I agree with quite a lot of what the hon. Gentleman has just said. Although he and I disagree over the contracting out of supervisory services to the non-state sector, it is my view that if we are going to do it, we must do it properly. If we are going to allow non-state officers to carry out supervisory functions, they must be properly qualified and regulated, and must bring with them the necessary public confidence. The hon. Gentleman has hit upon a most important aspect of the Bill.

I am concerned that the expression “a person”—somebody who is acting as a manager—needs to be specified as a human being. As a matter of law, the expression “a person” can mean a non-human being; a company is a legal personality. As the hon. Gentleman indicated, if a manager is the manager of a numberof separate premises, he cannot be in every one atthe same time, if he is a human being. Equally, if   the manager is a company, which carries out its management functions through a number of individuals, we need to be sure that not only is the company behaving itself and has set up protocols and systems that enable it to employ people in a particular way, but that individual employees of the corporate manager should be properly trained and accountable, either directly or via their company, to the public whom they are seeking to protect. That is quite apart from the other aspect of the matter, which as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, is to make sure that the care of the individuals in that set of premises is being properly looked after.

There is a need for clarity here. It is often thought that the Private Security Industry Act 2001 just dealt with nightclub bouncers, but it covers a far wider area of guarding activity. The Minister needs to explain to us how, by excluding managers of approved premises from the ambit of the 2001 Act, he is enhancing and not diminishing public protection and proper supervision of those within the approved premises.