Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

As the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said, I have given a number of assurances about the guidance in my remarks to the Committee today and yesterday. We intend that the guidance should deal comprehensively with the issues I have set out. It will be important over the next two years to move to a shared understanding with stakeholders and employers on the nature of conduct and harm that should trigger a referral, and to produce appropriate guidance on the ways that referrals should be handled and the way that the IBB intends to treat them. To that extent we are entirely in sympathy with the concerns that lie behind the noble Baroness’s amendment. We do not, however, think it would be helpful to introduce a statutory requirement to issue guidance, as this amendment envisages, before any part of the Bill could be commenced. That would have a more draconian effect than we think is intended. It could severely delay the implementation of the Act, because, I am told, guidance on the entire Act would have to be issued before any part of it could be commenced. That would be very unusual, especially as many parts of the Act could be commenced with no need for guidance. For example, the Government do not need to issue guidance to themselves with regard to those parts of the Act that they implement, such as setting up the IBB. If we do not allow those sections to be commenced earlier than the sections on which we need and intend to issue guidance, we will delay implementation of the scheme. While entirely concurring with the sentiments behind the amendment, we do not think the precise way the noble Baroness is proposing to carry it out would fit the Bill. I detected that this was a probing amendment anyway, and I hope she regards me as duly probed.