Clause 37 - Accreditation under community safety accreditation schemes
Police Reform Bill [Lords]
12:30 pm
Mr John Denham (Minister of State (Police, Courts and Drugs), Home Office; Southampton, Itchen, Labour)
It is interesting to hear reference made to the Conservative Government when considering the amendment. Let us cast our minds back to the disastrous Conservative recession in the early 1990s when millions of people lost their homes. I recall that
a million or so small business went bankrupt. If someone had the misfortune to be bankrupted by the Tory Government in the early 1990s and has, over 10 years, built up a business in the guarding industry, for example, would we want that person to be excluded from participating in such activities because of one event in his life over which he had no control? We do not apply such a test to a wide range of organisations that provide sensitive services to the police service, such as fraud handling.
The point of principle has been referred to, and the test of a ''fit and proper person'' may include his financial history as well as criminal records, checks and so on. However, the amendment could draw into the pool a lot of people whom we would not sensibly want to exclude. I am not saying that such issues should not be looked into carefully, but the broader test of ''fit and proper'' is the responsibility of the chief officer who is running the accreditation scheme and one that should be applied.
I give the assurance that we expect companies that propose such schemes to carry out checks involving character references and criminal records, and that there should be checks of the organisation's financial standing, integrity and legitimacy. I hope that the hon. Member for Lewes will feel that we are meeting the spirit of his suggestion. The narrowness of the amendment might unfairly exclude some people, albeit possibly a small number.