Keir Mather MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Industry · Hansard source

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  What an attractive proposition from my hon. Friend—and so early in my tenure in this position. He raises an incredibly important matter, and it would be remiss of me not to give it the full attention it deserves, and therefore I will respond to his specific questions further in writing.

• 11 Sept 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Industry · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman will know that through the ATI programme, the Department for Business and Trade co-invests with industry in research and technology development in the UK to maintain and grow the UK’s competitive position in civil aerospace. In addition, we fund the UK SAF Clearing House to help fuel producers navigate the testing and approval requirements for non-fossil fuel-based jet fuel. It co-ordinates testing and qualifications of SAF, helping to remove barriers to new fuels coming to market. Plus, the advanced fuels fund has allocated £198 million, with a core aim of overcoming technological risk for early-stage projects to support UK SAF production. If the right hon. Member wishes to discuss any other aspects of this policy, I will be very glad to meet him.

• 11 Sept 2025 · Aviation Sector Support · Hansard source

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  Our airports are gateways to the world for the British people and for investment into the UK from across the globe. The Government are committed to supporting the aviation sector as a central part of our growth mission. We are progressing airport planning decisions and modernising airspace; we invited and received proposals for Heathrow expansion, encouraging billions in investment; and to support sustainable growth we have introduced the sustainable aviation fuel mandate and the Bill on revenue certainty.

• 11 Sept 2025 · Aviation Sector Support · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has championed Prestwick airport and the aviation sector in his constituency, and I agree with him that aviation is vital to the UK’s industrial and regional prosperity. In 2022, air transport and aerospace supported around 240,000 jobs nationwide. The Government remain committed to backing the sector to deliver high-quality, well-paid jobs from Prestwick to communities across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) for securing this incredibly important debate. She has a formidable record of advocating for the rights of migrants in this place, and does so on behalf of her constituents in Sheffield, who share her belief in safety, security and dignity for all who live in our country. I am grateful to my hon. Friend and other hon. Members who have spoken so passionately in this important debate. The speeches made by hon. Members on both sides of the House have shown the real and emotive human stories that lie at the core of this policy, and the delicate balance of priorities that any Government must maintain to provide dignity to those who seek to build their lives in the United Kingdom while maintaining an immigration system that is managed and fair, and that, importantly, commands the support of the British public. I will come to some of the specific points that hon. Members have raised, but I will first briefly set out the Government’s position in broad terms. The House has ably demonstrated its familiarity with the details of the long-standing policy in question, but I will none the less provide some necessary context. The no recourse to public funds policy seeks to ensure that those coming to the UK do so with the ability to support themselves and their families. That is to ensure that migrants can begin building their lives in Britain while avoiding unexpected pressures in the welfare system. When applying for permission to enter or stay in the UK, most migrants must demonstrate that they can financially support both themselves and their dependants. On that basis, a no recourse to public funds condition is attached to their permission to enter or stay. That means that most temporary migrants will not have access to benefits that are classed as public funds. Those in the UK without an immigration status who require such a status are also subject to the NRPF condition. There are certain specific exemptions to the NRPF condition—for example, certain benefits, such as those based on national insurance contributions, may still be accessed. As part of the NRPF policy, there are a number of safeguards in place to protect vulnerable migrants. For the purposes of this debate, I will outline the safeguards in place to protect migrant children specifically. First, local authorities have a general duty, as imposed by children’s legislation, to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in need in their area. Hon. Members have noted some of the difficulties that local authorities face in doing that work, and I will take those away from this debate. That support does not depend on the immigration status of the child or their parents, and as such local authorities can provide basic safety net support through financial assistance for those most in need. Although asylum seekers and their dependants are not typically eligible for mainstream benefits, where they are at risk of destitution, the Home Office has a statutory duty to provide basic accommodation and a cash allowance to cover their other essential living needs. Support generally consists of basic accommodation and a standard weekly allowance that is reviewed on an annual basis to ensure that it remains sufficient. Additional financial support is also provided to pregnant women and young children to encourage healthy eating. Such support is at a level equivalent to that provided for the same purpose to British citizens on low incomes. Additionally, asylum-seeking children receiving that support are entitled to free healthcare, schooling and school meals. