LONDON—Parents who help regularly with their children's sports or social clubs face fines of up to 5,000 pounds if they fail to register with a new state anti-paedophile database, the Home Office confirmed on Friday.
It is the latest measure to improve child safety following the murder of two 10-year-old schoolgirls by Ian Huntley in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002.
But the sweeping nature of the new regulations, starting next month, has raised concerns that volunteers will be dissuaded from helping and that children's activities could suffer.
"We are going to drive away volunteers, we'll see clubs and activities close down and we'll end up with more bored young people on our streets," said Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Grayling.
The government said the measures were a "common sense approach, and what parents would rightly expect."
But award-winning children's author Philip Pullman has said he will stop visiting schools because of the requirement to register, saying he found the regulations "dispiriting and sinister."
The government estimates that 11.3 million people will be registered by 2015 with the new Independent Safeguarding Authority.
Its Vetting and Barring scheme extends the scope of existing Criminal Records Bureau checks already required for workers and volunteers working with children and vulnerable people.
It means, for example, that parents asked regularly -- once a month or more -- by a sports club to give lifts to other children would have to register.
Organisations or individuals failing to comply would be liable to up to a 5,000-pound fine.
But informal arrangements between parents to share lifts would not be covered.
Registration for volunteers will be free, while workers in organisations face a 64-pound levy, likely to be paid by their employers.
Government minister Delyth Morgan said she was disappointed at criticism of the measures.
"It is extremely important that we ensure that people in a position of trust are properly vetted to ensure that our children are safe," she told BBC television.
