Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

I am enormously grateful to my noble friend for that very full and thorough reply. We will come on to malicious and vexatious allegations in a moment. We still need to focus on those circumstances in which there is a professional judgment—not a malicious or vexatious judgment but when someone has a concern about a fellow professional. That is what we are talking about if we exclude the examples of malicious and vexatious allegations. I listened very carefully to what my noble friend said about Clause 27 and will need to read it. I accept that there are two stages to this. In the example that I gave—I am not sure whether I can recall all the gory details—it was not so much a question of withdrawing permission as of finding ways of moving an individual worker to other tasks. That may not be withdrawing permission; it is simply that the individual has ceased to work. That might be covered by paragraph (b) in that permission has not been withdrawn because you have found a cunning plan which avoids a situation in which that individual is working with children or vulnerable adults. The difficult question of withdrawing permission would have had to be confronted if your cunning plan did not succeed. So that may not matter. But I am not convinced that that quite meets the point. Voluntary organisations, in particular, may raise concerns only when an individual has left their employ. In that context, there may be a need for validation. I also accept what my noble friend said about what will happen when such issues reach the Independent Barring Board. We all expect that it will not simply rely on a single referral but will consider all the matters in the round. This displays my ignorance as I have not read all the documentation as thoroughly as I might have done, but I am not clear whether it is in a position to require a psychiatric assessment of individuals if it is felt that that might be helpful in reaching a determination. I am sure that that is covered somewhere.