Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 162A: "After Clause 40, insert the following new clause—" ““SURRENDER OF PASSPORTS (1) All persons possessing a United Kingdom passport who are placed on the children’s barred list for any kind of sexual offence involving contact with a child shall be required to surrender their passport in a manner to be prescribed by and to such agency as may be designated by the Secretary of State, or where they obtain a passport for the first time they must surrender it immediately on the same terms. (2) The passport of any person placed on the children’s barred list shall only be returned to its owner upon application in a manner to be prescribed by the Secretary of State, such application to include details of the intended travel itinerary of the person and the purpose of any travel outside of the United Kingdom. (3) It shall be an offence for any person subject to the provisions of subsection (1) to go abroad or attempt to go abroad using any form of identification other than his passport which has been made the subject of surrender under this section. (4) It shall be an offence for any person subject to the provisions of subsection (2) knowingly to provide false information about their intended travel itinerary or knowingly to provide false information about the purpose of their intended visit overseas.”” The noble Baroness said: The amendment seeks to introduce a new clause into the Bill. I apologise that it is written in plain English so that the Committee will be able to understand exactly what it is intended to do, but I am not a lawyer. As this is my first attempt at this, I thought I would write down exactly what I want to do and see where we get to. The amendment only affects people who have been convicted of a contact sexual offence against a child and have therefore been put on the banned list. It does not affect everyone on the banned list. At the moment, judges have a discretionary power to remove a convicted sex offender’s passport, but I regret to say that the judges, their clerks and prosecuting counsel seem unaware of this power because last year only one such order was made. I do not have any information about what happened previously to that. The proposed new clause, if enacted, would simply remove that discretionary element. It would not prevent people affected by the provisions from travelling abroad, but it would mean they would have to go to the police and explain where they were going and why in order to get their passports back. At the moment, people on the sex offenders’ register are supposed to report a change of address only if they are going to be away from their normal address for three days or more—some Members of the Committee may remember dealing with the legislation several years ago—but this is not working. With cheap flights to all kinds of destinations, one has to wonder about the effectiveness of the legislation even if the sex offenders abide by it. Many organisations and those of us who are interested in stopping prostitution and the exploitation of children abroad as well as in the UK question the effectiveness of the existing programme. In sharp contrast, with the World Cup coming up, let us consider the position of football hooligans who, even if they have not been convicted of a criminal offence, can be made the subject of a banning order which stops them from going abroad. Indeed, in the past few months the Home Office and the Football League have been keen to announce the success of banning orders. In 2004–05—in the same period in which one banning order was made against a sex offender—3,153 individuals were legally prevented from attending domestic and international football matches. In my view, the proposed new clause would, in essence, say to the rest of the world that we believe that protecting children overseas from British paedophiles is at least as important as protecting overseas football fans and citizens from the predations of our soccer hooligans. The clause is silent on what would happen to non-UK passport holders who are convicted in British courts of contact sex offences against children, but that is only because I am not sure what powers the British courts might have in relation to them for these purposes. ECPAT, the international End Child Prostitution and Trafficking organisation—which has campaigned tirelessly to end this evil trade from its headquarters in Bangkok and through its national branches, including in the United Kingdom—and the Metropolitan Police Child Protection Unit have indicated their support for the idea behind my amendment. If the Government are disposed to accept it in principle, I would be grateful for some help in improving the wording. I beg to move.