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam, migrants here under the family or private life routes, the “Appendix Child Relative”—CRP—route, or the Hong Kong British national overseas route have the option to apply for a change of conditions to have the NRPF condition lifted for free. My hon. Friend also ably described a lot of barriers to people seeking to access that scheme, which are important to takeaway, especially in how they relate to people’s ability to speak English and navigate the world of legal aid. Migrants who have been granted leave to remain under the Homes for Ukraine, Ukraine family and Ukraine permission extension schemes all also have recourse to public funds. If there are particularly compelling circumstances, discretion can be used to lift the NRPF condition on other immigration routes. Further to that, migrant children subject to the NRPF condition have access to various initiatives that are in place across the United Kingdom to support disadvantaged children. Those include free school meals, which are subject to certain eligibility thresholds; funding for schools to support disadvantaged children; 15 hours per week early years entitlement for disadvantaged two-year-olds in England; 15 hours per week early years entitlement for three to four-year-olds in England; support for children with special educational needs and disabilities; and local authority grants for help with the cost of school uniforms for low-income families. The Home Office continues to work across Government and with stakeholders to review and adapt the support given to disadvantaged migrant children, in line with evolving policies and legislation. I turn now to some of the issues raised by hon. Members in the debate. The first is the issue of data collection, which was discussed very ably by hon. Members on both sides of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam noted the adoption of the Atlas casework system, which will automate a large proportion of casework and could create new opportunities for data collection overall. The ability to collect data about the total number of people who are part of the scheme is challenging. The Home Office works with stakeholders who produce that data, but work is ongoing within the Home Office to gather information and explore what can be provided as evidence. As I am not the Minister responsible for this policy, I cannot comment in specific detail about how that process will operate, but I wanted to assure my hon. Friend that that work is ongoing. My hon. Friend also ably raised the issues regarding application processes for the lifting of conditions and the language barriers that migrants can face; those points were also powerfully made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson). My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam also raised the issue of British-born children not having access to public funds. In that set-up, there is usually one parent who can claim public funds, but I hope to provide her with some reassurance about where that is not the case when I talk later about how the no recourse to public funds system will intersect with the Government’s child poverty strategy. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) was right to predict that we might have a difference of view on NRPF and its merits as a whole, but she also talked about the human outrage that in this country there are still young people and children who display signs of malnutrition and rickets. The Government are steadfastly committed to eradicating the scourge of those diseases right across our United Kingdom through, for example, the roll-out of free breakfast clubs in primary schools across the country. Extending free school meals to young children whose parents are in receipt of universal credit will mean that half a million more children across the United Kingdom will have access to free school meals, which will also have an enormous impact. The stuff that the Government are doing around the edges will also have an enormous impact on the food poverty that children experience every day. I point to the £13 million that was recently allocated to 12 charities to ensure that food grown by British farmers is provided as quickly as possible to children facing food poverty. It is such work, writ large, that will allow us to make a dent in this scourge. The individual cases that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North spoke about are particularly distressing; I am certain that they will have shocked everybody in this Chamber. I am not sure when she received the correspondence from the Home Office that she referred to— [ Interruption. ] She indicates that it was under the previous Government. If she would like to reach out again on that specific issue, or on any other casework matters, I will be very glad to ensure that that information is passed along to the relevant Minister. The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who is no longer in his place, asked whether the Home Office will have a role in the development of the child poverty taskforce, which I will turn to later. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) also made very important points about the impact of child poverty in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) spoke with characteristic experience, expertise and passion on the plight of people in her constituency, particularly the children in poverty. I politely and respectfully disagree with her about the extent to which the Government are committed to tackling the scourge of child poverty across our country. The child poverty taskforce will report later in the year, because it wants to produce a long-term and holistic approach to tackling this scourge and the details need to be right. However, that does not mean that we have been unable to take concrete action to make a real dent in this awful problem. I point to the extension of free school meals to half a million more children, which will lift 100,000 children in England totally out of poverty; supporting 700,000 families through the fair repayment rate on universal credit deductions; a national minimum wage increase for 3 million workers; rolling out free breakfast clubs in our primary schools; and the household support fund being extended until March next year at a cost of £742 million. In my view, those actions will have a concrete impact on child poverty.