Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I rise only because of my experience in piloting through the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007. I just want to say how glad I am—because we are dealing with a whole group of amendments—that the Government are not only toughening criminal law, but also mimicking, or copying, that Act in relation to female genital mutilation. That is dealt with as a new schedule in government Amendment 46G. I would like briefly to explain why that is very wise.

The problem about using criminal law in this area is that it depends upon all the safeguards of a fair criminal trial. It depends upon there being a prosecution before a criminal court to a high standard of proof, the burden being on the prosecution, and all the panoply of a criminal trial, which may terrify anybody, but certainly will in this sensitive area. It is therefore extremely difficult for a prosecution to succeed in a case of this kind. It is said, and it is the position of the Government, that it is very important to send a signal. I am not, on the whole, in favour of using law simply to send signals.

Although I understand why the Government are strengthening the criminal law, if we are serious about dealing with this odious and significant social evil, the civil law is much more likely to be effective, including the use of the family courts. This is because, as with the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act, first of all you do not need the victim to apply. A third party can do so. In fact, you do not need anyone to apply; the court can do so on its own initiative. Secondly, the application will be heard in private. Thirdly, the outcome will not involve dishonouring the family. It is extremely important in an area of this kind that the victim is not put in a position where if she gives evidence she will be permanently alienated from her family.

I am delighted that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is in her place, because she has far more experience of this than I have. Certainly experience of the 2003 Act has been very good in that forced marriage civil protection orders have been made in their hundreds and been complied with. It has worked because it uses the civil route of family law and family courts with all the expertise of those courts, in a way that will not deter victims from coming forward and which will not mean permanent divisions within the family.

As I read what the Government are proposing, that is well understood. That is why the new schedule which is to be inserted on female genital mutilation protection orders largely mimics what we were able to achieve in that Bill. I will explain who I mean by “we”. That Bill had the support of women, including Asian women, bodies such the Southall Black Sisters and the refuges. They really took ownership of it and made sure that it was something that would work. That ownership is vital. What is contemplated here should do that.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

I would like to ask the noble Lord’s advice on this, because he referred, as I did, to the forced marriage protection orders. I understand that that was done by an amendment to family law. The point on which I was asking the Minister to come back on was whether, by not amending the family law in the government amendment, although we seek to do that in our amendment, we will make it more difficult to bring the law together and deal with it in a family court. Does the noble Lord have a view on that, having dealt with this previously?

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

That is a very good question, but I cannot really answer it. My reading of government Amendment 46G indicates that there is a copying in of what had happened with forced marriage. Furthermore, paragraph (7) of the proposed new schedule in the amendment amends the Family Law Act and gives jurisdiction to the family court. I may be talking complete rubbish and I may be corrected, either by the noble Baroness or by the Minister. I am simply trying to get across why the civil route is so important and the use of family courts is so important.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the time he has taken and the effort he has made to address the points that have been raised in the debate. I concur entirely with his remarks about internal and international security. Obviously, the first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe and secure at all times. There has to be consideration of those issues when they are brought before your Lordships’ House. I can assure him that our consideration of these issues has at its heart the security of this nation and our international obligations to tackle terrorism. As the noble Lord said, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate. We have benefited from substantial legal expertise. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Lister for confessing that, like the Minister and me, she is not a lawyer. It is significant that even with the legal expertise in your Lordships’ House there is no complete agreement among lawyers, either. We made that point earlier.

I welcome the fact that the Government have moved away from the position that they took previously when the issue was debated in Committee and on Report. I welcome the answers given by the Minister. A lot of the debate hinges on one particular issue. I am grateful for the advice given to me by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, in the conversations we have had. One of his questions summed up clearly the issue of the power to take away British citizenship if it relies on a discretionary power of another state. The noble Lord was very honest in his response to that. We have no power to know what another state will do. Other states have discretionary powers on whether to make people citizens.

