Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 283B. Schedule 8 relates to the duty to report child sex offences. Paragraph 17 of that schedule applies this duty to “Activities of a person in connection with training, supervising or instructing a child for the purposes of a religion or belief, if the person has regular … contact with the child in the course of those activities”. Some Catholic schools and faith schools obviously have religious objects, and Schedule 8 applies to them. But the problem with that is that all schools are also regulated by Section 21(5) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. That effectively means double regulation, which would put a burden on faith schools, with unnecessary bureaucracy. The Catholic Education Service, which represents about 2,000 schools in England—that is not counting Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland, of course—has worked closely with the Home Office and has helped to draft my amendment. The amendment would remove from the scope of paragraph 17 activity that is already regulated and governed by the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, therefore preventing unnecessary double regulation. The Catholic Education Service has worked very closely with this Government and the previous one on ensuring the highest standards of children’s safeguards in schools. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister would react positively to this amendment in his wind-up.