Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Second Reading

13:50:00

Moved By

Lord Dholakia
That this Bill be read a second time.

Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of Nacro, the crime reduction charity. I want it to be noted that my association with it is entirely voluntary.

The purpose of my Bill is to enact a series of changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 which the Government announced they would implement in April 2003. When I initiated a debate on this subject on 6 December 2006, these proposals received all-party support. I was pleased when the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, responding from the Conservative Front Bench, said:

“In the current climate of crisis in our prison service, I would have thought that cutting the numbers that reoffend would make a significant difference to an already over-stretched system”.—[Official Report, 6/12/06; col. 1233.]
 

I hope that the same all-party support will be given on this occasion.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 provided that after specified rehabilitation periods, ex-offenders do not have to declare spent convictions when they apply for jobs except in sensitive areas of work such as criminal justice agencies, financial institutions and work with young people or vulnerable adults. Since it was enacted in 1974, it has helped many ex-offenders to live down their past. However, the rehabilitation periods laid down in it are lengthy, and many genuinely reformed ex-offenders can never benefit from it. If an offender is given a three-month prison sentence, the offence takes seven years to become spent. If he or she gets a nine-month sentence, the offence does not become spent until 10 years later. Sentences of more than two and a half years can never become spent. These provisions are noticeably less generous than the rules that apply in other European countries. Those countries typically apply the rehabilitation periods to sentences that are longer than two and a half years. Their rehabilitation periods are also much shorter; they are often half the length of ours, or in many cases less than that.

Since the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 was implemented, every length of sentence has significantly increased. Many offenders who would have received sentences of two and a half years or less back in 1974 receive sentences of between three and four years today. This means that many people who would previously have been helped by the Act now find that their offences will never become spent during their lifetime.

In 2001, the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, set up a review group to examine whether, three decades after the Act’s implementation, there was a case for reform. The review group was chaired by a senior Home Office official and included representatives of the police and probation services, the legal profession, the judiciary, employers, voluntary agencies and ex-offenders.

In 2002, the review group published its conclusions in its report Breaking the Circle. Following a consultation period, the Government published their own conclusions in April 2003, and accepted a modified version of the review group’s proposals. Under that version, the current rehabilitation periods would be replaced by new buffer periods, which would begin after the sentence, including any post-release supervision, was completed. The buffer periods would be four years for custodial sentences of four years or more, two years for custodial sentences of less than four years, and one year for non-custodial sentences. These periods would apply to all offences except those that resulted in a life sentence. Sentencing courts would have the discretion to disapply these provisions in any case in which the sentencer decided that there was a particular risk. The new provisions would not apply to jobs in sensitive occupations, for which applicants would still have to declare their full criminal record.

These are the proposals in my Bill. A reformed system along these lines would greatly reduce the scope for unfair discrimination against ex-offenders in the job market. Regrettably, such discrimination is still widespread. A survey of ex-offenders in the projects in which the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders is involved demonstrates that 60 per cent have been explicitly refused jobs because of their criminal records.

Of course, it is sometimes reasonable to refuse an ex-offender a job because of his record. For example, you must obviously bar offenders with a history of offences against children from working with children, and offenders with a history of defrauding older people from work caring for older people. In many cases, however, employers are turning down applications because of offences that have no relevance whatever to the jobs for which they are applying.

The scope of discrimination is potentially wide because the decisions to employ or refuse people jobs are not made at the top of companies. They are made by a large number of individual managers who have usually had no specific training in how to deal with applications from people with criminal records. A large-scale research study undertaken by the Joseph Rowntree Trust found that no private sector employers in the sample, and only one in seven public sector employers, had provided specific training on this point to start making recruitment decisions.

At the time when the review group was set up, there was particular concern that discrimination could increase when Part 5 of the Police Act 1997 was fully implemented. That legislation is likely to be implemented in the near future. It will enable employers to require any job applicant for any job, not just one of the sensitive occupations, to produce a basic disclosure certificate from the Criminal Records Bureau listing his or her unspent criminal convictions.

