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12.39 pm
Mr. Robert Syms (Poole): I congratulate the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) on winning the ballot and introducing the Bill, which deals with a complex subject. It is to her credit that she picked a Bill that will require a degree of parliamentary skill to pass. No doubt the general tenor of today's debate, which has revealed support from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber and from the Government, means that the Bill will go on to the statute book and stand as a testament to the hon. Lady's contribution.
In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), I pointed out that the lead item on Ceefax suggested that this was a Government Bill. Whether that is due to the poor quality of the BBC's reporting or a misunderstanding of a Government spin doctor, the hon. Member for Stourbridge ought to make a phone call to the BBC because Ceefax did not even mention her, which is a disgrace.
The Bill may be item No. 2 on Ceefax, but it is important and the fact that the BBC has flagged it up is a sign of the public consciousness about this issue. As the years go by, people have become far more aware of the importance of the protection of children.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) made a valid point. We must balance the rights of individuals with those of children, but we should always lean towards the protection of children.
Mr. Maclean:
On the point about the Government taking credit for private Members' Bills, does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must pay particular attention to that tendency? Many of my hon. Friends and I are here to support this private Member's Bill on a Friday that is devoted to such Bills, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) on her Bill. If, on this occasion or any other, the Government try to take the credit for private Members' Bills, they will have to suffer the risk of those Bills being defeated because they tried to bounce them through the House on a private Members' Friday.
Mr. Syms:
My right hon. Friend makes a good point, and I am sure that the Minister will make the same point in his speech. The issue is too important for us to lose sight of it in a party political spat, although we are all, as politicians, sensitive to the situation.
To some extent, the Bill picks up on part V of the Police Act 1997, which was passed by the previous Government to set up the Criminal Records Bureau. The central point of having a one-stop shop is very sensible. I was a councillor for 14 years, and it is important to have one body that can deal relatively quickly with inquiries, because many of the agencies that will have to make
inquiries of it will want to take on people. They may have people within their care and duties that they must discharge. In many cases, it is not easy to recruit people to important jobs caring for children.
I am a member of the Select Committee on Health and, until recently, I had very little knowledge of this subject. Last year, the Committee went on an inquiry visit to Australia to consider the welfare of child migrants who had been widely abused in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. We interviewed between 50 and 70 people who had suffered abuse and what struck us was the collateral damage that it caused to those individuals up to 40 years later.
I remember sitting next to a gentlemen at a dinner at the high commission in New Zealand who turned to me and said, "I was abused as a child. I have been married for 40 years and I have never been able to tell my wife that." He could tell a politician from Great Britain, but not his wife. The suppressed angst suffered by many of those people and the wreckage in their lives are due to how they were treated when they were young.
I shall not go into detail about the Bill's proposals because the hon. Member for Stourbridge has already done so; rather, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) did, I shall focus on a few concerns. Liberty, which no doubt will be mentioned again and again, expressed the concern that the Bill would set up an administrative rather than a judicial system. It could not be judicial, or we could not protect people. However, there is a duty within an administrative system at least to try to be fair and open. The appeal mechanism is good and sensible, although the provision of legal aid is also an important consideration as people without resources could well have to spend considerable time and money attempting to have their names removed from a list.
The thresholds for initial inclusion on lists are also important. If a list is too wide and encompasses too many spurious factors, it may become devalued. Although it must include paedophiles, there are people who could be described as eccentric. If a list includes people with eccentric characteristics as well as those who are dangerous, it will become devalued.
The Bill represents a great step forward and in my opinion it conforms to the European convention on human rights. In a recent case, the judge upheld the Secretary of State's right to include on such lists care workers about whom there were suspicions, even when there had been no criminal conviction, so long as the proof was on the basis of being beyond all reasonable doubt. Mr. Justice Richards said:
We must also consider the issue of people moving across boundaries and borders within Europe. It is vital that there is some exchange of information between countries. People come here from France and Germany, and indeed people from this country who are not permitted to work with children may decide to go abroad to pursue their particular interests. It is important for the Bill to be considered in a European and worldwide context in respect of the exchange of information.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire mentioned the problem of language schools. There are many such schools in Bournemouth and Poole and the students often stay with host families. That issue will certainly have to be addressed.
Another matter that received attention in all the briefing was the treatment of the clergy. I know that it is difficult to establish where the clergy impact on voluntary organisations in this respect, but perhaps those definitions will be determined in Committee.
Mr. Forth:
I am not quite clear whether my hon. Friend feels that such is the sensitivity of the matter that the clergy should not be included or whether he feels that they definitely should. I do not share my hon. Friend's sensitivities and feel that the clergy have a sufficient track record in these matters that they should definitely be included and we should find a way to make sure that they are.
Mr. Syms:
I assume that the Bill impacts on the clergy when they work with voluntary organisations, not simply because they are members of the clergy. As we heard earlier, many other issues are not covered by the Bill. We have to acknowledge that there is no such thing as a perfect Bill, so we have to ask whether it improves the protection of children and whether it provides an efficient and workable system. There are many ways in which we could attempt to make the Bill perfect, but that would actually make it unwieldy and unworkable. The matter will have to be examined closely in Committee to establish the proper boundaries.
Mr. Michael Connarty (Falkirk, East):
I know that we are short of time, so I shall not take too long. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Ms Shipley) on introducing the Bill and on the balanced and reasoned way in which she spoke to it. I am sure that her constituency party and her constituents are grateful to be represented by an hon. Member who is not only driven by compassion but able to put her case reasonably and in a balanced manner.
I speak in this debate because there is a Scottish dimension to the Bill: there is no mention of Scotland in it. In fact, there is no mention of Wales. There are no borders to paedophiles. The problem of people coming from other parts of the world has been mentioned, but, just within the United Kingdom, there are obviously people who will travel. Paedophiles, because of their predatory nature, will go to great lengths to be near people who then become victims of their abuse.
"It must be open to the Secretary of State, when acting to protect the welfare of children, to take into account the difficulty of proving allegations of sexual abuse to the criminal standard--and indeed the difficulty of establishing a real likelihood of harm. He has to strike a balance between the interests of the individual involved and the interests of the children whom the index is designed to protect."
That is a key point.
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