And Another Thing…

“I take parents’ views on this issue much more seriously than those without children.”

Don’t see why, unless you think that only parents will consider 0% risk to be acceptable, and that they are right to do so.

While the innocent are forced to jump through hoops for a piece of paper that says that they are not a danger to other people’s children, the real danger that children face continues in their own homes where sustained abuse happens by members of the family.

Tom, yesterday was doing my wee bit of voluntary work and this policy was the talk of the tearoom. Many volunteers are retired like me and we’ve all had a CRB check because of the nature of the work we do.

But the discussion was on a personal level where many, who are grandparents, have their grandchildren’s friends to stay or go on trips with them and the favours are returned by the other families. Without exception every person said they would no longer do that because they refused to be registered on another government database.

Now these people are your average voter and say enough’s enough. This policy will completely destroy society as many know it.

Another question was ‘how is it going to be policed’?

I certainly will campaign against this. Without friends and family helping me with my family many years ago, I would never have been able to progress in my career and thereby offer my family a better quality of life.

It certainly is a case of guilty until proven innocent and labour should be ashamed using children as an excuse in their efforts to have every UK resident on a database.

So Tom you’ll “take parents’ views on this issue much more seriously than those without children”. Maybe this will make you pay attention. If I wanted to take my two nephews are a trip to say Disneyland Paris or London as a treat, me as a single man, even one known to the children’s father for all 38 years of his life would not be allowed to sit next to them on a BA flight. I’d have to trust my 8 and 5-year-old nephews to sit next to some stranger instead.

I’ve also run Anchor Boys and Boys Brigade activites and on occasions the decision for who can drive the boys to an event comes down to which parents are available on the morning in question. If say one of the parents we may have had CRBed is indisposed at the last minute people may not be able to transfer say a whole football squad to a match, under the new proposals.

Also Tom would you care to answer just were the police are going to find the time to carry out CRB checks on 25% of the population AND carry on fighting crime?

I’m so pleased that the role of the State is no longer as our servant, but our master.

We are all now considered to be Paedophiles unless we can prove otherwise. Nice. No wonder there are 4 million CCTV cameras watching us. We are all criminals.

Just for that, I am off to teach some kids to smoke and shoot airguns.

Is it not up to the parents to do the veting. I used to take a mini rugby team members all over the place to away games.
Its a totaly over reaction as always from labour. deal with the people that comit crime not the rest of us. Then you just let them off.
Labour are jusr vindictive and love making life difficult for the middle classes. The nasty party.The class was goes on.

Existing laws should have stopped Iain Huntley. We need protecting from the Police.

I have no doubt that in your case, that is true, but it isn’t for the rest of us.

Well, I noticed today that the Police have put a guy in prison for not living where they told him to live (huh?) and mixing with people they don’t like (huh?).

What they do to others, one day they will do to us. It appears it has already begun

Tom said: “although I think [Chris Grayling's fears on volunteering] are somewhat overstated”

Wrong. The committee of a club of which I am a membership has already scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss this. The proposal is that we exclude membership to over 18s only. So that is teenage boys wanting to learn about the outdoors out.

I have no doubt as to the outcome. The club members I am in contact with have made it clear that they will NOT consent to be guilty until proven innocent and stuck on another database.

This is your poll tax – and your party is already down in the polls.

LOL – what a good typo! That last entry should have read

“The committee of a club of which I am a member”

rather than

“The committee of a club of which I am a membership”

Can anyone tell me when these regulations came into force? The Act itself became law in 2006.

Tom, this is a MASSIVE overaction to the very small number of predatory child sex/killing crimes.

Anyone with any self-respect will feel insulted that their desire to help out, give up their free time and generally be a good egg now required them to be ‘approved’.

The breakdown of the trust between adults and children is already way out of kilter – this will make it even worse as we’re all guilty until proven innocent.

Tom, my understanding is that they come into force in October

Tom, come now. Just because the stable door is open doesn’t always mean the horse has bolted.

We still have a month before this becomes the 27,095th pointless stupid law introduced by New Labour.

A week is along time in Politics.

I have a feeling that a U-turn (which of course the Government will insist isn’t a U-turn at all, just ‘clarification’ of the rules) will shortly be forthcoming.

It is starting to dawn on them that this isn’t a popular policy. The Government already has a well-deserved reputation for a combination of authoritarianism; nanny-stateism and turning us into a surveillance society – and there’s a General Election due fairly soon now.

Just imagine the furore if (when) details of THIS database are leaked or left on a train!

The impression given is if you were to take your young son to footy every Sunday and along the way you picked up some of his friends.

