Schedule 1
Driving Instruction (Suspension and Exemption Powers) Bill
10:00 am
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk, Labour)
I do not wish to delay the Committee, but I am drawing on experiences from when I was representing people in a profession; they had complaints against them, some upheld and some not.
I am well aware that the General Teaching Council for Scotland strikes people off and then allows them to reapply. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby cited cases of people who had paedophile images on computers. I am well aware that some people who had previously been struck off have been put back on the register of the GTC. There seems to be no method of alerting the people who were offended against—who made the original complaint—of that happening. I know, and I have heard statements from people in the teaching profession at a very high level, that such people are back on that GTC register—they do not know where they are teaching, and they do not know anything about them.
In the case of a new application being made under schedule 1, when people are given a new licence, what safeguards are there? Someone might get a new licence, but the person who was the original victim, or the person who did the complaining, would not be told. The person with the new licence would end up practising in a new jurisdiction—in terms of geography—and it would concern me if there were no safeguards for the public if that could happen.