New Clause 8 - Registration for criminal records purposes

Part of Criminal Justice and Police Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 6:30 pm on 6 March 2001.

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Photo of Charles Clarke Charles Clarke Minister of State, Home Office 6:30, 6 March 2001

I apologise to the Committee for not making myself clear when I introduced the new clause. The registered person occupies a crucial position in the new arrangements. The CRB will need to rely heavily on registered persons to assess applications correctly and to safeguard the information that is supplied to them. When preparing for the introduction of the CRB, we became conscious of the risk that criminal and other unscrupulous elements may seek to register with the CRB to take advantage of such a position of trust and become front organisations for paedophile activity.

Registration would provide a respectable front and give access to sensitive police information. A dedicated paedophile ring would obviously derive enormous advantage from information that the police were following the activity of one of its associates. Less obviously, it would also draw comfort from the absence of such information, which would suggest that the police were not aware of its activities. Clearly, the CRB needs to know about those seeking registration, so that it can be sure that they can be relied on. Similarly, the police need to be sure about the people to whom they are supplying information. All of that would enable employers and voluntary organisations using the CRB's services to have greater confidence in the integrity of the arrangements. It has become apparent that part V, as originally drafted and passed by the House when the CRB was set up, does not provide in full what is required to ensure that that will be the case.

The new provisions are designed to ensure that applicants for registration are checked to the same level as those applications for certificates that they will endorse, including the right to refuse and so on. The need for such a policy became clear only when we worked through the precise methodology of the CRB, which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is going through such a process at present. The alternative to that law being passed would leave a serious danger that we would not investigate people that needed to be investigated and there might be a channel through which seriously dangerous elements could get inside what is designed to be a watertight system.