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Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

My Lords, before commenting specifically on the first group of amendments, I should like to make a couple of general comments. Although, on the whole, we welcome the fact that the 250 new amendments coming to us from another place improve the Bill and make the Government's intentions clearer, I must express our concern about the lack of time to prepare for today's debate. Both opposition party teams are the same teams who handled the Education and Inspections Bill, which completed its stages in your Lordships' House only at midnight on Monday. We then had about 16 hours to lay amendments, during some of which time we were having a well earned sleep. That is why neither opposition party has had the opportunity to lay any amendments, although we welcome the three government amendments that accept the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Speaking personally, it has taken me a day and a half to read all the relevant material. Unfortunately, I reached my conclusions about what needed further questioning too late to lay any amendments on which to hang the debate. I trust, therefore, that the Minister will forgive me for raising those concerns in a more general way when we discuss each group. However, I must ask why we needed so many very late amendments. Was the Bill so very badly drafted? Could the need for all these amendments be the result of the Government's failure to follow up the Bichard inquiry sufficiently urgently, so that the Bill was drafted in a great hurry in response to a public outcry about paedophiles working in schools? Members in this House and in another place have had to raise a great many issues that had not been adequately addressed in the original Bill. Fortunately, the Government have listened in the nick of time, although that makes it very difficult for opposition parties to scrutinise properly what they have done, and I cannot guarantee that we have not missed anything. I hope that the usual channels and the Government’s business managers will consider what I have said very seriously. It is more than just a whinge to say that we have had to work even harder than usual in the past few days. This is a very serious matter. The Bill is a good example of the need for enough time for proper parliamentary scrutiny of legislation, as well as of the listening qualities of the Minister in this House, who has been open to improving the legislation in response to our concerns, for which I thank him. In many cases, proper scrutiny had to wait until the Commons stages, but a lot of the pressure started here in your Lordships’ House, where the Bill began. My only comment on this group of amendments on the funding and the establishment of the IBB is to welcome Amendment No. 92 in particular, which allows the IBB fee to be waived for volunteers. Many noble Lords talked about this when the Bill was in this House, as we know that numerous charities were anxious about being able to afford their liabilities under the Bill.