§ Mr. GreenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to introduce a licensing system for private detectives. [32589]
§ Mr. MichaelWe intend to introduce statutory regulation of the private security industry, including private detectives, as soon as possible. We will not be able to bring forward early legislation, as we warned before the election, but we have recently completed a consultation exercise with the industry and others on the best way to provide a comprehensive, effective and streamlined system. We want to look beyond the narrow proposals put forwards by the previous Government, which focused only on criminal record checks for the contract-guarding sector of the industry and to put in place regulations which will protect the public by ensuring basic standards of probity, training, supervision and good practice within all sectors of the industry.