You would have to be checked i mean is that not a bit over the top if true.

Tom .. Can I ask you what you would do if you were on your own and found a small child, obviously lost? Please answer.

I strongly suspect that – to our shame – most men would now just keep on walking …

This is the climate that these sort of regulations is creating where paradoxically children are being put at greater risk not less because the vast majority of decent men would now not intercede to help. Soham was a vile crime but unless we lift this sense of paranoia – at all levels – about societies treatment of children then more not less harm, of all kinds, will come to children

Tom this is just another reason why you will loose so heavily. we do not want to live like this. Nothing is thought through. Sometimes the hardest thing to decide, is to do nothing. Deal with the people that break the law not the rest of us.
This is why people refer to the Labour police state, as with laws like this you are creating one.
It says it all when you your self admit you have no idea when it became law.another thing that went through on the nod. can you imagine what the BBC would have had to say about this if the Tories had done it, yet we have heard nothing from them, and just shows they are just another arm of this Labour government.

Most of the kids round my way should be vetted before they’re allowed anywhere near an adult.

Looks like the comments here reveal the real purpose of this legislation, i.e. to build a national database by stealth and to continue breaking the bonds that unite communities in order to control us even further.

Sure, bad things happen and *reasonable* steps should always be taken to minimise risks, but this is not reasonable.

Oh, and for a society that pretends to care so much about the cheeldren, well, this is how much the system cares: Bereaved mother’s campaign against medical guidelines that allow premature babies to die.

This new policy will net the Government around £500M of additional revenue and will allow them to add approximately 11M people to the same central database that they plan to use for the ID card scheme.

I suspect that ‘child protection’ is about fifth on the Government’s list of real reasons for doing it…

Also add on the £5K per fine wrongly issued in the inevitable muddle in interpretion (does anyone HAVE £5k lying around these days?)

I, too, suspect that this is ID by the back door with a nice little earner for the Government thrown in.

I used not to be a cynic – then I discovered New Labour. The effect is shattering.

Father of four adult children. This legislation has stoppe me volunteering at a Steiner School down the road; I was involved for years as a parent & equivalent of PTA at the Bristol school. Simply, out of work for 3 years, turned down for endless jobs, I thought I could help, but for starters I can’t afford the CRB & ISA check, and I resent the implication that the checks imply.

Also – it is a LIE that this would prevent another Huntly murder.

Also – 90% of abuse takes place in the child’s home, by relatives or friends of the family.

So when do we checks for grandparents, Tom? And when do we expect Ed Balls’ wet dream – a CCTV in ever room in every house.

This sort of legislation, and the fact that utterly unfounded rumour and innuendo can be held on the database as truth, fosters mistrust and nastiness.

All in all, New Labour legislation at its most unpleasant. I think it is this that is sending us over the Irish Sea. Can;t take any more. Indeed, as one who adores kids, who has always delighted in the exchanges with them, who delights in the fact that, being 6’6″ I am a source of wonder to small children, provoking some hilarious exchanges; as one who always stopped to inquire when I found a child in distress. No more.

Mama, mama, we’re all paedos now.

Samctimonious, nasty, prying, interfering socialist control freakery.

I though better of you Tom; but we have this, and we have you slapping Johnson on the back simply for doing what any honest human being would do.

Again. This is a sick country.

You do realise that the vetting under the act, due to come into force October 2009, will require conitual vetting.

So not only will volunteers be subject to approval by an independent body chosen by the minister, they’ll have to pay again and again.

Not only are you impuning the volunteers you are stealing money from those who help create communities.

More poer for the state, less for people.

All guilty unless you and yours decide we are innocent.

Habeuas Corpus is long gone from the UK and any memebr of the labour party should be ashamed for aiding and abetting its destruction.

And by the way, Tom, can you tell me why the country’s criminal records are owned by a private company?

I once thought Tom Harris to be a reasonably well balanced Labour MP, but certainly no longer.

I find it very difficult indeed for anyone with a modicom of sense, especially a parent like myself and Tom Harris, to support this further erosion of something that should be recognised as the very mortar which holds our crumbling society together. TRUST!

Not only does this piece of legislative garbage label everyone a paedophile and a threat to children unless they have been ‘cleared’ by the State, but it also
will raise suspicions and doubts amongst neighbours and former friends and trusted acquaintances.

I have worked in Education (Schools and Colleges) for over 40 years and have been CRB checked on several occasions as a pre-requisite of my various employments.

Fair enough, I have, through my work had access to all areas of these insitutions and have on many occasions and in many situations clearly recognised the need for such a check to be undertaken on people with such access.

