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Defendant Anonymity

I agree that some imprecision remains, and we would have many questions about the Government's intentions. One can understand, of course, that teachers who are maliciously accused of things have a terrible time. There is absolutely no doubt about that, but if the suggestion is that we revert to not believing children when they make allegations of abuse, that is a very dangerous and retrograde step. For too many years in the past, before we took safeguarding children quite as seriously as we now do in our society—and I hope we will continue to do so—children who made allegations were frequently disbelieved, with the result that abuse, including sometimes serious sexual abuse, continued for years. That destroyed lives, and we left vulnerable children completely unable to be protected because of then attitudes about whether to believe what they said. Any signal—and this Government have given a number of them—that we are reverting to that practice is extremely retrograde. I do not believe that getting rid of the rigour of the barring and vetting scheme, which arose out of the Bichard report into the Soham murders, sends a good signal about safeguarding children. I do not believe that abandoning ContactPoint sends a good signal about the intention to safeguard children. I do not believe we should add in anonymity in all circumstances for teachers against any allegation made, and perhaps for a wider range of school staff, because why stop at teachers? Why not school caretakers as well, and dinner ladies, teaching assistants, or any other number of staff in schools? I do not believe that sending that signal can possibly help us safeguard children in this country. It is a retrograde step. I do not believe we have seen any real evidence, thought or policy development that has led to those specific nine words and the other paragraph about teacher anonymity in the coalition agreement. I believe the Government are undertaking a calamitous and retrograde march backwards into the past. Given the range of views that there clearly is among Ministers, I believe there is still time for the Government to think about this, and to do better than they are proposing. I believe they should think again about consultation, as this kind of policy should be properly consulted upon. The experts out there in our society dealing with these situations every day, whether in schools or in our criminal justice system, deserve and need to be asked by this Government what they think the impact of these policy suggestions would be. Given that the Minister's boss, the Secretary of State for Justice, clearly signalled to the House that this policy is not on the list for early legislation, and given that he clearly signalled that he intended his party to have a fairly free vote when it was brought before the House, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), should say to the House in winding up, "We will consult. We will take this away. We will think again. We will have evidence-based policy making, not prejudice-based policy making." I urge him to do so.