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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords] [Ways and Means]

I shall not detain the House long, not least because of the enormous number of amendments—some 207 amendments and 23 new clauses have been tabled by the Government, and nearly all were tabled during the past few days, despite the fact that the Bill completed its Committee stage some months ago. The short time available raises questions about the ability of the House properly to scrutinise the radical amendments submitted by the Government. The Minister has not moved a Ways and Means motion before, but I assume he is able to respond. It would be useful if he could give us some assurances about the extent to which increases may take place. According to the notes accompanying the proposals, the capital start-up costs are likely to be £7.58 million in the financial year 2006-07, and £6.92 million in the financial year 2007-08, which is an estimated £14.5 million in capital start-up costs. Given the record—the form—of the Government in respect of overshooting by large margins estimates for the sums that they are spending on computer projects across a number of Departments, let alone their inability to stay within set dates, I ask the Minister to give us his view as to how realistic the estimates I have just mentioned are, because they will, of course, impact on the charges that the ways and means motion gives rise to. In the covering notes, it is stated that the Government anticipate that there will be an operating cost of between £16 million and £18 million per annum over the first five years, on top of the costs of the current work of the Criminal Records Bureau. It is stated that that might lead by 2008 to an increase in the fee charged to applicants, which this motion will give rise to. Can we have some greater clarity as to how likely such an increase will be? We are told that an extra 200 staff will be required in the CRB and the IBB. We are not told how many of those staff are likely to be retained within the public sector, or how many are likely to be contracted out—using a company such as Capita, which I gather was closely involved in the original CRB contract, only for long delays to transpire and for part of the contract to have to be subcontracted out to Bombay, which caused a number of further problems. Given that the CRB is still operating under a deficit—although it aims to have a surplus in the current financial year—this House has concerns, and it needs to be assured in respect of how realistic the level of fees that are set now will be by the time that this legislation comes into force.