate that, because of that meeting of the domestic violence forum, I was unable to be here in time for the question asked during Home Office questions on the downloading from the internet of images of child abuse—an important issue on which I and others have been working with children’s charities in recent years. We have talked to internet service providers and credit card companies about blocking both the downloading and the financial methods whereby access to such images is gained. We are talking about a huge international industry; it is not a small-scale affair whereby a few images are exchanged, but a criminal industry on a massive financial scale. Anyone who says that that is not important should remember that every image downloaded is an image of a poor child who has been abused for profit in front of a camera. It is not an easy, victimless crime. There is a victim. As the Bill proceeds, I hope to hear assurances from Ministers that people who engage in downloading images of child abuse will be barred from working with children. Such people have forfeited any right to work with children, and I hope that the Bill will stop them from doing so. Several of the local GP practices in my constituencies were almost destroyed by a doctor who was found to have downloaded huge numbers of images of children. The case caused massive local trauma. Hon. Members can imagine how the feelings of trust and belief in the local medical profession were undermined. The crime is not victimless. We have to take it seriously. Hon. Members might recall from January’s somewhat feverish debate on people working in schools that one of the cases involved an adult who had accepted a caution for downloading such images. He was found through Operation Ore to have downloaded images from the Landslide site in the United States. At the time, both publicly and in discussions with Ministers I raised my concern about the suggestions that he could have downloaded the images by accident. That excuse is often offered—““My finger slipped and I somehow managed to download those images.”” Operation Ore showed that that could not have happened: a person who accessed that site would know that they were accessing images of children. No one got caught because their finger slipped, or even if they went back again to check that they really had seen what they thought they had seen; people who have had to accept cautions as a result of accessing those appalling images have done it time and again. I want to ensure that when Ministers or agencies take advice on who should be barred and who should be on the lists, they are not conned by people saying that they did something wrong by accident. We must make sure that we get the correct information and advice from experts as the Bill goes through.