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SAFEGUARDING VULNERABLE GROUPS BILL [ LORDS] (PROGRAMME) (NO.2)

House of Commons, 6 November 2006.

Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [ Lords]

Clause 46 — Orders and Regulations

Parmjit Dhanda (Labour, Gloucester)

I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 237A and 250A.

Parmjit Dhanda (Labour, Gloucester)

All three amendments respond to recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and relate purely to parliamentary procedure. As hon. Members may be aware, the Committee met on 31 October to consider all the amendments made to the Bill during its passage in the Commons. The Committee raised procedural concerns in relation to three amendments. These further amendments fully address those concerns.

Amendments No. 237A and 153A reflect the advice of the Committee as to the appropriate parliamentary procedure for orders made under paragraph 14 of the new schedule, "Appropriate verification", and the new clause, "Devolution: alignment", respectively. Both Lords amendments provide that orders are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

Lords amendment No. 250A resolves an uncertainty raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and makes it clear that the procedure referred to in sub-paragraphs 2(3)(c) and (d) of the new schedule on transitional provisions will be prescribed in regulations, and that the regulations will be subject to the negative resolution procedure.

I am grateful to the Committee for the time that it has taken to consider the amendments, and I am pleased that we were able to table amendments to respond to the Committee's advice. I hope that the House will agree to the amendments.

Maria Miller (Conservative, Basingstoke)

At whatever stage we discuss this Bill, it is important that we remember the tragic events that led to the call for fundamental reform of the vetting and barring procedures in this country. The tragic deaths of two young children in Soham led to the Bichard inquiry, which made 31 recommendations. Recommendation 19 resulted in the establishment of a new vetting and barring procedure in the Bill.

The Bill has been some four years in the making, yet we are still debating its details at the eleventh hour. Unlike most of the Lords amendments under debate today, the amendments are not the result of a disagreement with the other place. Indeed, two of the three are the result of concerns expressed by a Select Committee in the other place about the excessive use of the negative resolution procedure in the Bill. We have expressed that concern at every stage of the Bill, both here and in the other place.

The third Lords amendment that we are considering today is a legal correction regarding the use of the word "prescribe", which now, under devolution, appears to take on different meanings in England and Wales. Perhaps this is another example of two countries being divided by a common language. The Government should certainly have thought about this before they used the word in the Bill.

The main focus of the Lords amendments is the use of the negative resolution procedure. Our concern about the Government's approach in the Bill was firmly rooted in the Bichard report, which stressed that any new vetting and barring scheme should be as transparent and simple as possible. We feel that the use of vague terms in conjunction with negative resolution procedures is not consistent with that objective, and that it leaves too much important detail in the Bill to debate that would not be open to public scrutiny.

The Government's excessive use of the negative resolution procedure has been overtly criticised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place. Two of the Lords amendments that we are considering today are a direct response to the concerns that that Committee expressed over the powers that the Government have articulated in the Bill. The Lords amendments underscore the veracity of the argument, which my hon. Friends and I have been making over the past eight months of debate: that more of the detail of the Bill should be agreed through the affirmative resolution procedure. We therefore welcome Lords amendment No. 153A on devolved powers and No. 237A on procedure verification. Both will increase the power of Parliament to scrutinise the Government's proposals in those two important areas of the Bill.

On balance, we believe that the Bill represents a step in the right direction and an improvement on the present situation. I only wish that the Lords amendments provided for even closer scrutiny of the Government to ensure that they do not use their extensive powers in the Bill unnecessarily to extend the numbers of people required to be monitored. Were they to do so, it could easily unbalance the consensus that has been built up behind the Bill and undermine the support for, and the credibility of, this important piece of legislation.

Annette Brooke (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

I echo what the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) said about the long process leading up to the Bill's introduction, which makes it all the more remarkable that so much redrafting has been necessary. So many amendments were tabled late, so it is not surprising that further changes are required at this even later stage. I am concerned that, where there has been little time for scrutiny, aspects of the Bill will have to be revisited because we will run into problems. I and my party desperately want the Bill to work, but we are concerned about the complexities and the lack of full scrutiny of what is before us today.

On the amendments, we welcome anything that strengthens the parliamentary process, which has to be a step in the right direction. There has been a tendency this year for more and more aspects of legislation to be left to regulation. Personally, I would prefer to see more provisions built directly into the Bill, but the affirmative resolution is clearly a step in the right direction.

Amendment No. 250A was, I feel, the result of an omission in the rush to get the Bill through in this Session. It is sad to reflect that there have been such omissions, but having said that, I sincerely hope that the Bill will work and genuinely provide protection for our children and vulnerable people.

Lords amendment agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 237A and 250A agreed to.