However,I am absolutely disheartened that our elected representatives are capable of putting together such a dreadfully divisive piece of legislation without any real consideration of its consequences. This is not needed and certainly would not have prevented the Soham murders.

For information, Chris Grayling is on record as saying that the Conservative Party have been reviewing the ISA for sometime and they do not rule out its complete abolition.

The problem is not that you need vetting to take the neighbour’s kid to the footie, the problem is the huge number of small clubs and societies that meet for fun.

For example – suppose I like playing chess so I put a notice in the paper that I am starting a chess club fortnightly at the local library. I get a dozen adults who turn up and pay £1 each for hire of the room and to cover tea and biscuits.

Then little Johnny gets brought along or is told about us by the librarian. Now what happens? We are club. We meet more than once a month. There are non-CRB adults in contact with a child.

What will happen is that little Johnny will be told “Sorry kid, come back when you’re 18″.

There are thousands of little clubs and societies like the one I suppposed above. They meet and enjoy themselves. The introduce older children (usually teenagers) into the company of adults. Trainspotters, astronomy clubs, chess clubs, bridge clubs, whist drives, stamp clubs, reading circles, etc, etc. All of these will meet the criteria and the choice they will have is

1. Admit kids and put all members on “The Database”

2. No members under 18

I know which they will choose, and it ain’t option 1……

Iain Gill: “as suspected nobody supporting the government position”

Yes, the comment section of this blog surely features a highly representative sample of the population at large…

(That was snark by the way)

Serious question here Tom;
I was just gonna respond with the righteous and holy anger I feel towards another example of fascism, but I could never compare to the spleen-venting level of hatred Old Holborn displays so eloquently, so in lieu of this, a brief question shall have to suffice:

Will everyone on this new *huge* database also be added at the same time (with or without explicit consent) to the National Identity Register? After all, we were told the NIR will contain information about you if said information was previously help on other governmental databases…

If so, how do you respond to the charge that the criminalisation of 10% of the population is nothing more than a cynical way of getting them onto the NIR which is already doomed to failure, given that David Cameron et al could go on a baby-killing spree and will still be gracing No10. inside of a year….

Hawkeye makes a good point. Furthermore, the legislation also covers ‘vulnerable adults’. If the definition is wide enough to include all elderly people then bang go OAP luncheon clubs and meals on wheels.

My wife plays piano – voluntarily – for a wide range of groups including children.

She is required to be CRB checked by a number. She has decided not to bother. I understand those groups are unable to get ANY piano player..to replace her.

The fact that this system produces 1400 jobs in a Labour constituency says it all.

PS latest Scottish Mori poll on PB…

Love the “ID card by the back door” conspiracy theory!

I’ve been CRB checked for my work with children. It was done by filling in a form with my address and previous address in order that police checks could be carried out. I may have had to name my employer. I didn’t send any fluids.

But, of course! The envelope or stamp would have been used to extract my DNA. And then, of course, there were my fingerprints on the letter. And my handwriting. And the CCTV camera by the post box. It’s all true, they have stolen my DNA. B****Y NEW LABOUR!

Seriously, though, the actual point of your post, about whether Chris Grayling would feel able to repeal this legislation, is right. I seem to remember the screams from the tabloids for greater protection for children after the terrible events in Soham.

Sadly, no matter how many rules and checks and regulations are put in place, it will never be possible to protect every child from attack by a stranger. Paedophiles can be very clever, very plausible and very, very patient in building up a child’s trust. And while it may be true that 90% of abuse happens in the home, that still leaves 10% of incidents that involve non family members. Even after the new regulations begin, we’ll never really know how many children’s lives have been saved. Although we’ll certainly know how many “freedom fighters” have been mortally offended by the assumption that they are all guilty until proved innocent. They’re jumping up and down all over the Blogosphere. So much outrage, so much hot air.

But who would be a politician facing the press, having revoked this legislation, after a tragedy involving a child and someone they thought they could trust because they met them at a club, or at school, or at the library?

Surely we have all sorts of legislation and checks that question whether we can be trusted.
Do we need speed limits? I can be trusted to drive at a sensible speed for the road.
Do we need security tags on items in shops? I can be trusted not to steal anything.
Do we need ticket inspectors? I wouldn’t travel without a ticket. I could go on.
This is children we’re talking about. Are they worth £60 a check? Or £100? Or not.

Rapunzel.

Did you read the comments.

1. Govt claim this will prevent another Soham. It won’t. The conditions that pertained there are not handled by ISA

2. The vast majority of child abuse takes place IN THE CHILD’S HOME.

There is an argument to say that this is just another case of data gathering, bureaucracy (which really gets Brown’s rocks off, clearly) and a stealth tax – it will raise c 3/4 billion.

