New Clause 1
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Annette Brooke (Children & the Family, Cross-Portfolio and Non-Portfolio Responsibilities; Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
I am pleased that we have reached the new clauses. In many ways they make probing points. New clause 1 would require the Secretary of State to develop guidance on creating a national information sharing protocol between police forces and local authorities. Although the Bichard inquiry has the higher profile, two other influential reports were produced following the Soham tragedy. One was by Sir Ronnie Flanagan; the other was the serious case review by Sir Chris Kelly. It is the latter to which I shall refer.
In his report, Sir Chris Kelly recommended formal information-sharing protocols between the police and child protection agencies. That recommendation is important relative to the flow of information under the Bill. There will clearly be situations in which information does not meet the criteria for referral under clause 31, so it will still be important to share information with the police to feed possible future disclosures to the IBB under part 1 of the Police Act 1997.
Sharing information and building up a picture may be relevant in connection with individuals who later seek work with children. We want a proper protocol from the word go. Some of it will be soft information, and it is difficult to know how that is to be handled. We know from the Soham tragedy that there were many bits of information about Huntley but that they were never pulled together.
I hope that the Minister will give a full response, as what the new clause seeks is comparable with the approach taken in “Every Child Matters”.