HC Deb 12 March 2001 vol 364 cc609-11
1. Mr. Phil Hope (Corby)

If he will make a statement on the cost of criminal record checks for volunteers in voluntary organisations. [151698]

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Paul Boateng)

Criminal record certificates and enhanced criminal record certificates, which will relate principally to positions involving working with those under the age of 18, or with vulnerable adults, will be issued free of charge to volunteers—not only in voluntary organisations but in other situations too.

Mr. Hope

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. As chairman of the all-party group on charities and the voluntary sector, and on behalf of the sector as a whole, may I say how pleased we are by the Government's response to the campaign? It is important that volunteers have free checks so that children can be properly protected. The sector fully supports criminal record checks, and there was concern that, in the international year of volunteering, children would not receive that kind of protection. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that when the system is introduced, the checks will provide the kind of security and information that those organisations need to ensure that children receive the best possible protection?

Mr. Boateng

The Government are grateful to the all-party group and to my hon. Friend, its chairman, for their work in representing the voluntary sector's concerns. I can give him the assurance that he seeks, but he will understand—as, I am sure, will other Members on both sides of the House—that the protection of children and vulnerable people cannot be served by a body like the Criminal Records Bureau alone. It is important to make sure that those responsible for recruiting workers in that sector themselves carry out the necessary checks of other references, and put in place the necessary arrangements for proper interviews and performance monitoring. We need a complete package to protect children and vulnerable people better, but this step is an important part of that, and we are glad to have taken it.

Mr. Donald Gorrie (Edinburgh, West)

Can the Minister assure us that the certificates will be transferable, whether given by the Scottish Executive, the Home Office—in England—or, presumably, the Welsh Assembly, and that people who move to different parts of the country will not have to apply all over again?

Mr. Boateng

We are working closely with the Assembly and the Executive to make sure that there is a proper exchange of information. Those negotiations and discussions are continuing, and I shall certainly write to the hon. Gentleman to tell him of our progress.

Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington)

I thank my right hon. Friend and his colleagues for exempting volunteers from the proposed charges for the Criminal Records Bureau, thus inadvertently responding to a recommendation that the Home Affairs Committee is likely to send him. Will he pay particular attention to inaccuracies and omissions in the police national computer records of convictions, involving failure to record convictions against some people, as well as the opposite? When those checks are made, it is essential that they are as accurate as possible.

Mr. Boateng

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and the Committee for their work in that area, as is my fellow Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke). My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) has identified a problem that we are exploring with the Association of Chief Police Officers. We will make sure that we get things right, because we seek to achieve the degree of accuracy that he rightly pinpoints as important.

Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury)

I welcome the Government's change of policy, and the alacrity with which they changed course once they knew about the speech that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. Would that the Government always followed my right hon. Friend's suggestions with such alacrity.

The Minister talked about exemptions for volunteers. Will the Government exempt voluntary organisations generally, or just individual volunteers? In particular, will he explain why, a week after the Government's announcement, in a written answer on 15 February, another Minister of State, the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), mentioned registration fees for the Criminal Records Bureau, which would involve employers and voluntary organisations paying a charge of £300? Have the Government not been rather shy about letting us know about that?

Mr. Boateng

if I may say so, the hon. Gentleman is being uncharacteristically churlish in his response to the announcement. I thought that he had a sunnier disposition—but perhaps it is the time of year, and the anticipation of potential approaching events. As he well knows, this is an exemption for volunteers, not for voluntary organisations. It is right that voluntary organisations should pay a registration charge, and we are having discussions with them about that and several other related matters. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would give a broader and more generous welcome to the measures that we have announced.