And yes, it will be used to push ID cards, of course it will.

Anyone who trusts this shower deserves all they get.

Looks like – from Political Betting – that Labour are going to be slaughtered North of the border. And as that is a mainstay of their client state, what does that project for south of the border.

Bring it on.

As I understand it if there is an arrangement for a parent / relative / friend to take a neighbour’s child or a group of children swimming that is fine. But if the swimming pool arranges for somebody to collect the children on a voluntary basis, that person should be CRB checked. I know personally of a case where a youth worker in a local church has been imprisoned for abusing children he was supposed to be caring for – including seven year old girls. If someone like him can be stopped – where is the problem? I was CRB checked for a role I play in our local community, and it really is not a big deal. Why should we trust our children to characters who may be hiding behind the respectability a church or swimming pool or theatre group offers?

I was going to post about this on mine, but you have the substance of the argument, to here goes.

I moved house recently, only to be sent a letter, with bold red ink, that I was under investigation.

You all know what that was about. We in this country are assumed to be so besotted with Television that not to have one is seen as a kind of aberration.

Well, I do not have a TV and have mostly done without one for some years.

What I don’t like about the TV licencing deal is the assumption of guilt. There is a very dangerous line crossed when you must prove your innocence, especially to a low paid drudge who cannot even spell your name right.

I still get letters from the Child Support Agency, even thought my youngest child is almost 22 years old.

I spent a day on the phone years ago, trying to convince a Magistrate’s court that I not only had a driver’s licence (they were summoning me for not having one) but that my name had been spelled incorrectly. Again, the assumption of guilt was there for me to disprove.

And now to the issue. I would not and will not, under any circumstances, pay some bumptious, unnecessary government department to prove I am not a paedophile.

Indeed no piece of paper can prove anything of the sort – all it can prove is that you have not been caught.

When my son was about ten years old, he was in a well known choir. It never occurred to me that it was odd how the choir master took them on trips to swimming pools. Turned out he was abusing some of the boys and he went to jail. In the choirmaster’s case, no declaration would have made any difference.

I a afraid this is an over-reaction, and I am not only a parent, but a parent whose son came into contact (but was not abused) by a paedophile.

@ Sergeant Plodder.

Yes, I read the comments. Not altogether edifying, I would say. Not the greatest reflection on my fellow citizens.

“The vast majority of child abuse takes place IN THE CHILD’S HOME.”

True indeed. And tragic. And very difficult to prevent, and very difficult to discover, due to the victims’ extreme problems with talking about it. I’ve come across it in my professional life.

Doesn’t stop me wanting to prevent the abuse that happens outside the home. THESE ARE CHILDREN WE’RE TALKING ABOUT. Little, trusting, unworldly beings, so easily taken advantage of by adults in the big wide world.

It’s like so much else in life. The god-fearing, law-abiding decent majority suffer for the acts of the s****y minority. If the human race hadn’t produced those who wish to hurt and harm others, there’s be no need for any of the rules that so called “libertarians’ make so much fuss about.

So tell me, Tom, giving the rising outcry of public anger over this – will the Labour Party act on behalf of Harriet’s beloved “Court Of Public Opinion”?

Or does it only do that when it can make political capital out of it?

Yechhh.

One thing I do know, were I a parent of school age children today, and heard that Brown or Balls were coming to a school they went, to – I’d take them out for the day.

Ministers even came under attack from one of Labour’s most powerful voices on child welfare.

Barry Sheerman, Labour chairman of the Commons’ children and families select committee condemned the way the policy was being implemented and demanded that Children’s Secretary Ed Balls “get a grip on this”.

Wrinkled Weasel – try our line.

Response letter #1

“What exactly is it about ‘We do not have a television’ that you do not understand?”

Response letter #2

We would be more than happy for your detector van to park outside your house; should your employees need tea and biscuits, during their sojourn, tell them to come and knock on our door.

Response letter #3

If you believe we are lying, please put that in writing and we will commence immediate legal action against you.

No further response needed.

They’ve just started again after two years, so I will be doing the same again, and if any more arrive, suing them for harassment.

By the way, they are NOT a government agency. They are Capita. You can come to your own conclusions as to what rights that gives them over you.

[...] plausible that it’s just they haven’t said anything yet. The closest I’ve seen is a partial and caveated post on the political difficulties presented by the ISA from Labour MP Tom [...]

Thanks for the link. My post was pretty much an off the cuff reaction to the headlines, but I’ve been having a look around at what other bloggers have written on the subject and have done a bit of a round up this morning. I’ve also included some very interesting comments left on my Facebook and will add more as I get the contributors’ permission to do so.