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Child Poverty and No Recourse to Public Funds · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to point to the achievements of the last Labour Government in making progress on this issue. She is also right to hold my feet to the fire and say that no distance is too far when it comes to tackling child poverty. That needs to be at the core and be the philosophy of everything that this Labour Government seek to achieve. At the same time, though, we need to recognise the progress that we are making, get behind it as a Government and be able to action the art of the possible in the immediate term. Supporting those policies will mean that, due to the increased roll-out of free school meals, 100,000 children will not be in poverty who otherwise would have been. I turn to the comments from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). When I made my maiden speech in the House of Commons in an Adjournment debate, he was uncharacteristically not in his place, so I am very grateful that we have had the opportunity to interact with one another two years down the line. He is right that the scourge of child poverty is present right across the United Kingdom, and that a child growing up in Northern Ireland who is facing that issue needs just as much support as one growing up in England, Wales or Scotland. As someone from a party that wants to improve the life chances of children across the entire Union, I think that point is incredibly well made. That is why, when the child poverty taskforce reports later in the year, there will be a nationwide strategy to improve the outcomes and life chances of people across the United Kingdom. The hon. Member also pointed to the incredibly important issue of the impact on educational attainment for children living in poverty, and especially food poverty. It is an outrage that children in this country are unable to learn because they are too hungry to focus in class, and he made that point incredibly powerfully. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) similarly made an important point on that subject, and she raised the important issue of delays in the asylum backlog, which the Government are laser-focused on driving down. I remember how powerful her maiden speech in the House of Commons was, and how it touched on experiences, both in her life and in her constituency, relating to the impact of hardship. Her points today were incredibly well made. I turn to the child poverty taskforce. As many hon. Members have ably said, a single child living in poverty in Britain is one too many. Tackling this scourge and providing every child in Britain with the ability not just to get by, but to live a happy, rich and fulfilled life is at the core of this Labour Government’s mission for our country. The child poverty taskforce was announced in the summer of 2024, with the objective of improving children’s lives and life chances and tackling the root causes of child poverty in the long term. Poverty scars the life chances of our children. In the 14 wasted years of Conservative Government, child poverty numbers increased by 900,000. We continue to grapple with that legacy today, with 4.5 million children now living in poverty in the UK and 1.1 million children using food banks to eat. I am pleased to confirm that children whose families are in scope of the NRPF policy will be included in the child poverty strategy. Officials are working closely with the Cabinet Office and with officials across Government on the detail and delivery of this new initiative, and specifically its application to children who are subject to NRPF. The Government are grateful to stakeholders for their support in facilitating discussions to build our understanding of child poverty among migrant families. That included hearing from those families themselves, to listen to the challenges they face and to have meaningful discussions on possible solutions. The Government have recently announced, via the immigration White Paper, a review of family policy, and the findings from this taskforce will be utilised for future policy development in this space. Work in this area remains ongoing, so I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam will understand that I am not in a position today to offer substantive comment on the detail. But I can say that the Minister for migration and citizenship, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), is meeting her counterpart in the Department for Work and Pensions next week to discuss in more detail what the Home Office’s role will be in delivering the child poverty strategy. To conclude, the NRPF policy is, and will continue to be, a means by which we maintain a managed but fair immigration system. Temporary migrants coming to the UK are expected, in general, to support themselves and not rely on Government support, but it is right that the policy is continually reviewed and assessed for its impact, particularly in relation to migrant children. This is something we take incredibly seriously, and I point to the Home Office’s involvement in the child poverty taskforce as evidence of the Government’s continued commitment to protecting vulnerable children. I offer my thanks to all my hon. Friends and Members across the House who have participated in this debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam for securing it. These are sensitive, complex issues and it is right that we discuss them thoroughly and carefully. I believe that has very much been the case today.

