Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2019

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Barran]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 1 April be approved.

Relevant document: 24th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (Sub-Committee B)

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the purpose of this draft instrument is to include inquiries established under the Inquiries Act 2005 as “excepted proceedings” in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975, enabling them to consider the spent convictions of individuals. This legislative change was requested initially by Sir John Mitting, chair of the undercover policing inquiry, as information on individuals’ spent convictions is important for the purposes of the terms of reference of that inquiry.

The inquiry is examining undercover police operations conducted by English and Welsh police forces from 1968 onwards, including whether the police were justified in launching undercover operations against a group. To give full consideration to this, the inquiry needs to be able to consider the convictions of members of the groups. However, given the historical nature of the inquiry, many of these convictions will be spent, and therefore not disclosable under the ROA. This statutory instrument will give the undercover policing inquiry the ability to consider spent convictions. This change is vital for the inquiry to fulfil its remit successfully, and your Lordships will be aware that there is a high level of public interest in the inquiry’s success.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 affords offenders protection from having to disclose their convictions and cautions once those convictions and cautions have become spent under the Act—the point at which the offender has become rehabilitated. The exceptions order lists activities or categories of jobs where those protections are lifted, so offenders, if asked, need to disclose spent convictions. The primary rationale behind the exceptions order is that there are certain jobs—positions of public trust and those involving, for example, unsupervised work with children—where more complete and, crucially, relevant disclosure of an individual’s criminal record may be appropriate, to mitigate risks to public safety.

The exceptions order is not limited to employment purposes, although that is its primary use. The amendment proposed here is not employment-related, but related rather to the consideration of evidence of spent convictions and cautions in inquiries caused to be held under the Inquiries Act 2005. While a number of judicial proceedings are exempt from the protections of disclosure—meaning that the individual must disclose them—inquires made under the Inquiries Act 2005 are not currently exempt. To oblige an individual to divulge previous spent offending history, if asked in the course of such an inquiry, we must amend the exceptions order.

Although the inquiries are made in public, we would expect all inquiries to preserve the anonymity of individuals as far as is necessary to respect their rights to privacy. In particular, the chairman has the power under Section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005, in the form of a restriction notice, and individuals can seek to retain their anonymity through a restriction order. Inquiries will take decisions on a case-by-case basis, taking into account particularly the need to balance openness with any competing public interest in restriction or private interest in privacy. Noble Lords may be aware that the protocols and guidelines for such applications in relation to a number of recent inquiries, including the Grenfell Tower inquiry, the Leveson inquiry and the infected blood inquiry, are all clearly available on the internet.

This draft instrument is necessary to amend the exceptions order to enable inquiries caused to be held under the Inquiries Act 2005 to admit and consider evidence of convictions and cautions that have become spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, where it is necessary to fulfil the terms of reference of that inquiry. Although UCPI is a particularly clear case of an inquiry where spent convictions are relevant, this amendment will allow any inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 to admit evidence of spent convictions and cautions, but limited only to where it is necessary to fulfil the inquiry’s terms of reference. It is likely that other inquiries may in future need to consider spent criminal records, as these can be key to determining whether authorities have acted reasonably in assessing and responding to risk.

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[Baroness Barran]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and for their unanimous—I think—support for the request in the instrument relating to the undercover policing inquiry. I will attempt to deal with the wider issues raised.

I am grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern for the simple and elegant way in which he explained a “matter of principle”. In this instrument, obviously that relates to the necessity of having information about spent convictions to fulfil the terms of reference—or remit, as my noble and learned friend described it—of the inquiry. That is one important part of our debate, but there is a second, which the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and other noble Lords have mentioned: are the checks and balances—or filter, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, described it—sufficient to make sure that the principle is applied in a proportionate way? That is at the heart of the discussion.

Within that, there is the need to balance an individual’s Article 8 rights to privacy with the public interest and the necessity for the inquiry to be appraised of the accurate facts, where relevant. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, talked about the risk of information coming into the public domain by accident or information that is not strictly relevant being used by the inquiry. That is hard to imagine in reality, with genuinely the greatest respect to the noble Baroness. If we think through the practicalities of somebody being asked to supply this information, we can imagine that, in all likelihood, it would result in an application for anonymity.

I hope that noble Lords will bear with me. This morning, together with officials, I tried to work out a flowchart of how this decision would be taken. The first question is: does the individual have spent convictions, yes or no? If the answer is yes, are they relevant? Will they be treated anonymously? If they apply for anonymity, will that be agreed to? Further, even if it is not anonymous, is the hearing held in private or in public? If it is held in private, could the information then be published?

I am trying to illustrate how there are a number of points in the process which make it highly unlikely that a disproportionate decision could be taken, but there are other points to cover here as well. My noble friend Lord Hodgson pointed out that although the intent of the instrument is not in relation to work, if the information was made public it could disadvantage someone in an employment application. I think that my noble friend makes a very fair point. I will undertake to take up with the department the question of the filter, a point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Aberavon, the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but the terms of reference, relevance and necessity are the key filters which exist already.

We feel that there are sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that individuals have their right to privacy respected as far as is necessary and proportionate. Although inquiries are made in public, inquiry chairs must preserve the anonymity of individuals as far as is necessary to respect their legal rights to privacy. As I stated earlier, the chairman has the power under Section 19 of the Inquiries Act to restrict the publication of information in the form of a restriction notice; for example, the undercover policing inquiry has invited applications for restriction orders, as have a number of other public inquiries. Individuals can use restriction orders to seek to maintain their anonymity, and where they are not satisfied that that has been done, they can make representations to the inquiry and, ultimately, for the decision to be judicially reviewed, although I hear the reservations of noble Lords about that.

I hope I have been able to reassure noble Lords not only that the point made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay about principle is a sound one but that the checks and balances that are required to ensure that the principle is applied in a way that upholds people’s rights are in place. I hope noble Lords will agree that this instrument ensures that inquiries that are of great public interest and concern are able to consider the evidence that is relevant and necessary to fulfil their purpose. I beg to move.

[Baroness Chakrabarti]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to all noble Lords who spoke in this debate. To be clear, I do not see how these so-called checks and balances work here; one could be attempting to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. A restriction might not even have been considered before counsel to one or other interested party in an inquiry brought into the course of proceedings someone’s long-spent conviction.

It is never nice to be on the opposite side to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, but there are two principles in this context: the public interest in favour of the rehabilitation of offenders, and the public interest in the openness and fairness of any public inquiry. It seems that it would not be disproportionate to have a debate of this kind every time a committee chair said, “We really need to get at spent convictions in the context of this material”. This amount of parliamentary time in your Lordships’ House is not disproportionate to that public interest. If that is thought too cumbersome, surely either the Inquiries Act or relevant rules of procedure might instead have been amended to require a committee chair in any inquiry to state at the outset that this is the type of inquiry that will in principle require the use and admissibility of spent convictions. That has not been done; the filtered approach that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, suggested has not been adopted in this case. Instead, we have this overbroad, unfiltered system.

In the light of this overbroad secondary legislation that might well undermine the principle of rehabilitation and personal privacy, I beg to test the mood of your Lordships’ House.