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Independent Safeguarding Authority

I am grateful for that clarification. I hope that the Minister will respond to the hon. Gentleman's important point. Let me go through some of these areas and several of the other issues that are still outstanding in relation to the legislation and regulations under discussion. When the matter was first debated in the House, both Opposition parties expressed a great deal of concern about many of the loose ends, the limited time to deal with a very detailed subject and the potential unintended consequences. We have seen from the Singleton review the justification for those concerns and the need for us to look again at the regulations to see whether they could be implemented more sensibly. We are not convinced that all the proposals that will be in place by next year are quite right yet, although we accept that the Singleton report and the Government's acceptance of it represent a significant move forward. Let me first raise one important concern about the Singleton recommendations. I think that the hon. Member for Luton, North, quite deliberately, did not seek to touch on it, but it is, for us, an important residual point that comes out of the recommendations, which were published in December. It relates to recommendation 3, on "Frequent and intensive contact", and the associated recommendation 4 on "Visits to different settings". In some ways, both recommendations seek to take into account the concerns expressed about whether the regulations would be excessively burdensome. In recommendation 3, Sir Roger seeks to redefine the frequent and intensive contact tests so that they would essentially come into place if people were going into schools and coming into contact with vulnerable individuals once a week or more regularly. The intensive contact test is defined in terms of four contacts a month. Our concern is not that that is not a small move in the right direction, but that it does not really deal with the question of what individuals are doing when they are in the particular settings and whether they are really likely to pose a risk. In other words, we think that it is framed too much in terms of frequency of contact and does not consider in sufficient detail what the contact constitutes. Many people would regard it as obvious that when an individual comes into contact with children or vulnerable adults in an environment in which they are the only adult present, or when they are in a particularly vulnerable setting—perhaps involving an overnight stay, or sports or some such activity—there are reasons for ensuring that the safeguards in place are very secure. However, many other people who go into educational establishments or who come into contact with vulnerable children and adults might be doing so with a much lower risk characteristic, particularly when those individuals are coming into schools or other settings where there is another adult who might already be the approved and vetted adult present. Many of us can think of occasions on which individuals come from outside school settings to talk to children, sometimes quite regularly, but those contacts take place wholly with one of the existing members of the teaching staff in place. That seems not to be properly taken into account in the recommendations and in the Government's plans, so we have a situation that is framed too much around frequency and not enough around the actual risk inherent in any particular situation. That concern was raised by the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) when this matter was first debated. She said:""As a school governor myself, I have seen instances in which outside organisations have come into the school without ever being left in sole charge of the children with whom they come into contact."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 11 July 2006; c. 77.]" She said that there would be activities that did not need to be monitored, but that equally there would be circumstances, such as those outlined on that day, in which there would be concerns. I should like to know whether the Government have given, or will give, more consideration to whether the nature of the contact and the risks inherent in that should be considered more seriously and whether, therefore, more flexibility could be built into the procedures, but obviously not in relation to contacts that would be particularly high risk. I should also like clarification of the linked proposal—recommendation 4, which relates to visits to different settings. My understanding of that is that Sir Roger has concluded that if an individual comes into contact with a vulnerable adult or a child on a regular basis, there is cause for concern that some sort of abusive relationship might develop in unusual circumstances and that therefore protection is needed. However, Sir Roger seems to have decided that if an individual comes into contact with a range of young people or vulnerable adults, but not the same young people or vulnerable adults, the potential for an abusive relationship to develop would be much lower and therefore the toleration of contact with those different individuals should be much higher. I can understand the argument that if an individual comes into contact frequently with vulnerable adults or with the same children, there is the potential for a relationship to develop that could be abused, but I can also see an apparent irrationality. My understanding is that if, for example, an individual was coming into a secondary school from the outside but was having contact with children in different classes, they would essentially have an exemption from some of the other proposals in relation to frequency and intensity of contact. It seems bizarre that those individuals might be able to come into contact with individuals in a potentially exposed setting quite frequently, but provided that it was with different individuals, they would be exempt from the frequent and intensive contact proposals. I wonder whether that is sensible, particularly given that those individuals, even if they are coming into contact with different classes or individuals formally in the classroom, might still be able to meet up with children or vulnerable adults whom they had met in another formal setting as they worked their way around the institution. I therefore have yet to be persuaded that recommendations 3 and 4 deal sensibly and pragmatically with this particularly crucial issue. I think that, in some senses, recommendation 4 leaves some scope for abuse and child protection concerns, but recommendation 3 does not go nearly far enough in allowing exemptions for the large number of adults who come into contact with young people and vulnerable adults but do so in a setting where the risks are extraordinarily low and, in particular, where another adult who has been vetted is already in the setting. I invite the Minister to comment on that and let us know whether the Government will look at the matter again. I should like to pick up the point that the hon. Member for Luton, North made about other professional groups and whether the exemptions that have now been extended to the police, following the Singleton report and the Home Secretary's response to it, could be extended to other groups on the basis of the checks that already have to take place. Even after Sir Roger's proposals, the new regulations will still relate to between 9 million and 9.5 million people, and possibly many more over time. If it is possible to work within the framework of the current checks, rather than introducing new bureaucracy, I hope that we can pursue that. Will the Minister comment on a number of other issues that have been left hanging in the air as a consequence of the Secretary of State's statement at the end of last year? First, Sir Roger recommended further work on three of the proposals at the end of his report. Under what time scale can we expect the Government to complete that work and bring recommendations to the House? Is it likely to be before the spring or will it be well into the future? Secondly, when will there be a new impact assessment of the proposals as amended by Singleton? Will it include an assessment of their benefits in terms of reducing the potential for abuse? I want to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Luton, North. I have concerns about whether the appeals process can be strengthened and about the length of time taken to process checks. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there is a lot of evidence to show that the processing is taking far too long. If people believe that processing will take a long time, organisations, employees and volunteers may be deterred from entering into arrangements, which could have a damaging impact. Finally, we heard about the cost of processing. In some cases, particularly those of a more voluntary nature, the expectation will be that the individual, sadly, will have to bear the cost. However, a legitimate point can be made, particularly in the case of low-paid individuals, about whether the employer should pick up the cost. Although £64 might seem a relatively small amount for somebody on a high income, it is a lot for somebody on a low income, particularly if they have been out of employment for a long time. People who go back into employment often face transport and other costs, which can be quite large and which can act as a genuine disincentive to taking up work. I therefore have some sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Luton, North and his hon. Friends, and I hope that the Government will respond positively.