Research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research has found that if this provision were implemented, employers would be likely to reject people with criminal records for their vacancies and to reject those with more serious convictions for 90 per cent of their vacancies. That research has concluded that the introduction of basic disclosure certificates was likely severely to reduce employment opportunities for those with past criminal records.

My Bill would help to reduce the risk of an increase in such widespread and unfair discrimination by shortening the periods after which convictions became spent. That would reduce the number of old offences that would appear on basic disclosure certificates. The case for reform of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act would be a powerful one, whether or not the basic disclosure provisions of the Police Act were implemented; it would be powerful on the basis of the discrimination that is already there against ex-offenders.

Unfair discrimination against ex-offenders is wrong in principle because it imposes an additional, illegitimate penalty of refusal of employment on people who have already served the judicially ordered punishment for their crime. It also reduces public safety because an ex-offender’s risk of reoffending is reduced by between one-third and one-half if he or she gets and keeps a job.

Recently, when the Bill was published, a number of ex-offenders wrote to me. I shall quote from a letter from an individual whom I do not wish to name:

“I am an ex-offender who committed a single criminal act at the age of 18 whilst in the grip of an addiction to gambling, for which I was sentenced to three years in a young offender institution. At the time I thought the loss of my liberty and my chosen career was the greatest punishment but I was so wrong. Having to live in fear at every job interview that I will be asked ‘the’ question has hung over me like a cloud since the day I was released over 21 years ago, even leading to bouts of depression”.
 

The reforms to which the Government committed themselves in 2003 would allow many people who committed offences many years ago to start again with a clean slate. They would therefore reduce the risk of further offending by former offenders who are excluded from the job market.

In conclusion, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, who responded to my earlier debate. She said:

“I will note with pleasure in my diary that this is something about which there is unanimity in this House. Therefore, we can all go joyfully to the Whips who, I am sure, will find a space”.—[Official Report, 6/12/06; col. 1238.]
 

I hope that noble Lords of all parties will support this modest and long overdue reform. In conclusion, I should like to thank also my researcher, Paul Cavadino, and the Bill Office for their help in drafting this Bill. I beg to move.

14:05:00

Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I salute the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for once again bringing forward a Bill to rectify the Government's shameful delay in honouring their 2003 commitment to review the outdated Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and for his habitual skill in so clearly outlining its content and intent. In vain we have waited for a Bill in all five Queen's Speeches during this Parliament. To be quite blunt, I believe that when the Government look back over what they have not done, they must hang their head in shame over the time that they have taken to do nothing to honour publicised commitments such as the review of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and acting on the European Court's ruling on the right of prisoners to vote, each of which exceeds the total length of World War 2.

As the noble Lord has reminded the House, the 1974 Act was a response to the 1972 Gardiner committee's report, Living it Down, which proposed the restoration of the offender,

“to a position in society no less favourable than that of one who has not offended”.

However, 1975 saw the start of an increasing diminution of that position, which continues to this day, by the introduction of an exceptions order to limit the rights of the offender to ensure the protection of the public. Particular and understandable concern was expressed over the safety of children and vulnerable adults. I say “diminution” because the period since then has been marked by the inflation of sentence lengths, which affects the time during which disclosure is required, and the addition of more exceptions, quite apart from the problems faced by those awarded indeterminate sentences for public protection, which have yet to be resolved.

In 1999, the Better Regulation Task Force recommended that the Government should review the periods during which disclosure applies, following which the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, ordered a more fundamental review of the Act. He felt that what the task force had recommended had not gone far enough. The resulting 2002 report, Breaking the Circle, has been mentioned many times today, and I merely remind the House of its key findings. First, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is not achieving the right balance between resettlement and protection and, secondly, it was confusing for offenders and employers alike.

I should like to focus on the second finding for a few moments. I believe that not only is the current Act confusing, it is also arcane and complex. To put those feelings in context, I must repeat that I find it extraordinary that a Government who continually praise themselves for their concentration on the reduction of reoffending and the successful resettlement of offenders should fail to follow up their announced intention to remedy one of the principal impediments to their being able to turn those claims into realities.

