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Mr. Paice: My right hon. Friend is right on both counts. As I said a moment ago, we have to accept that life out there is not as good as we might wish. Some people want to be malicious, for whatever reason: their potential victims must be protected.
I should also be interested to hear what the hon. Member for Stourbridge has to say about paragraphs (c) and (d) of clause 5(2), which deal with the grounds on which people are to be considered unfit for employment. [Interruption.] Excuse me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but my pager is going off, as did the hon. Lady's during her opening remarks. I was impressed with the nonchalant way in which she silenced it and was not thrown off her speech.
I am worried about how wide the definition of who is fit and proper goes. Should not the Bill include some criteria about the seriousness of the alleged offence? Also, what about people who were themselves abused as children? There is plenty of evidence to suggest that such people are more likely--although not necessarily through their own fault--to become abusers when they grow up. I hope that the Bill will not mean that people, because they have been abused, will be regarded as not fit and proper to work with children: indeed, some people who have been abused learn from that awful experience and go on to become extremely valuable members of society. However, the problem needs to be tackled.
In addition, the onus is on people who believe that they have been included in the list wrongly to ensure that their names are removed. The Bill needs to place a greater obligation on the Secretary of State, or whoever will operate the list, properly to investigate complaints by people who believe that they have been wrongly included in the list. The hon. Member for Stourbridge will no doubt point out that the Bill provides that anyone included in the list will be informed and will have the right to inquire about why they have been included. Nevertheless, the onus appears to me to be in the wrong place, with the result that the Bill smacks a little of suggesting that a person is guilty until proven innocent. That is not a feature that I would welcome in our legal system.
Mr. Robert Syms (Poole):
There is also the worry that legal aid would not be given in such cases. Would not people without good financial resources suffer from the burden of trying to ensure that their names were removed from the list?
Mr. Paice:
My hon. Friend has relieved me of the need to read the next paragraph of my speech, which deals with that very point. I am worried that many people who believe that they have been wrongly nominated will not have sufficient resources to fight to clear their names.
It is fashionable sometimes to use phrase "big brother", and I do not want to use it in the context of the Bill, but we have to strike the balance between protecting our children and enshrining in statute a level of authoritarianism that is unacceptable in a free society. We do not want to create a poisoned chalice: people who would otherwise be prepared to commit their lives to looking after children must not be deterred from doing so by a fear that their backgrounds may be subject to intense investigation and inquiry.
The Bill will not cover nannies and child minders employed by private individuals. However, will there be an obligation on registered child care agencies to carry out checks? That is especially important, as such agencies often bring in nannies and child minders from abroad. Will we find that it is much less safe to employ foreign people in that role than people who are registered in Britain? Hiring foreign workers is well known to foster good international understanding, and our young people also enjoy the benefits of working in foreign countries.
Mr. Forth:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again, and I hope that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) will return to that point when she replies to the debate. The House needs the maximum reassurance that the levels of quality and reliability of people hired from overseas are as high as we would expect in people from this country, because there is a danger of a lacuna appearing in the Bill if they are not. Our other option would be to say that people from abroad would not be allowed to work here if the information about their backgrounds was not reliable. Is that not a genuine dilemma which must be resolved if the measures in the Bill are to be secure and properly implemented? I suspect that my hon. Friend is aware of that problem, and I hope that the hon. Lady will deal with it later.
Mr. Paice:
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. A person who employs a child minder from a registered agency may not realise that other countries have different
I appreciate the value of the Bill. When it becomeslaw, agencies recruiting staff to positions of control, responsibility and care with regard to children will have to make the checks that the hon. Member for Stourbridge has set out. By simplifying and improving the system, the Bill will lessen the possibility that children will be abused.
I have set out where I believe that the Bill needs more work with regard to the civil liberties of people who may be wrongly accused, and I have described the safeguards that need to be put in place. I also spoke about the problem of the voluntary sector's links with statutory bodies not being covered by the Bill. However, I am sure that the hon. Member for Stourbridge will return to that, and the matters that I have raised can be discussed in Committee.
Mrs. Llin Golding (Newcastle-under-Lyme):
Ever since I came to the House 12 years ago, I have battled to improve the lot of children. It has been a hard battle. So concerned was I in 1995 at the slow progress being made that, as shadow spokesperson for children, I, along with the late and sadly missed Joan Lestor--then Member for Eccles--and my right hon. Friend the current Home Secretary, wrote a letter to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who was then Home Secretary.
We asked, among other things, for the establishment of a nationwide database of known or suspected sexual offenders and a tightening up of the vetting procedures for those who worked with children. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's written response was positive, but his action was not vigorous. We have had to wait until today for this welcome Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley), to narrow a glaring and obvious gap in child protection legislation.
It is good at last to have a Government who contain so many members committed to improving the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society--children. As a trustee of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, I have even heard the complaint that so many excellent initiatives, guidelines and legislation are coming from the Government that the society is finding it hard to keep up with the pace.
Interdepartmental working groups have been making progress, and we have seen the continuing work of the social exclusion unit, sure start and the national child care strategy. There has been work on tackling drug abuse, and the positive response to the Utting report has included the proposal for important and long-fought-for children's rights officers. There has also been the long-awaited implementation of the remaining recommendations of the Piggot report on child witnesses. The quality protection initiative sets standards for looking after children. There is real progress at last.
Even when I wrote to the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe in 1995, it was obvious that there was, despite the best efforts of the National Criminal Intelligence Service, an urgent need for a coherent cross-sector system to identify people unsuitable to work with our children. As the Bill makes clear, a number of departmental lists contain the names of people who should never work with children; lists are also held by the police and, more recently, there is the national sex offenders register.
I feared that those with a tendency to abuse children would be able to slip through the net simply because information held on one list was not available in another place. I also worried that voluntary organisations would be unable to ensure that volunteers had a clean bill of health. The system was quite unable to cope with the skill that child abusers develop in hiding their evil intentions, and we all know of many cases of that happening. We have seen enough evidence to know that abusers who have been caught have often had access to children through several previous jobs or voluntary positions.
We also know how hard it is to convict child abusers. The Crown Prosecution Service and the police often have to make hard judgments about whether the pain of going through the present court system is in the best interest of the child concerned, or whether the evidence of a child will be enough to convict. I am sure that the Government share my concerns about the fall in the number of successful prosecutions, and that they will keep a close watch on the number of failed and successful prosecutions. There are certainly further lessons to be learned in that area.
It was obvious to me then, and it remains so now, that to hold separate lists in different departments with no way of cross-referencing them would always put children at risk. I welcome the concept of a one-stop shop, making it clear to all the organisations that work to help children how they can help to protect those in their care.
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