Commenting on Ed Balls’ announcement that the Government is to water down plans on vetting and barring, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Bury South, Vic D’Albert said:

“At last the Government has injected some common sense into this issue. This u-turn is long overdue. The Governments heavy-handed approach to rules on parental vetting were likely to deny opportunities to young people, damaging extra curricular activities at schools and actually harm parental involvement with their children, rather than significantly improve their safety.

“There is still some concern however that this U-turn doesn’t go far enough.  

“The existing daft regulations on child protection require even police officers to go through an expensive and bureaucratic registration system. It’s not yet clear whether rules of this type are going to be swept away.We can only hope that the Governments will see sense on this aspect as well and make further reforms.”