The Government’s Motion rests on whether somebody is able to obtain citizenship. It hangs on the interpretation of that. We have concerns in that we want to avoid at all costs somebody becoming stateless—the evil of statelessness via the Supreme Court—and the dangers that that would bring to citizens of this country and abroad. I mentioned that James Brokenshire, the Minister in the other place, gave three different interpretations of what being able to obtain other citizenship could mean. If somebody is unable to obtain another citizenship and they remain stateless, at what point would the Home Secretary have to say, “We have a problem; this person does not have citizenship of any country”? There is a danger in leaving somebody abroad who we think is a danger to this country and involved in terrorism, who is stateless in another country or who remains in this country and cannot travel.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, said that the intention was that those who are dangerous should leave—but they cannot do so if they have not got citizenship of any other country. The noble Lord also made the point that our position has changed. I can assure him that our position has not changed. These are the very same issues we raised in Committee and on Report, and we wanted to consider them in the light of the changes that the Government have made.

We have to consider the practical and diplomatic implications here. I know the Minister says that there is no need to discuss this issue with other countries, but he was not even able to confirm to your Lordships’ House that, if we remove citizenship from an individual who we suspect of being involved in terrorist activity while they are in another country, we would notify the Government of that country that we were doing so. That seems to be a rather irresponsible attitude and I worry that we will be passing the problems of terrorism on to other countries when international co-operation is so essential.

I do not wish to detain the House. We have had an interesting and worthy debate on this issue. What the Government have not been able to do, however, is rule out the possibility that we will make people who could be highly dangerous stateless. All it requires is that the Home Secretary must have reasonable grounds for believing that an individual can obtain other citizenship—but if those grounds are wrong and the individual cannot do so, we do not know what will happen to that individual.

The point was made when we debated this previously that we are not saying to the Government, “No, this must not happen”, but that there are still a number of questions which remain unanswered even at this late stage. They include the issue of what happens to someone when they have been rendered stateless and what the implications are for our relationships with other countries. The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, gave examples, and I am not sure that the Minister’s answer was that someone could not be made stateless.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

I am most grateful to the noble Baroness. To be clear, what I said about the Opposition was not that they have not changed, but that they have not changed in the light of the changed circumstances of this concession.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

The Minister cheers the noble Lord on, but no one else is doing so. I said in response to the Government’s changes to their Motion that they do not remove the danger of statelessness. The noble Lord referred to the Pepper v Hart ruling, and he is absolutely right. What the Minister here and the Minister in the other place say is very important, but we have now had many interpretations from Ministers of what the amendment actually means.

Again, this has been a useful and interesting debate which I value, but we are seeking certainty on a number of issues, and that has not been forthcoming today. I believe that this matter would benefit from further consideration. It does not have to delay business. We are at the end of this Session, but it could be brought back quickly at the start of the next Session. It is important that we understand the implications for the security of this country and for individuals living in it. Accordingly, I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I was not intending to take part in the discussion of this part of the Bill, but I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could clarify whether the existing legal regime in Northern Ireland forbids any form of discrimination within or by the Civil Service. It was my understanding that that was the position under the Northern Ireland Act as it stands. I know that in Northern Ireland there is some backwardness in amending equality law. It still has not, as we have done, produced a single Equality Act. That is most regrettable. It is true that it was Labour that first sought to initiate that reform. But in terms of the Civil Service and public administration, I understood that not only in common law but under the Northern Ireland Act any form of arbitrary discrimination, direct or indirect, would be unlawful. I would be very grateful if that can be clarified.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, I suspect that the noble Baroness has a sense from the tone of this debate, as in Committee, of how strongly your Lordships’ House feels on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, made the point that we have devolution, not disengagement, and there is a responsibility here for your Lordships’ House.

