Offender Management Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at on 23 January 2007.
Gerry Sutcliffe
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
10:30,
23 January 2007
On a point of order, Mr. Atkinson. Good morning to you and to the Committee.
It might help the Committee if I expand upon whatI said in our previous sitting on Amendment No. 30. Members of the Committee will remember that it would have added contracted-out prisons to the list of establishments to which the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 applies. The hon. Member for Cheadle, who moved the amendment, was concerned that people undertaking activities relating to children in contracted-out establishments should be subject to the relevant requirements of that Act. Having been made aware of that concern, I asked my officials to look into the matter.
I hope that the Committee will be reassured by paragraph (3)(1) of schedule 4 to the 2006 Act, which lists the types of establishments to which the Act’s safeguards apply. Included on the list in sub-paragraph (d) is
“an institution which is exclusively or mainly for the detention of children”.
That will mean that employees of all prisons, young offenders institutions and secure training centres, whether publicly or privately run, will be covered. I hope that the Committee finds that clarification helpful, particularly given the scope of clauses 11 to 15, all of which can at least in theory apply to institutions in which children are held.
Mark Hunter
Shadow Minister (Home Affairs)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Atkinson, I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to the Minister. I am also grateful to him for clarifying what he accepted were our genuine concerns. On the basis of what he has said, I am content to let the matter rest.
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