• 14 May 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I gave prior notice, both to the Speaker’s Office and to the Member concerned, that I intended to raise this point of order. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) appeared on Channel 4 in his role as deputy leader of Reform UK. Filming in my constituency, he called into question the future of our local power station and therefore the hundreds of jobs that it supports locally, which I know will cause real anxiety for constituents in Selby. He did not inform me that he was coming to Selby or that he intended to use our industry, our jobs and our local communities as a political football for Reform UK’s national agenda. On behalf of workers in my constituency, how might I prevent this from happening again, and how might I relay the message that if he wishes to push his anti-worker, anti-jobs and, quite frankly, anti-Yorkshire agenda, he can do so from his constituency across the border in Lincolnshire?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Chief constable, I have a question referring back to the issues you raised about rural crime. It is becoming a particularly pernicious issue for communities, especially when it comes to things such as off-road bikes, fly-tipping and the theft of farm vehicle equipment. Can you speak to how the provisions in the Bill will allow police forces to better tackle rural crime as a whole? Chief Constable De Meyer: I agree entirely with the point in respect of rural crime. We need to acknowledge how important the rural economy and the custodians of our countryside are, and policing needs to do more to bring offenders to justice. If I am not mistaken, one provision in the Bill relates to the point about the swift recovery of electronic devices. I think that that enables us to act more swiftly in respect of the proceeds of some rural crime offences as well. This is a category of crime where the proceeds are often disposed of very quickly to other parts of the country and, indeed, overseas. Very often, of course, those pieces of equipment or devices have a tracking capability, so anything that enables us more swiftly to respond and recover that property gives us a much better chance of bringing those offenders to justice than has been the case in the past. It is also likely to have a considerable deterrent value for organised crime groups, and opportunistic criminals too. Dan Murphy: There is provision for seizing vehicles without giving notice. Without going into detail, I think that that will definitely assist.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (First sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Sir Robert, you have vast experience in understanding that large crime and policing Bills such as this one need intense co-operation between the criminal justice system, frontline officers, the prison service and the courts. From your experience in Government, do you have any lessons about how we can better improve that co-operation? Sir Robert Buckland: Well, we do not have all day, Mr Mather, but there is a lot I can say. The Bill is a relative minnow compared with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which was the combined Bill that I worked on with the then Home Secretary. The important thing is to make sure that legislative and political intent do not run too far ahead of operational reality. I will give the example of when we changed the law on stalking. This is going back a bit now, when I was still a Back Bencher. Dame Diana was certainly involved; it was a cross-party achievement. We did it in record time and got the law changed within months—it was an incredible achievement—but the police were not operationally ready. I still see evidence even now, 10 years on, of a lack of training about and awareness of the tell-tale signs of stalking. The message I give to you all—particularly the parliamentarians who are cutting their teeth on this Bill—is to make sure that you read the impact assessments, that Ministers can answer your questions about operational reality, and that the police chiefs, the CPS and all the agencies that have the job of doing this are ready and resourced to make the legislative intent a reality. Otherwise, your constituents are going to be coming back to you in a few years, saying, “Why haven’t there been any prosecutions under this new offence?”

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you very much for your evidence, Dr Newport. I want to look back to something that you said at the beginning of your remarks about encouraging citizens to use CCTV in their homes to better allow the police to prosecute crimes. One issue that does recur, even when CCTV is available in people’s homes and they can say to the police, “Look, I’ve got this here for you to be able to use to catch who perpetrated this burglary”, or whatever else, is that the CCTV is not always used in the way people would like. I wonder if you could speak to that. I think there is also a bit of a regional inequality point. In my part of Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, there is live access to CCTV in York. That can be important in allowing people to deal with crimes in the moment, as they find them, and to direct police forces to the right spot. In Selby, however, our CCTV looks like it comes out of the 1970s; it is too blurry and grainy to use half the time, and it poses major challenges for the police. Can you point to how those practical realities affect your earlier remarks? Dr Newport: That is why home CCTV is so useful. Cameras now are vastly cheaper than they were even 20 years ago when a lot of this infrastructure was put in place. You can get high definition cameras now on your doorbell in a way that 20 years ago would have been obscenely expensive. For the price of £30, homeowners with one of those cameras can probably outcompete, in a lot of ways, the national infrastructure or otherwise that was put in a long time ago. I completely agree that it is extremely frustrating that a lot of the time, even when there is CCTV, it is not being looked at or used. There are several ways of encouraging that and making it easier. One is that there should be clauses on the procurement of artificial intelligence systems that could scan that footage. It is extremely likely that current systems can do that, and future systems will certainly be able to do it. Give a system indications of what to look for, and it can highlight that to officers within seconds. We should have that, and the fact that it is not used at all is astounding. It should also be the case that officers have training so that they look at footage in the most time-efficient way. For example, with binary searches, rather than viewing the whole footage on fast forward to see an incident, if you are looking for a bike missing, for instance, you watch the bike. You check in halfway through the footage—is it there or not? If it is, you check at 75%—is it there or not? You keep doing that in halves, and you can do an extremely fast search. It might take you minutes, when otherwise it would take you hours to go through footage. Some officers are still going through hours and hours of footage rather than simply using methods that we know work extremely well.