New Clause 4
Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [Lords]
3:45 pm
Maria Miller (Shadow Minister (Education), Education; Basingstoke, Conservative)
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Perhaps our new clause would cover what she is talking about. It would oblige an employer to define “occasional basis”, so an Eisteddfod could be dealt with as the people on the ground saw fit, rather than there being a one-size-fits-all approach.
I should like to touch on a couple of comments made by Ministers today that suggest that they might be more in favour of the new clause than I initially thought. Perhaps the Health Minister will support it. He said earlier that we should allow the judgment of front-line professionals to come into play, and front-line professionals are exactly what the new clause is about. If he cannot recall, I should say that it was when we were talking about exemptions. My new clause is intended to let the people who know best about what is happening on the ground have discretion to define what is meant by “occasional”, rather than leaving it to the Minister in his office in Westminster, which I am sure is wonderful, to do it.
The proposal would, along with removing “frequently”, which received cross-party support on the Opposition Benches, allow employers to use their discretion to determine how to define “occasional”. If the Minister feels that that way forward is inappropriate—although I am ever optimistic on these issues and he may see the merit in the argument that we are advancing—perhaps I could urge him to think a little further. I have asked the people who have to implement such rules and regulations about how they regard Lord Adonis’s description of what counts as occasional and frequent, and the Government may be a little bit more out of step with the people who will apply those procedures than they think they are.
Hampshire county council, which, as the Minister knows, is designated by the Government as an excellent education authority and an excellent council—