The present Act is confusing to offenders, who not only do not understand it but are unsure of what they are required to disclose. As a result, they often inadvertently disclose convictions that are spent, which may be used unofficially by an employer to disadvantage an applicant for a job. In their eyes, the legislation constitutes nothing less than an additional punishment because the fact that employers have the freedom to ask about all convictions puts offenders in a particularly difficult position. Many feel that while they have the freedom to lie about spent convictions, to do so potentially initiates a dishonest relationship with an employer. Here I must declare an interest as president of UNLOCK, the National Association of Reformed Offenders.

The Act is also confusing to employers and insurers, who in turn have a poor understanding of the Act, leading to their inadvertently asking questions to elicit information which may result in illegal discrimination. The Act is a paper tiger in this context because the consequences of contravening it are minimal. Finally, the Act is confusing within the criminal justice system itself, among prison officers, probation officers, legal advisers and third sector workers, whose lack of understanding often leads to inaccurate advice being given to offenders.

As far as achieving the right balance between resettlement and protection is concerned, I believe that in bringing forward the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has not presumed to rectify all the shortcomings of the 1974 Act but has rightly focused on the one issue on which every other reform depends; namely, the length of the disclosure period. I hope therefore that the Government, not least to exculpate themselves from the shame of having done nothing over the past five years, will make time to ensure that it reaches the statute book before the end of this Parliament. Once that is done, the next logical step must be for the next Government, from whichever party they come, to commit themselves to a full-scale revision of the 1974 Act at a very early stage.

There is no need to conduct yet another review of the situation because all the information they need has already been established and articulated. Numerous organisations such as the Prison Reform Trust, NACRO and UNLOCK can produce countless papers detailing the results of hours of research and study. All that is needed, as it has been for the past six years, is action and not prevarication in the certain knowledge that a strong body of supporters, certainly in this House, are ready and willing to help with such work. I appeal to the Minister to ensure that that process is put in train by pledging his support for the Bill today.

14:12:00

Lord Woolf
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow in the footsteps of the two noble Lords who have already spoken in favour of the Bill, but while it is a pleasure, it makes the task of someone coming third a difficult one because, in many ways, everything that can be said has already been said. However, perhaps I will be forgiven if I detain your Lordships for a short time to stress that, while this is a modest and certainly a sensible proposal to improve the criminal justice system, it is also one that has an important dimension. We know that, within the criminal justice system, we have a huge problem with reoffending. We know also that the circle is most likely to be broken if an ex-offender obtains employment. The purpose of the Bill is to assist in the task of getting ex-offenders into employment so that they remain ex-offenders. That surely must be a worthy objective and one that I would expect both the Government and the Opposition strongly to support.

Criticism has been made of the lack of action. There can be many explanations for that. We know that there is always pressure on the legislative programme of any Government, but this is just the sort of measure which must not disappear because of that pressure. Like my predecessor and successors as Lord Chief Justice, I have gone on record on many occasions in complaining about the amount of unhelpful legislation which arrives annually within the criminal justice system.

This Bill is truly helpful to one of the principal objectives of the criminal justice system—to reduce offending. In those circumstances, this measure is an opportunity to show commitment to the need to assist those who seek to break the habit of crime to do so. I ask the House to give the Bill a fair passage.

14:16:00

Lord Goodhart
My Lords, I agree with everything that has been said by my noble friend Lord Dholakia, the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf. I have a particular interest in this Bill because I have been a member of JUSTICE for 50 years and a member of its council for most of that time. The 1974 Act was one of its proudest achievements. This was due, in particular, to the late Paul Sieghart, who was for many years the chair of the executive committee of JUSTICE. To a large extent, the Act was his idea and he lobbied tirelessly to achieve it.

