Clause 42
Welfare Reform Bill
5:45 pm
Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; East Renfrewshire, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is right, and he encourages me to mention that the wording of the draft regulations and supporting material will also need to be updated, because having been published in October they predate the additional clauses.
To address the point made by the hon. Member for Windsor, subsection (2)(a) covers third party employees—parties employed by local authorities. It is up to the authorities to conduct appropriate checks on staff. Hon. Members were keen to see the paperwork that we compiled on the roles of the private and voluntary sectors in future pathways, and will now have had chance to reflect on it. In drafting that paperwork, we dealt with staff training, staff experience and keeping staff skills up to date, and we wanted to ensure that people will be supported in getting back into the labour market by appropriate staff with appropriate experience and relevant backgrounds.
On the hon. Gentleman’s narrow, technical question on clause 42, I am advised that the narrow, technical answer is that there are no differences between the clause and section 123 of the 1992 Act in what constitutes unauthorised disclosure. I hope that the reassures the hon. Gentleman.