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you for coming to give evidence today, Mr Durham. Rural crime absolutely blights communities across my rural North Yorkshire constituency, and a lot of the measures in the Bill will make a difference, whether they are to deal with off-road bikes, the theft of equipment from farm vehicles or fly-tipping. However, the substance of the law matters in its application, and a big challenge that we have in the Selby district is cross-border crime: criminals will perpetrate some of these acts on one side of a border and slip across to South Yorkshire or West Yorkshire and evade detection by the police. Does the NFU have a view on how we can take some of these provisions but operationalise them in a cross-border way to make sure that these criminals are brought to justice? Sam Durham: Certainly. For a long time, while we have been working on crime, we have always pushed for co-ordination and consistency as the key. My members on any county or police force boundary will certainly say that they have the issues you mentioned. A criminal will know that they will get treated differently in one force area compared with the other, and stolen equipment can be taken across borders where there is less chance of investigation and action. We welcome some of the work the National Police Chiefs’ Council is doing now, including bringing together the national rural crime unit. The Home Office has funded that unit for the next three years, and that is positive news. Information sharing, the sharing of best practice and linking forces together is key. We see that there is also a challenge for the Government to work across Departments. I was at the National Rural Crime Network conference on Tuesday, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office were there. There are instances, such as with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and fly-tipping, in which other Government Departments can work together more at a national level and filter that down to working together on a local level.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I want to ask about the confidence that individual farmers will have in these measures. We are in an unenviable situation at the moment. Farmers in my constituency deal with criminality frequently, and they have to step up themselves and put themselves in danger. I was speaking to a farmer in Brotherton the other month who had chased a gang of people on off-road bikes across his farm, putting himself at personal risk and danger. Do you think that, if implemented correctly, these measures will provide individual farmers with reassurance that they will not have to put themselves in similar danger in the future? Sam Durham: I hope so. In general, the rural community and farmers have a good relationship with the police. They recognise the challenges the police have with low numbers, but where forces have a rural crime team, they build a link with the local community and the farming community. When I go to meetings around the country, I hear that rural crime is a big issue, but they support the police; they just want to give the police the tools to deal with the criminality they are having to deal with themselves. Certainly, the link to organised criminality is worth investigating as well. The theft of a quad bike from a farm may seem a low-level crime, but it is potentially funding bigger networks. On the fly-tipping side, there is evidence that waste crime is linked to organised criminal activity as well. Putting the picture together—I have given you a long answer—I think farmers will be reassured that the Government are taking this issue seriously. Alongside some of the other legislation, on equipment theft and livestock worrying, the Bill shows that rural crime is being taken seriously.

• 27 Mar 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q Thank you both for your evidence. Councillor Garratt, you remarked earlier about public order measures, protests and the concerns you have, quite rightly, about some of the protests we have seen in London. Can you speak to some of the specific provisions in the Bill, particularly those that create new criminal offences of concealing your identity at a protest, of climbing on specified war memorials, and of wearing or displaying articles in support of prescribed organisations? How do you think the practical application of some of these measures in London will help to deal with the public order concerns you mentioned? Councillor Garratt: I welcome all the provisions you just listed, which are all positive. I think I might have seen them somewhere before, in fact. When we at the Assembly press the police on how they police protests, there are two sets of problems: one is the issue around powers—what they can or cannot do—which I spoke about earlier. The courts have decided that they cannot remove somebody for simply sitting in a road if it is a protest. On the other hand, there is a practical problem in the sense that if you have a very large protest—for example, the ones we have seen on Saturday mornings—with a very large group of people and a limited number of police officers, the practical ability to carry out what you might think of as a snatch operation comes down to a risk-based decision that the senior officer on the site has to make. One of the ways in which the new provisions may not necessarily make much difference is if the police judge that it is difficult for them in practice. For example, if you have a crowd of a thousand people all wearing face masks, what exactly is the practical step that the police would be able to take? I welcome the provisions. It is a good idea to have them for people who climb on wall memorials and wear face masks. In particular, although being unpleasant is not against the law, I am very on board with the provisions for those who appear to be supporting terrorist organisations, or inciting violence against groups of people. The question mark I have in my mind is whether the police have either the resources or, on balance, the willingness to go into a large crowd of people, who probably will not welcome their arrival, to actually enforce those provisions. Councillor Conway: We think the measures are broadly welcome. We will obviously have to see how they go in practice, but something fundamental is needed, as has been shown over the past year or so, in respect of the way you balance the very legitimate right to protest, which we have to enshrine, and people feeling intimated. There is a wider discussion than just this Bill in terms of how it is possible to disagree agreeably—we had this conversation last week. Some of this, in respect of the face masks and so on, sets a basic code for how you engage in public life and public space.