The Act has enabled many people convicted of crimes to later lead normal and productive lives as a result of being given qualified legal rights not to disclose their previous convictions. However, 35 years later, it is now time to consider whether the 1974 Act needs to be looked at again to see whether it still performs adequately the purpose for which it was enacted. I am afraid that it is all too obvious that it does not.

One main reason is that sentences of imprisonment have become much longer in the intervening years, with the result that many people who would have been within the scope of the 1974 Act when it was enacted now receive sentences which disqualify them from claiming the benefit of that Act. Let me tell of one occasion which made me realise the difference. Some three or four years ago, I saw an excellent film entitled “Vera Drake”. It was set in the period shortly after the end of the Second World War. In that film, Vera Drake was a woman who gave abortions to young women out of a wish to help them. She was caught, tried and convicted. The judge said words to the effect of, “This is a most serious crime and I must give you a severe sentence. You will go to prison for two-and-a-half years”. I sat up at this and said to myself, “The scriptwriters must have done their research well. No one now would regard two-and-a-half years as a severe sentence for a serious crime”. Clearly there has been an enormous change since 1950; most notably since 1974.

Nowadays two-and-a-half years is the maximum sentence which enables any prisoner to claim the benefit of the 1974 Act. The increase in sentences since 1974 justifies the extension of the 1974 Act to cover sentences much longer than two-and-a-half years. As has been made clear, the Bill will bring into force reforms that were accepted by the Government in 2003 but never enacted. The Bill is not a complete answer. In particular, it does not deal with the problem that information about past convictions can often nowadays be obtained on the internet regardless of whether or not they have elapsed. However, the Bill is a good step forward.

I have some doubts about new subsection (9A), which seems to drag the Bill into the deeply unsatisfactory world of the indeterminate sentence. The danger-of-harm provision allows the court to declare at the trial whether it is necessary for the safety of the public to avoid the 1974 Act. Surely danger of harm in cases of this kind should be judged at the end of the sentence and not at the beginning. If the objective of making a convict a potentially decent citizen has been achieved, it should be recognised at the end of the sentence by making sure there is no extension of the period.

However, I welcome the Bill immensely. Whatever its chances of being enacted, this debate raises an important issue.

Lord Woolf
Before the next speaker rises, perhaps your Lordships might forgive me if I do now what I failed to do during my speech, despite the note that I made to myself about the need to declare an interest. I have the privilege to be an honorary officer of many bodies working in this field.

14:22:00

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
My Lords, with your Lordships’ indulgence, I am stepping into the gap because I want to support the Bill. Rehabilitation of offenders is such an important concept within the criminal justice system. As we have heard from all speakers, it is in urgent need of reform. I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who has been a great champion of justice in this House. He has always shown considerable foresight and is one of our most distinguished and humane Members. It is not surprising that he has brought this Bill to the House’s attention.

As your Lordships might know, I still practise in the criminal courts, but I am also, like the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, the patron of UNLOCK. I am also the chair of JUSTICE. I frequently hear from defendants shocking stories of their attempts to rebuild their lives after a conviction. The general public call for transparency in sentencing and often clamour for longer sentences. The Government have responded to that, reflected in the extent to which sentencing has increased in recent times.

This part of the law has not kept pace with that. The public are not really well informed about the way in which punishment continues long after people have served a sentence or completed what was required by the courts. The punishment often takes other forms, which we have heard about today; for example, the ways in which opportunities for employment are undermined, the loss of friends, the inability to take up particular roles in society and inhibition felt by ex-offenders even about volunteering for roles in the community because they are anxious about exposure, particularly in the face of their children. They are unable to get insurance; they often cannot get visas to travel, because they fear that question, “Do you have a conviction?” and how they should answer it. We as lawyers are often asked how they should answer it, too. Many of us feel that there is a lack of clarity for everyone involved—not only for potential offenders but also for ex-offenders.

This Private Member's Bill creates that level of clarity and I hope that the Government will seize the opportunity to reform the law. It is, I think, precisely what the Government had in mind when they set up the review group and endorsed its conclusions. Surely, with the consent of this whole House—I do not imagine that there will be many here who disagree with it—some time for the Bill could be found. I hope that we can hear something positive from my Front Bench.