The noble Lords, Lord Alderdice and Lord Bew, made the point about the differences—not just cultural but practical—between the Northern Ireland Civil Service and the Westminster Civil Service. As a Northern Ireland Minister, I was struck by the far higher profile that senior civil servants have in Northern Ireland than they do here in GB. This is partly because, particularly when the Assembly has been suspended or there have been different governance arrangements, it has often been a civil servant who has undertaken the role that Ministers have here in defending or promoting policies and engaging with the public. So the difference is cultural and practical.

The timing of the Minister’s letter on this issue to noble Lords, dated yesterday and which I received today, is rather unfortunate. I appreciate that we have just had a recess, but it would have been helpful to have had the letter earlier; it may well have informed more of the debate today and the amendment that is being put forward.

There are a couple of points in the Minister’s letter on which I would like some clarification. I think that there is some confusion about what has been devolved and what is excepted. In her letter, she mentioned the debate in Committee and said that,

“many of the points made in debate related to the impartiality of the Northern Ireland Civil Service as a whole, which is of course a transferred matter”.

But the reason why there was a debate around impartiality was that we were discussing the role of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Commission, which is not an excepted matter. It was the role of the commission that brought about that debate. I think that people fully understand that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is devolved, but it is the role of the commission and its responsibility in ensuring the independence and impartiality of the Civil Service.

The point of the amendment and the whole tone of the debate is that, when the Northern Ireland Civil Service Commission is transferred, it is with the statutory understanding that it retains its remit for ensuring impartiality in appointments to the Northern Ireland Civil Service. I do not think that there was any misunderstanding in the debate in your Lordships’ House about what was transferred or excepted, but the reassurance was required, which was not really explicit enough in the Committee debate, that before being a devolved organisation there would be statutory protection on its remit for impartiality.

The Minister said in her letter that there would be further parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses, but the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is relevant here—it would be secondary legislation. But she also says that she intends to bring forward an amendment at Third Reading. I think that it is a great shame that we do not have the amendment before us today, because it would have been helpful to your Lordships’ House to be able to discuss it today. What we will seek from her today is to understand exactly what that amendment would say. If the earliest time we see that amendment is at Third Reading, it is rather late in the day, and I am disappointed that we do not have that government amendment before us today. If she could clarify exactly what it will say and what the process of debate and vote will be, that would be extremely helpful to your Lordships’ House and might allay some concerns. I hope that she is able do that—but, to put it on record again, it would have been helpful to have that amendment today.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Monday 20th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, as always on such issues, these are interesting debates, and I always note that I am one of the few non-lawyers to speak in them. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, I put on record my thanks to the Government for their letter of 15 January in which the Minister explained the changes that were being made to the Bill—it should be understood that your Lordships’ House welcomes those. We concur with the Minister’s judgment about the David Miranda case and we, too, await the judicial review and any report from David Anderson. It may be helpful if we have a discussion once we have received that report.

The amendments before us today highlight issues of concern not just in the law but in the way in which the law may be implemented. However, as I said in Committee, we also take note of the comments of David Anderson as independent reviewer and we are not persuaded to support these amendments tonight. We would support further consideration of Amendment 93B if there were any further incidences of improper detention of citizens from Northern Ireland, but that consideration needs to take the form of a proper consultation involving the Department of Justice for Northern Ireland, the Irish Government as well as the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The PSNI has the unique task of policing a land border with the Republic of Ireland and it rightly requires additional powers to enable it to reduce border crime and prevent dissident attacks. We therefore cannot support Amendment 93B.

There is more work to be done on some of these issues. We certainly want to return to the Miranda judgment when it comes out.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

The noble Baroness has explained that the Opposition are not able to support the amendments, but she has not explained why. Could she tell the House why the Opposition do not consider that a standard of reasonableness, in view of the severity of the sanctions, is appropriate?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, we have two reasons. First if the noble reads my comments in Committee, he will see that we gave further information on that. Secondly, we take the view as outlined by David Anderson in his report, and we think that was a reasonable position to take.