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Draft Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Amendment) (Provision of Information) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Amendment) (Provision of Information) Order 2025. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. The order amends the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 to give the Disclosure and Barring Service an express power to share its barred list information with UK non-territorial police forces and the Crown dependency police forces of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. As well as issuing criminal record certificates, commonly known as DBS checks, the DBS also maintains two lists: one of people whom the DBS has barred from working in “regulated activity” with children; and one of those whom it has barred from working in “regulated activity” with adults. “Regulated activity” includes sensitive roles, such as work in schools and health and social care. The DBS bars people from such work if their criminal history, other information held by the police or their behaviour in the workplace indicates that they pose a high risk to either or both of these groups. The DBS updates the police national database—the PND—on a weekly basis with the names of individuals who have been barred. If the police then look up a named individual on the PND, for example, for the purposes of a criminal investigation or police officer vetting, the police will be able to see whether that person is on one or the other of the DBS’s barred lists. An express power to share such information with the police is provided to the DBS by section 50A of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. This gives the DBS the power to provide any information it has to a chief officer of police for purposes specified in the Act, and it confirms that a chief officer of police includes Police Service Northern Ireland and Police Scotland. It does not make express reference to the non-territorial police forces and Crown dependency police forces. Following an extensive review, which included arrangements for accessing the PND, the DBS decided, on a precautionary basis, that there should be an express statutory ground for sharing its barred list data with these forces. It therefore took steps in March 2024 to prevent them accessing the barred status of individuals, pending resolution of the legislative position. This means that the non-territorial forces and the Crown dependency police forces cannot currently access an individual’s barred list status. We therefore intend, through this order, to make it clear that the definition of “chief officer of police” in section 50A also includes chief officers of the UK non-territorial and Crown dependency police forces. The non-territorial forces are the British Transport Police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the Ministry of Defence Police, the Royal Navy Police, the Royal Air Force Police, the Royal Military Police, the National Crime Agency and the tri-service serious crime unit. The Crown dependency forces are the States of Jersey Police force, the salaried police force of the island of Guernsey and the Isle of Man Constabulary. This will give the DBS the certainty it seeks to provide all forces with access to information that indicates someone is considered to pose a risk to children or vulnerable adults. To conclude, through the barring of individuals who are deemed to pose a risk to children or vulnerable adults, the disclosure and barring regime protects the most vulnerable in our society. The information on an individual’s barred list status is important to decisions made by police forces, whether related to police officer vetting or the prevention and investigation of crime, so that they can carry out their functions effectively and keep the public safe. This order will confirm beyond any doubt that the DBS has the express statutory power to share this information with UK non-territorial and Crown dependency police forces, putting them on the same legal footing as territorial forces. I commend the order to the Committee.

• 26 Feb 2025 · Draft Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (Amendment) (Provision of Information) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent, and the hon. Member for Edinburgh West for their contributions to the debate. I note that most of the individuals who are barred by DBS will be the subject of other information that is held on police systems. Therefore, if the shadow Minister requires any other additional information on the question of remedial action, which she mentioned, I should be grateful if she would write to me—I can provide her with any other information that she might require. The majority of those on the barred list are there because they already have a conviction for a serious sexual or violent offence, or because police information indicates that they present a risk. We therefore judge that the information gap and any associated safeguarding risk created by those forces’ current inability to access barred list data are likely to be limited, but that does not mean that we cannot act to close any gaps where they might occur. It is right to take action to close the gap in this instance, in the interests of public protection. The fact of someone being barred is important information in its own right, especially in a recruitment or vetting context. In some limited cases, that will be the only information held on a police national database or the police national computer to indicate that the person is not suitable to work with children or vulnerable adults. On data sharing in law enforcement, I note that sharing was taking place until March 2024, when the DBS stated that it wanted a firmer statutory basis on which the list sharing could take place. There was confidence in the operation of that system before then, and I hope that the draft order will ensure that that confidence persists. I again thank the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Edinburgh West for their considered contributions. I hope that I have answered their questions fully and satisfactorily. As I set out, I believe the draft order is necessary to ensure that all police forces have access to information that will help them to perform the critical task of protecting the public. I commend the order to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.