14:24:00

Lord Henley
My Lords, I offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, who is a tireless campaigner for the rehabilitation of offenders. He is to be thanked for producing this Bill.

The premise is relatively straightforward: the Bill amends the 1974 Act so that rehabilitation periods for various types of offences are reduced, meaning that the conviction will be considered spent sooner than is now the case. For example, a sentence of borstal training currently has a rehabilitation period of seven years, whereas under the noble Lord's proposals that would be reduced to two years plus a buffer period of two years. I see that the noble Lord nods, so I obviously have got that part right.

The noble Lord has drawn on the work of the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League for Penal Reform, bodies which have long been highlighting one of the biggest problems with prisons and the criminal justice system, which is that they appear to do precious little to prevent recidivism. Among adult offenders, the rates for reoffending within two years are about 65 per cent, while for young offenders between 18 and 21 they are in the mid-70 per cent and for 15 to 17 year-olds the figure is over 80 per cent. There are many reasons to criticise the Government, but it must be one of their most damning failings that, despite the creation of 3,000-odd new offences and a deluge of criminal justice legislation which has poured forth from the Government—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, has referred to it in the past as a torrent of legislation—they have not checked reoffending rates. The very fact that we are debating the noble Lord's Bill today is evidence of that.

The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, was highly critical of the inhibiting effect that a conviction can have. He argues that the rehabilitation periods are far too long and act like a millstone, preventing ex-offenders from making a fresh start. We have considerable sympathy with that position; we believe that the best way to ensure that an ex-offender does not become a reoffender is to offer them the chance of stability which, crucially, means employment. We do not wish to see unnecessary obstacles placed in the way of reintegrating offenders into society. It may be that the time limits set out in the 1974 Act are too long; it is 35 years or so since that Act was passed, and it is correct to say that we need some fresh thinking in this area. However, the noble Lord’s approach, in taking a scythe to them and halving them, is possibly oversimplistic. I wonder whether we need a slightly more nuanced approach, adopting flexible periods, tailored to meet the needs of offenders and society at large. None of us has an interest in encouraging recidivism, but there is much to be done in this area and much to be looked at if this Bill passes Second Reading and we go on to Committee.

I also believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, that we have to have a very extensive debate on the balance between resettlement and protection. We hear a great deal about the Criminal Records Bureau and the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which seems to have its tentacles round virtually every person doing voluntary work in the country. As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, made clear, it is obviously right that we need appropriate protection and that people convicted of child offences should not seek employment again in that field for a considerable period, if ever at all—and there would be other examples. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the balance there is wrong and needs looking at, and this Bill may provide some small chance to have part of that debate. It is a debate that will have to take place in due course, and I would welcome the Minister’s comments when he comes to reply on that balance between resettlement and protection.

I congratulate the noble Lord on getting his Bill, among so many other Private Members’ Bills, before the House for debate today. He is right to give the Government pause for thought. We need to look at our rehabilitation laws. Whether it is appropriate for that to be done by a Private Member’s Bill is another matter, but it certainly provides for a welcome debate, and we look forward to the Government's response and to debating the Bill further in Committee at a later stage.

14:30:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bach)
My Lords, the Government congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, on getting his Bill debated today. We are grateful to him for introducing it in the way that he has and giving the House the opportunity for this short debate on Second Reading. I can only repeat what my noble friend Lady Kennedy said: the noble Lord has the huge respect of the whole House for his work in this field.

This debate gives us the opportunity to remind ourselves of the fundamental changes that there have been in the criminal justice system in the past 35 years. I will say a word about rehabilitation and then move to the background to the Bill itself.