Crime and Courts Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised this issue in Committee, I raised with the Minister some questions about the process that the Government were seeking to introduce. Like the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, I was not entirely satisfied with the replies I received. In fact, I did not receive responses to some of the questions that I raised. I hope that in the time that has expired since 4 July this year the Home Office has been able to provide some answers to those questions.

The point was raised about someone’s leave to remain being cancelled while they were out of the country. I am still unclear—because I have not had a satisfactory response—about the criteria for cancelling someone’s leave to remain while they are out of the country. Is it a purely administrative decision because the decision-making time has come up for that person—they were going to be denied leave to remain and they happened to be out of the country—or is it the case, as the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Avebury, suggested, that the Home Secretary will lie in wait for somebody to leave the country, possibly on compassionate grounds, whereupon their leave to remain will be cancelled? It would be helpful to know what the criteria will be and how the decision will be made.

It would also be useful to have information on what proportion of cancelled leave to remain is cancelled when the subject is outside the country as opposed to when the subject is in the country. I asked that in July in Committee and did not receive an answer. There has been some time since July to get that information; I hope that the noble Lord will have it available.

Another issue is the definition of “public good”. The legislation refers to a decision on removing the right to remain as being taken,

“wholly or partly on the ground that it is no longer conducive to the public good for the person to have leave to … remain”.

Is there a definition of when the public good is no longer there, or when it should be decided that there is no public good and that leave to remain should be withdrawn? The Government need to answer questions on this. I was disappointed not to get responses from the previous Minister—I am not suggesting that the present Minister did not answer me in July—and I hope to get some responses today.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, the noble Baroness described me as “noble and learned”. I should not be described in that way because I am not a former law officer or Law Lord—and I am not sure about being noble. However, it is true that I look at matters as a lawyer. I cannot help that; it is a problem that comes with 40 years of doing it.

I am interested to know what the Minister’s response would be to the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, when he described this as “arbitrary”. That seems to be a correct way of describing it. Can the Minister explain why, if the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, were rejected, the Government would not be highly vulnerable to a legal challenge in our courts or, I dare say, the European Court of Human Rights?

Sexual Offences Act 2003 (Remedial) Order 2012

Debate between Baroness Smith of Basildon and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Thursday 5th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation and the information that she has given to the House on the two sexual offences orders. I shall take them in reverse order. On the notification requirements order, we are broadly supportive but I have a couple of questions, and I was able to have a brief discussion with the Minister earlier to give some indication of what I wanted to ask. My understanding is that the order applies to England and Wales, because policies relating to sex offenders in Scotland and Northern Ireland are devolved to those Administrations. I would have thought, though, that it was important to have some consistency between England and Wales legislation and that in the devolved Administrations. Are there any differences across the UK and, if there are, what are they and how are they being addressed?

I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but I think that Northern Ireland currently retains its three-day loophole, as it has become known, whereby an individual does not have to notify the police of foreign travel of less than three days. Have the Government had any discussions with Ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish Parliament on this issue? What discussions have there been with other European countries? Do they have similar reporting and notification requirements? What co-operation is there between the UK and other European national police forces? That seems to be an area where greater co-operation between us and EU police forces would make great sense.

I was able to talk briefly earlier to the Minister about notification requirements for online identities. I am not clear how these are covered or whether they are covered effectively. I am aware that online social networks are increasingly used to contact and groom young people for sex offences. There are some quite horrific and frightening examples. Jenny Chapman, MP for Darlington, has taken this issue up very robustly. In her constituency a young woman called Ashleigh Hall, who was 17 years old, was tricked into meeting a 33 year-old convicted sex offender, who posed on the internet as a 19 year-old man, and she lost her life as a result of meeting up with him.

