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'(6B) Where an application is made under subsection 3(A) or 6(A) above, the certificate shall be provided within such period of time as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of State.
(6C) Where the certificate is not provided within the time limit, no fee shall be payable in respect of that certificate.'.

No. 32, in page 6, line 48, at end insert--

'(6B) Where an application is made under subsection 3(A) or 6(A) above, the certificate shall be provided within 25 working days of receipt of the request.
(6C) Where the certificate is not provided within the time limit, no fee shall be payable in respect of that certificate.'.

Mr. Lansley: I am grateful for the opportunity to move amendment No. 30 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean). I am doubly grateful to him for allowing me to refer to this issue, which, as members of the Standing Committee will recall, exercised us from time to time, especially me.

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In this trio of amendments, amendment No. 30 is a paving amendment for amendments Nos. 31 or 32. I say "or" advisedly, because they are mutually exclusive. The purpose of amendment No. 31 is to enable the Secretary of State at any time to prescribe a time limit within which a certificate must be provided under new subsections 3(A) or 6(A) of the Police Act 1997. This part of the Bill deals with the one-stop shop provision of certificates--either a criminal record certificate or an enhanced criminal certificate--through the Criminal Records Bureau.

It is worth noting that, although in other amendments we have tended to focus on the enhancement of referrals and lists and the opportunities for employers to seek information from those lists, a further benefit can be associated with the Bill under the existing system. The Criminal Records Bureau, which, unless Ministers tell me otherwise, will be established by the end of next year, will be able to provide this one-stop shop service.

As members of the Standing Committee will recall and other hon. Members may be interested to note, a number of issues were raised which should not be rehearsed now but could usefully be mentioned, given the presence of the Minister of State, Home Office. The Under-Secretary of State for Health gave us some comfort without making rash promises when he said that the Home Office would in future consider whether to waive fees for volunteers. I and other members of the Committee expressed concern about the impact or potential deterrent effect on people from voluntary organisations who want to volunteer to work with children and are suitable to do so but would have to pay fees to obtain a certificate.

I want now to move away from volunteers, because the Bill is concerned with employment. We are dealing with statutory bodies that are seeking to employ people. The legal obligation on any organisation seeking to fill a position will be to ensure that it obtains information about an applicant and does not employ a person who is unsuitable to work with children by virtue of his inclusion on any of the lists embraced by this and other legislation.

1.30 pm

I may be corrected, but it is my recollection that it would be illegal--an offence--to give someone who was included on the list a job that involved working with children. Having rightly strengthened employers' legal obligations, we must ensure that employers are able to fulfil those obligations in a timely and objective fashion.

Amendment No. 31 proposes that, when a certificate is provided, it must be provided

"within such period of time as shall be prescribed by the Secretary of State."

The purpose of the amendment is straightforward. The Secretary of State would be able not just to consider the obligations of the criminal records bureau in the provision of a certificate, but to weigh up the situation, to act as an intermediary, as it were, between the system governing the delivery of certificates and the requirements imposed on statutory regulatory bodies seeking such certificates, and to specify the period within which those certificates should be provided.

I know that employers often make a provisional offer of employment, subject to the production of the necessary certificates. The Bill is intended to ensure that unsuitable

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people should not be placed in a position of trust and responsibility that involves working with children, even--dare I say--for a short time. If that aim is to be fulfilled, an employer must know by the time an employee takes up his post that that person is suitable to work with children. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the employer must know that no evidence is available through the process to suggest that the person is unsuitable. If that is to happen, it must be before the date on which a provisional offer of employment becomes a real offer.

When a teacher is employed--the same applies for many other parts of the public sector--a month's notice is customary: that is, a month's notice of the leaving of one job, and, by extension, a month's notice before the taking up of another. If an offer of employment is to be made with a month's notice, a certificate should be made available within that period.

In Committee, it was suggested that a certificate should be provided within one calendar month. Ministers--understandably: the exigencies of administration are very great--felt that the Bill should not place such a constraint on the running of the system. However, were either amendment No. 31 or amendment No. 32 accepted, it would provide an incentive. Given the expectation that a fee will be charged for the provision of a certificate--in the past, figures of between £5 and £10 have been discussed--either amendment would give the bureau an incentive to provide that certificate within the time limit.

Mr. Hammond: Has it occurred to my hon. Friend that there could be a perverse effect? It will undoubtedly take a certain time for an organisation to make a referral after a dismissal, and for the Department of Health to process that referral. It would be a disaster if, in seeking to shorten the time taken to obtain information about an individual whom a new employer wished to employ, we brought about circumstances in which the application for information was made before information referred to the Secretary of State had found its way through the system.

Mr. Lansley: I understand my hon. Friend's point, which is interesting; let us think it through.

Let us say that, in the worst case example, someone working with children is resigning to escape the consequences of misconduct, and that the employer may be considering dismissal. The referral may take some time, but it should not take too long. Before providing a certificate for someone seeking a new position, the Criminal Records Bureau should not be made to wait long for information from that person's previous employer, and the organisation that the individual is leaving should be obliged to make the referral quickly. Perhaps that deals with the point.

We have to ensure that referrals are made quickly, and that the Secretary of State will rapidly consider the information and conclude whether there should be a provisional listing. It will have to happen within a matter of days.

Mr. Hammond: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, especially on his second point--that the Secretary of State will have to process the referral quickly. However, am I not right in thinking that the Bill includes no requirement for a referral to be made within a certain time of dismissal?

Mr. Lansley: My hon. Friend is right. We are able to posit a series of unhappy circumstances in which an

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employer may be late in making a referral, the Secretary of State may be slow in making a provisional inclusion and someone who is leaving one employment in circumstances that should lead to a referral and listing may be able to secure employment somewhere else--perhaps even with the appropriate certificate and checks, but without anything being provided to the prospective employer indicating that that person is unsuitable to work with children. A consistent feature of our debates on the Bill has been our ability to posit a series of difficult circumstances.

The legislation will work, but only if all the bodies involved--employers, Departments and, eventually, the Criminal Records Bureau--show some rigour, speed and attention to detail. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) will agree that the circumstances that we have been discussing do not force us to conclude that the Criminal Records Bureau will, as a matter of course, be slow in providing a criminal record certificate. The burden should rest on others to be quick in making referrals and in ensuring provisional inclusion on the list, so that requests for criminal record certificates, or enhanced criminal record certificates, are filled effectively, accurately and in a timely fashion.

The heart of the issue is that those who are legally obliged not to employ people who are known to be unsuitable to work with children should not be placed in a position in which they inadvertently do so, and thus fail to meet their obligations, simply because the Criminal Records Bureau takes more than 25 days, or whatever other time limit is prescribed by the Secretary of State, to provide a certificate.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border for having been sufficiently astute--and perhaps forgiving of the difficulties of administration in Departments, including the Home Office, in which he served with such distinction--in allowing for the possibility that the Secretary of State might, justifiably, set a time limit other than of 25 working days. As I said in previous debates in Committee, 25 days is the appropriate type of time limit, and it would be appropriate in this case.

I hope that the hon. Member for Stourbridge(Ms Shipley) will express some positive sentiment about the spirit of amendment No. 30, and that the Minister will perhaps be able further to reinforce his helpful comments on the process of providing certificates and on fees. Perhaps he will also be able further to reinforce his positive sentiments about how the system will work.

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