Rehabilitation is very much at the heart of our approach. Of course, turning offenders away from crime is not only good for them: more importantly, it benefits the wider community as a whole. As far as those in prison are concerned, we have worked hard to ensure that prison is a more decent, humane and constructive place than even 10 years ago, and a place where rehabilitation programmes can thrive. No one underestimates the need for ever to build on our work to tackle reoffending, but reoffending has fallen in recent years, I understand, for both adults and young people. We believe that part of that is as a result of the approach that we have taken. The noble Lord knows better than I do about the increase in prison drug treatment, which has increased tenfold since 1996-97, and the extra spending on offender learning too.

For those who have not been sent to prison, we have focused on making sure that particularly vulnerable non-dangerous offenders are diverted away from prison when it is the right thing to do. I remind the House that the number of women in prison fell by 3 per cent last year. After what had been a rapid rise, the number of offenders under 18 went down by 8 per cent over that same period.

Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I hate to challenge the Minister in full speech, but at a meeting two nights ago with the Minister with responsibility for prisons, Maria Eagle, she told us that while the number of women in prison had gone down because of the longer sentences, the number of women received into prison during the year had gone up dramatically by more than 900. Therefore, the figure he gave is slightly disingenuous.

Lord Bach
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention to my speech. Obviously, I will go back and talk to my honourable friend about that issue. My understanding is—and I did not think it was arguable—that last year the number of women in prison actually fell by 3 per cent. If that were so, I am sure that that is something that the noble Lord, above anyone, would be pleased about.

I was talking about community punishment and community sentences. We believe that a tough community punishment can often be much more effective in turning people away from a life of crime. It can allow more direct and visible ways to pay back to a victim and community and gives offenders a chance to turn their lives around. That is why we expanded community punishment from 140,000 sentences in 1997 to 195,000 by 2007. The different requirements for community sentences allow the courts to make offenders confront their specific problems, be they drug or alcohol abuse, or mental health and behavioural issues. A central purpose of community orders is, of course, punishment itself, through such penalties as community payback, curfews or banning orders.

Moving back to the background to the noble Lord’s Bill, it reflects, as he told us, the proposals for reform published by the Government in 2003 and is based on the recommendations of the review Breaking the Circle. However, that report was a creature of its time and we must think carefully about whether those proposals continue to strike the right balance between the resettlement of offenders and public protection. I take the point that the Government’s commitment in this area is now six years old, but we have been far from idle in the mean time. Much has happened which has been a more immediate priority, particularly in relation to public protection and the needs of victims, and which has had a bearing on how and when the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act might be reformed.

Many of the changes that we have made since 2003 are still working through. First, the Bichard inquiry was set up in 2003 to look at the manner in which the police handled intelligence about Ian Huntley’s past and the vetting process which ultimately led to his employment at a local school. The report made a number of recommendations relating to data retention and sharing, and about extending enhanced disclosures to more people who work with the vulnerable. Our response was to bring forward a major new piece of legislation which went through this House, the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, to strengthen public protection for the vulnerable. This has an impact on the scope of CRB checks for employment purposes and has led to the establishment of the Independent Safeguarding Authority to operate a new vetting and barring scheme to prevent an individual working with vulnerable groups when there is a known reason why they may pose a risk to children or vulnerable adults.

This scheme has only just come into force in relation to regulated activity. As with any new scheme, there are some teething problems and issues have arisen on the scope and interpretation of the legislation. Sir Roger Singleton, the chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, has been asked to look again at the scheme to make sure that the right balance has been struck on how many people are covered—that is, who will be required to register with the ISA. His recommendations are due to be published on Monday 14 December and may impact on who is required to have a CRB check and, therefore, who may or may not benefit from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

The ISA, by its nature, will bring an independent, objective and consistent approach to the employment of ex-offenders in jobs where there is direct contact with children and vulnerable adults. The guidelines on making barring decisions require the ISA to take into account relevant offending history. Therefore, the creation of the authority will contribute to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act’s aims of ensuring that ex-offenders are not discriminated against when seeking employment on the grounds of irrelevant offending history. We shall need to see this fully in operation to assess what changes might now be required to the Act.