It is clear that convicted sex offenders register different identities online. Given that registered sex offenders have to notify the police of any identity documents that they have—passports, for example—I am not clear how online identities fit into the proposed and current notification requirements. We are all aware that there are sex offenders who are frighteningly clever and devious in stalking and grooming their prey and that it is perfectly possible to set up different, multiple online identities. I am not so naive as to think that telling a registered convicted sex offender that he will have to tell the police about each and every online identity would work on its own, but clearly this is a problem area. Given the information in the impact assessment on the second order about sex offenders’ propensity to reoffend, this area must be monitored, and I am interested in how the Government plan to do so. Maybe that is in other legislation that I am not aware of, but I thought that it might have been in here as we are talking about notification requirements.

If this is helpful, Surrey Police has pioneered—it has been honoured for the work that it has done in this area—innovative software that monitors online sex offenders. I understand that it has successfully trialled this and now uses it to monitor 25 different criminals. This software installs onto their computer software which monitors use and sends alerts if any risky behaviour is detected. It is looking to use that across the country. So there are ways of starting to deal with this. However, I would be interested to know what the current position is, just in case I have missed something and there is something in this order or other legislation that covers the creation of online identities by those who seek to groom young people for sexual abuse, an activity which led, in that case, to murder. Have the Government sought the views and advice of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre? The noble Baroness mentioned that they have its support, but just in the implementation—it is not mentioned in the consultation documents as a consultee. I am sure that the Government will have had some contact and I think its input would have been helpful.

On the second order, the remedial order about reviews, I am far less comfortable that the Government are taking the right position. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, who knows my concerns, for taking time to explain the Government’s views. I have also read the report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which is helpful in explaining why the Government are bringing this order forward, following the case of F and Thompson v Secretary of State for the Home Department in which the Supreme Court declared that the indefinite notification requirements in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 were incompatible with Article 8. That happened because, if I understand it correctly, there was not the opportunity for the individual to be treated as an individual and to apply to come off the register.

I am concerned about the Government’s inconsistency on legal judgments. Clearly the Government have been keen to accept the judgment of the Supreme Court on this issue and in legislative terms. Many noble Lords who have been in this House longer than I have will recognise that this legislation has been brought forward quite quickly. However, the Government do not always take this view. In fact, when the European Court of Human Rights ruled on the right of prisoners to vote, the Prime Minister—although he may have been in opposition at the time—said that it made him physically sick. I do not go that far, although I think that one of the consequences of losing one’s liberty through crime is a loss of the vote for the period of incarceration. However, I cannot understand why he does not feel equally strongly about this issue, which has a far greater emotional impact for me.

I also see the order in the context of other changes that the Government are making to legislation involving the registration of those convicted of sexual offences. We have seen in the Protection of Freedoms Act how the definition of a regulated activity—when someone is on the sexual offences register, they cannot work in a regulated activity—is now far narrower than it was. Also, whereas previously someone automatically went on to a register, there is now a gap of around eight weeks and someone can apply to come off the register before they go on it. Whereas before they could apply to come off the register, now they might never go on it, depending on the outcome of the initial review.

At the moment there are around 53,000 convicted sex offenders on the register. More than 29,000 of those are on it indefinitely and, in effect, they are the subject of the order. I have tried to understand the Government’s rationale beyond the Supreme Court decision. I looked at the impact assessment and wondered what other avenues the Government considered. The Government looked at options from doing nothing to a full court-administered review system and plumped for the option before us today, option 4. There are three things to look at—the costs, the benefit and the risk. Page 16 of the impact assessment shows the costs. I understand that if there is going to be a review process it has to be robust and effective. The assessment states:

“The costs associated with this option would be absorbed by the agencies to which they fall and would represent opportunity rather than financial costs”.

Those agencies are the police, currently facing 20% cuts in their budget; social services, also facing cuts in their budgets and struggling; and the probation service, which is also facing cuts in its budget. Yet they are being asked to take on additional responsibilities and the Government are not able to identify what those costs are, other than that they are opportunity costs.

We then come to the transitional costs. The Government say that there will be some costs in the first year for guidance and training, up to an estimated £50,000. However, the impact assessment says that there will be transitional costs for the other agencies, which I assume means the police, social services and the probation service. Regarding those costs the assessment says that it,

“has not been possible to quantify this”.

