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Bichard Inquiry

I am grateful to you for calling me to participate in this debate, Mr. Bercow. Let me start by making three observations before I get to the substance of my contribution. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) not only on raising this subject but on pursuing and taking an interest in it for an extended period, and, as a result, accumulating wisdom that he shared with us this afternoon. It is an immense credit to him that he should have continued to take such a diligent interest in this very important subject. Inevitably, I shall go over some of the ground that he has already covered. However, I do not wish to speak for as long as he did; I fear that I shall not speak with the same degree of expertise either. None the less, I shall go over some of the key points, if repetition adds emphasis. My second observation is that the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were particularly harrowing not only for people in this country, but internationally. People were disturbed and distressed by what happened. Of course, the people immediately connected with the case—most particularly, the parents of the two girls—are uniquely affected by what happened. However, even people who had no link with the family, or even with Soham or Cambridgeshire, will remember the case for the remainder of their lives. It is particularly important that we should have the opportunity to discuss it and its ramifications in this House. Thirdly, I pay tribute to the work of the Bichard inquiry, which is widely regarded as having reached many balanced and thoughtful conclusions, which are informing our debate. In a spirit of trying to reach helpful outcomes rather than of being confrontational or partisan in any way, let me raise four particular areas of concern with the Minister. I shall then give my concluding thoughts about possible ways forward and conclusions that we might draw from those areas of concern. The first that I wish to bring to the attention of the House is that the IMPACT programme—the programme for shared intelligence, which the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central has already discussed at length—will not, I understand, be complete until 2010. There is some doubt about whether even that completion date will be met. The deadline for the full business case promised by the Government has been and gone, and we still have only an interim business case, rather than a full one. The programme is greatly delayed and I should be interested in the Minister’s views on whether we can speed up the implementation of that programme and her response to the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that there may be alternative ways of reaching the same desired end point, although by a different route. The second problem that I wish to raise is linked to the first one: the level of co-operation and consensus required from police forces across the country to implement programmes of this sort. Co-ordinating separate budgets to serve both local and national interests would present a formidable undertaking, even for a well-resourced commercial enterprise, but for the police service, which must also negotiate with local authorities and consult the wider population, in addition to dealing with the Home Office itself, the scale and complexity of the challenge is even greater. I would be interested to know how much progress the Minister thinks the police services and authorities across the country are making, and whether some forces are making much greater progress than others. If that is the case, what could be learned by those who are less proficient? The third problem that I wish to raise is that, as I understand it, the police are still taking up to six months to record convictions and acquittals on the police national computer, even though the target is 10 days. There is a huge disparity between a 10-day target and taking six months, in some cases, to record relevant information on the computer. The Metropolitan police have been less than exemplary in this regard. An internal Met report stated that it took 185 days for 75 per cent. of court results to be inputted to the computer. Sir Michael Bichard stated:"““Police performance on putting data on to the PNC about arrests and summons in particular has not improved significantly or, in some respects, at all. That has been a long standing problem and it is disappointing that after all this time, more has not been achieved.””" There will be legitimate public concern about procedures not being followed as speedily and diligently as they should be. Obviously, if a significant period is allowed to lapse between an offence taking place and a conviction, and the records being updated, there is considerable scope for repeat offenders to fail to be caught by the procedures that are intended to prevent them from offending again. The fourth and final problem that I wish to raise involves the procedures for vetting adults who work with children, particularly in the education sector. I understand that staff already in post and those who have worked with children for up to three months beforehand are not vetted. The chairman of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board has criticised the Government for failing to give schools the ability to vet retrospectively. I realise that there may be issues, concerns and considerations to be balanced, and I may touch on them shortly, but I would be interested to know the Minister’s views on whether the existing mechanisms to protect children in schools and other institutions of that type are sufficiently robust to deal with the potential threat that is posed. Further to those concerns, let me make three more observations. First, the Liberal Democrats support the Bichard inquiry fully, and we very much hope that the Government can address the four problems that I mentioned and any others that are raised by Members such as the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central, who has taken a particularly close interest in the matter. Secondly, we welcome the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 but recognise the concerns expressed in some quarters that over-zealous vetting procedures could discourage someone from working with children and vulnerable people. It is worth stating at this point that we all share the horror about what happened in the Soham and other high-profile cases, but we also do not want to create a situation where millions of law-abiding, decent and well-intentioned people are discouraged from working in entirely beneficial ways with children and young people because they feel that the mechanisms for vetting them are too onerous, burdensome or intrusive. Of course, a balance must be struck. The Minister will be acutely aware of her responsibility and that of the Government to protect children; none the less, it is worth paying some regard to that balance when they deliberate on it. Thirdly, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Bichard inquiry found that the Data Protection Act 1998 presented no obstacle to Humberside and Cambridgeshire as to sharing information on Ian Huntley’s previous record. The Government need to act, but they should not regard all the measures and mechanisms that exist to protect the public from undue interference in their private affairs, or the basic liberties of the citizen, as being in some way burdensome to the Government. We must respect the fact that there is a private realm and that information can legitimately be kept secret by the individual. As with my previous point, there is a balance to be struck between the rights of the individual to live his or her life without feeling that the state is prying unnecessarily into their affairs, and the need to ensure that there are no barriers to the police and other authorities sharing legitimate information that could prevent awful cases such as the one that we are discussing this afternoon. I realise that where the line is drawn is not always perfectly measurable and that there may be some scope for debate. The difficulty for the Government and anyone who is tasked with making such decisions is to try to ensure that the balance between protection of the individual and protection of the liberties of citizens is struck in such a way as to maximise both, and not necessarily to think always that there is a trade-off between the two. There must be greater efficiency in the way that forces pool and share data, and we must consider whether the mechanisms that have been pursued to date have produced the desired results. We must either speed up the implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations or develop better recommendations whereby we may achieve the desired outcomes of the inquiry but by different routes, and we must be cautious about achieving balance. I have confidence that the issues will be addressed as soon as possible, given the determined manner in which the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central maintains interest in these matters, and the Minister and officials in the Home Office acting entirely in good faith in their desire to achieve a satisfactory conclusion that will protect the public. I know that the Minister will take my view that that is what the people directly affected by the Soham murders and the country as a whole expect and demand of her and her Department.