Since 2003 we have also seen fundamental changes in sentencing policy and practice. This includes a new adult sentencing framework in 2005 and wholesale changes to the youth justice sentencing framework. It is important that all these new reforms are taken into account when looking at the Act. It is not sufficient merely to rest on what has gone before.

Lastly, the Government have also been concentrating since 2003 on the need to put victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. Any reform of the Act needs to be subject to full consultation, particularly to take account of the views of victims. In view of all those developments, the Government would need to take a fresh look at the Act in the round and what might be best considered in the current context rather than what was considered appropriate in 2003.

There are some technical deficiencies with the Bill; the noble Lord himself would be the first to say so. For example, not all sentences are covered by its provisions. One important omission is the need to consider the position of new indeterminate sentences. That was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, who has strong and definite views on those sentences, but they exist—they are in law. If there were to be such a change, there would have to be some way of dealing with them and we agree with him that Clause 1(9) may not be the most appropriate method. We made imprisonment for public protection available to the courts to deal with dangerous offenders who are considered to present a significant risk to the public through the commission of further serious offences. Frankly, it would be anomalous to go forward with any reform that took no account of indeterminate sentences whatever. I doubt that anyone would disagree that such sentences should never be regarded as spent; were it to be otherwise the offenders in, for example, the Baby P case could see their record wiped clean at some point.

Also, the Bill does not take sufficient account of the position with regard to Scotland. Amendment of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is a devolved issue. However, it would be desirable to continue to have similar schemes on both sides of the border. Therefore, we need a dialogue with Scotland on the way forward. That would be appropriate rather than pressing ahead with a Bill that would create a somewhat different regime here in England and Wales from that in Scotland.

I am sorry that I shall disappoint the noble Lord in saying that we have some reservations about the Bill, for the reasons that I have given. Of course the Government will neither support nor oppose the Bill on Second Reading; we rarely do so as far as Private Members’ Bills are concerned. I hope that he will accept that the Government are grateful for his giving the House the chance to have this debate by having put forward the Bill. However, much more work needs to be done to look at the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in the round before we move to legislation.

14:42:00

Lord Dholakia
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. After 35 years of this legislation, it is rightly time for amendments so that we can meet the present situation. Obviously the tail-end of a Friday afternoon three days before the Christmas vacation is not the right time to enter into a detailed negotiation or discussion, but a number of important points have been raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, suggested a different approach, and I thank him for what he called a more measured approach to the length of the rehabilitation period. He said that he would support the general principle, and I would not hesitate to consider appropriate amendments in Committee on the matter.

My noble friend Lord Goodhart mentioned the risk of serious harm, and that it should be judged only at the end of the sentence. All I did was to take Clause 1(9) from the suggestion of the Home Office working group. There again, there is no reason why the matter could not be discussed in Committee.

The two areas that the Minister mentioned cause me some concern. The case for the Bill is not changed by the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which introduced strengthened provision—including the introduction of the Independent Safeguarding Authority mentioned by the Minister—which applies to jobs that are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and would remain exempt if the Bill were passed. There is no problem as regards my Bill’s provisions co-existing with the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act. I am unable to accept that this may be a legitimate ground for delay, but perhaps the Minister may wish to look at that between now and Committee stage, which I hope the House may grant me.

On the issue of serious offenders, I have a number of observations. I am very conscious of the time, but I shall take no more than a few seconds. First, ex-offenders who apply for any of the exempted provisions will still have to reveal all their convictions. That includes applications for jobs involving working with children and vulnerable adults, as I have explained. Secondly, anyone who receives a life sentence will always have to declare all their convictions. Again, there is no problem with that. Thirdly, many serious offenders, and all those whom the courts regard as posing a serious future risk, may receive indefinite sentences for public protection—the so-called IPP sentences. I would be prepared to consider amending the Bill in Committee to exempt IPP sentences if that would help to meet the Minister’s concern. Finally, Clause 1(9) allows any judge, when sentencing, the power to disapply the provisions of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

At this stage, all that I ask is that the House gives the Bill a Second Reading.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 2.46 pm.