I wondered if you’d had a chance to read Charlotte Gore’s analysis of the nitty gritty of the guidelines. http://charlottegore.com/2009/09/13/britain-is-turning-into-a-totaliarian-state.html/comment-page-1#comment-6919. I don’t share her fear that our slide to totalitarianism is complete, but some of the stuff she has written is brilliant.

I do worry that those people who have unconventional lifestyles and opinions, who maybe choose not to have their children immunised, or home educate them, might end up being barred for no good reason. Also, I, who admit to sometimes allowing my child to read certain posts on right wing blogs with swear words in them, (perhaps not quite what her teacher meant when she said I should allow her access to a wide range of reading material:-)) could potentially be looked at with suspicion.

Utterly off topic, but another reason, over and above their legislative madness, why New Labour is haemorraghing votes.

This guy lives on benefits

Well?

[...] year the number of errors doubled. There wasn’t much initially in favour of the scheme until Tom Harris trundled up saying he’d “take parents’ views on this issue much more seriously than [...]

Tom,

Tell me how the ISA legislation would deal with this.

My stepdaughter, when 3 or 4, lived in a little village in Kent. Three or four of her friends need minding after nursery, and the nice father of a friend of hers used to do that. Take her daughter home, and 3 or four of her friends.

Got four years for abusing two of them.

Well?

The ONLY good thing about this legislation is that it will increase the revulsion and flight from Labour.

Otherwise, as many many people have noted, it will not cater for 90% of the child abuse that happens.

I’m surprised that so many are so vehemently opposed to a government for perhaps being rather too concerned for the safety of its children.

If fault it be, I can think of far worse.

Somewhat disingenous. You know perfectly well that there is no increase or reduction in such cases despite the destruction of organisations like the Scout Association.

There is therefore no evidence thatputting all these jobswoerths in control does any good whatsoever. Indeedwe have had situations like the North wales children’s home inspector who was a paedophile, so there is no reason whatsoever to trust government on this.

It is simply yet another exa,ple of Labour not being the party of the working man but the party of the government parasite.

As regards your last paragraph where is your evidence that most parents getting their children nursery care really appreciate that it is 4 times more expensive than it need be because of government regulation?

@Liberanos Sunday 13 September 2009 at 4:37 pm
//
I’m surprised that so many are so vehemently opposed to a government for perhaps being rather too concerned for the safety of its children.
If fault it be, I can think of far worse.
//

Read the comments.

1. ISA would not have prevented Soham.
2. Almost all child abuse happens at home, and is effected by family or friends
3. See my comment above.

This is the overweening state imposing itself on us. This is the state saying “You are all paedophiles else proved otherwise”

Read around. People are saying they would no longer go and comfort an unknown child in distress. No one would have thought TWICE about it when my ex and I raised our kids.

I wouldn’t go NEAR a kid whose parents I did not know now. Regardless

The legislation will bring mistrust between adult an child, and mistrust within communities.

It is pure evil. Divisive, intrusive, foul and nasty.

I speak as the parent of four grown children, who has often been entrusted with the children of others, who was a regular on the class camps at the school my kids went to.

NO-ONE EVER QUESTION MY MOTIVES.

I will not be questioned now. I am absolutely seething about this.

Will Brown and Ball be ISA’ed when they go into schools? After all, they seem to be the only place Brown is ever seen in public.

@Liberanos

Note, as well, that this is a stealth tax that will raise nearly £3/4 billion pounds.

Note, as well, that the database will include any slurs and baseless allegations against people on it.

Note, as well, that there is no appeal against it.

Note also, that this “Independent” agency will have its head appointed by the government

Wake up and smell the coffee mate. This is nothing to do with that old and fallacious chestnut, “If you’ve done nothing wrong…”. This is the state at its most intrusive and nastiest, and worthy of the Stasi, in that it will make neighbour suspicious of neighbour.

Evil.

As I say, and some of the posts do seem to bear it out, people are vehement to the point of derangement over nothing more dangerous than a possible over-emphasis on child protection.

I’m not totally in favour of it, either.

But I’m not foaming at the mouth.

A hypothetical situation:

I volounteer at an after-school activity for children (I don’t, I can’t stand the little blighters). I get a new shift pattern so have to give up the after-school work. The new rules come into force.
Some parents notice that I left just before I’d have to be checked and some nasty innuendo start flying round in my absence.
My shift pattern changes and I go to get clearance to start the after-school volounteering again.
Clearance rejected due to the baseless innuendo from before being incorporated onto the database.