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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords]

That is the case most of the time. However, it is possible that parents may have abused a child who goes on to abuse others, which occurs more than occasionally. Given that intervention, I shall again raise a constituency case. My constituents are the parents of someone who is in jail and who will probably never come out. At the age of 14, that person committed a minor sexual offence, and his parents sought an independent psychiatric report, for which they had to pay themselves. The report concluded that their son posed no danger to others in society, but he went on to commit a terrible offence when he was aged 19, which was a tragedy for two sets of parents. We do not know whether treatment would have worked, if it had been available in that case, but it might have worked, which is why I passionately feel that we need the proper provision of therapeutic services nationwide. I want the Minister to accept that such a provision should be included in the Bill, which is the only way to make the service available to all those who need it. I hope that the Minister will give the matter his full consideration tonight, even at this very late stage. Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 would allow the tribunal to consider appeals from the IBB, if relevant facts emerge after the IBB has made its decision. We debated that point in Committee, where my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) made a number of valid points. However, having reread the Committee Hansard, we do not feel that that the question has been adequately addressed and therefore make no apology for raising it again. Clause 4 contains the process that allows an appeal against a decision made by the IBB. It permits appeals to the tribunal, which was created by the Protection of Children Act 1999, against decisions not to remove people from the barred list or to include people on the barred list. When the Bill was originally published, an appeal was only permissible on a point of law, which caused considerable concern because a successful challenge would have had to establish that the IBB had made a mistake in the decision-making process, so we are pleased that the grounds for appeal have been extended to include the facts on which the IBB’s decision is based. We suggest that appeals to the tribunal should also include appeals on facts not available to the IBB when the original decision was made, because there are likely to be situations in which relevant facts come to light after an IBB hearing. As clause 4(4) requires the tribunal’s permission to make an appeal, it will not permit vexatious or merit-free appeals, but it will give the tribunal appropriate leeway to consider relevant activity. I ask the Minister to consider whether the Bill covers new facts emerging after the IBB’s decision. Amendments Nos. 249 and 251 concur with Conservative amendments Nos. 204 and 205. They are based on the same premise that the definition in the Children Act 1989, which covers a range of physical as well as non-physical forms of mistreatment, was satisfactory. Our amendments would add ““financial harm”” to the definition of harm, and the Conservative amendments specifically mention ““dignity””, although I feel that that is included in the definition of ““ill treatment”” in the 1989 Act. The IBB will make critical decisions on risk of harm, but how can it make such decisions if the Bill does not include a clear definition of ““harm””? Given the lack of a clear-cut definition, that cannot be the correct process by which to judge whether somebody should be on a barred list. Conservative amendments Nos. 11 and 12 would leave out ““thinks”” and insert ““has reason to suspect””, and we have signed up to them. We had a long debate on the matter in Committee, where my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East and I were convinced that the use of the word ““thinks”” was wrong, which is one of many examples how this important Bill is woolly at the edges. It is all very well for the Minister to suggest that we are trying to encourage paedophiles to take up inappropriate activities, but throughout the passage of the Bill we have been committed to tightening up the definitions so that the mechanism is clear, consistent and controlled, which is important. The principle behind amendments Nos. 252 and 253 is the most important in this group. As Conservative Members have said, people will automatically be placed on the barred list, and there will be no right to make representations under the Bill as it stands. We have been told that the categories of offences that will lead to inclusion on the list without the right to make representations will be introduced in secondary legislation. Given the offences on the illustrative list, it is difficult to think that there will be too much to worry about. The problem is that we do not know precisely which list of offences the Minister will bring forth when the regulations are introduced. As I understand it, a list of the offences that will place somebody on the automatic barring list if they are convicted or cautioned will be approved by affirmative resolution. That means that we will have to vote against the whole list or for the whole list—there is nothing in between. There is no scope for affirmative resolution to modify the list. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East and I attempted to table a suitable amendment, but its complexity was beyond our skills, which is probably why it was not selected. However, we received a great deal of support from the Bill Clerks who helped us to write it, and I express my gratitude for that. The amendment proposed a super-affirmative resolution that would allow us to make modifications when considering the secondary legislation. That procedure was used when we debated the Identity Cards Bill—