Under “Cost of a review”, the assessment says that the process,

“would take up approximately 9 hours of police time, including 3 hours of superintendent time as well as 6 hours of involvement from other agencies… estimated at £630”.

That is a fairly conservative estimate. I worry because although the Government have set up this process, I wonder how the agencies that are required to conduct the review will find the resources to do it as effectively as they need to.

Page 17 of the impact assessment discusses the “Continuation/Discontinuation of notification requirements”. As so often on this subject, the assessment says that things cannot be quantified. For example, it says that,

“it has not been possible to quantify the cost of those applying for subsequent reviews”,

in terms of the time involved. The Government do not seem to know what the costs will be. However, they do know that they will not have to pay those costs and that somebody else will. That is a concern.

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

So that I can follow the noble Baroness’s argument, is it the position of Her Majesty’s Opposition that there is some alternative to the view taken by the Joint Committee on Human Rights that these are sensible and proportionate ways of complying with the Supreme Court’s judgment and the relevant law? If she is suggesting that, it would be helpful to know what the alternative would be.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

No, at this point I am not suggesting an alternative. I would like the Government to go away and think about the alternatives. I will come on to this later, but if the Government are going to set up a review system, they will need to have more information about the system they are setting up—about the costs, benefits and risks.

I have looked at the costs. The Government say on page 19 of the impact assessment that the benefits will be similar to those listed in part 3 of the impact assessment, which are relatively minor. The assessment says that,

“it has not been possible to quantify these”—

other than to say that if people come off the list then there will be savings in police time. So the Government are not able to tell us the costs or the benefits.

As for the risks, there are a number of unknowns:

“There are the following unknowns in relation to this policy:

The actual volumes of applications for review;

The impact of the review mechanism …

The volumes of offenders whose indefinite notification requirements will be discontinued as a result of the review process;

The potential impact of ending notification requirements on re-offending rates and detection rates.

The actual costs and savings that will result”.

Is it wise not to quantify the costs, benefits or risks while taking a course of action? If the Government think that this is the right course of action then they should line these things up first.

One risk, of course, is reoffending. The Government’s impact assessment states:

“A number of studies have been considered in the development of this policy which analyse reconviction rates of convicted sex offenders over a follow-up period of 20-25 years. There is no evidence that a point can be reached at which a sex offender presents no risk of re-offending. Approximately a quarter of the previously convicted offenders were reconvicted for a sexual offence within this time period”.

So, within 20 to 25 years, a quarter of those who had been convicted were reconvicted. However, the assessment does tell us:

“We do not anticipate any greenhouse gas impacts as a result of these proposals”.

I thought that that was rather bizarre.

I hope that the Minister can address some of the concerns that I have raised because they worry me enormously. However, there are some specific points about the order on which I am clear. The regulations refer to the “determining officer”, who I take to be the police officer who will make the judgment on the review. Are the Government clear about what rank, experience, training and guidance that officer should have? The order says that any review would have to be signed off by a superintendent. With the increase in workload given the 20% cuts, I am worried that that will make it more difficult for the superintendent. The review by the superintendent is unlikely to be a rigorous process. The rigour has to come from the determining officer who undertakes the review. Clearly the review itself will have to be a vigorous and detailed process, and I doubt that the Government intend that it should be otherwise. However, unless the Government can be assured that those in the review process have the experience, access to information and the relevant good training, any good intentions for rigorous process will not be realised.

What evidence does the Minister envisage will be required to enable someone to come off the register when they apply? Will it be sufficient for them not to have breached their notification requirements? Is the onus on the police to prove that they still pose a risk, or will the convicted person on the register have to prove that they no longer pose a risk? The Government have estimated the number of people who might be eligible for review. Has any risk assessment been undertaken to develop guidance on how many of those who are on the register are still deemed to pose a risk and should therefore stay on it?