Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to all these amendments, particularly Amendments 476, 477 and 478. These amendments highlight how the system of criminal record disclosure, particularly as it relates to children, is complex and very confusing. I am an advocate for criminal record reform, having been a youth magistrate for over 20 years and having been on the Youth Justice Board. Those roles have consistently demonstrated to me how decisions made in childhood, often in relation to relatively minor offences, can have consequences that extend well into adult life, as we have heard this evening.

As noble Lords will know, I recently tabled an amendment to the Sentencing Bill to address the anomaly in youth sentencing whereby the first court appearance, rather than the date of the offence, determines whether a young person is treated as an adult. I am therefore very conscious of the unfair impact these technicalities beyond a child’s control can have on their future.

Although we have had success in reducing the number of children in custody because we wanted to keep young people out of prison, we have at the same time increased the threshold of seriousness of offending in these disposals of conditional cautions over a number of years.

I know that the Justice Secretary has recently acknowledged publicly that aspects of the criminal records and disclosure system are in need of reform. Rehabilitation is about giving people a chance to change, and, where appropriate, we should work to ensure that childhood mistakes do not turn into lifelong punishments, giving them the opportunity to get on with their lives.

I am also attracted to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier referred. It is very important that the Minister view these amendments on childhood as an opportunity to reflect on a broader review of criminal records and the DBS disclosure system, which might now be appropriate.

These amendments highlight just how complex the system has become. Ensuring that the system is fairer, while keeping in mind the importance of rehabilitation and protection to the public, would, in my view, be a worthwhile objective.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to Amendments 476, 477 and 478 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, to which I have added my name. I am also sympathetic to the other amendments in this group and declare, as ever, that I am a schoolteacher in Hackney. I would also like to acknowledge the help of Transform Justice.

I rather innocently assumed that one of the cornerstones of the justice system in this country is rehabilitation, but this does not seem to be the case with our young people. As we have heard, every year in England and Wales there are 13,000 convictions of children aged 10 to 17, who are disproportionately from poor backgrounds, minoritised communities, in care or excluded from school. Those convicted acquire criminal records which only add to their disadvantage.

Some of these criminal records remain through life. A child charged for affray for a playground fight would have to disclose that for ever on a standard and enhanced DBS check. Also, currently, as we have heard, a criminal record is acquired on conviction rather than according to the date of the offence itself. This means that many people commit offences as children but acquire an adult criminal record because, through no fault of their own, the hearing at which they are convicted happens after their 18th birthday. This situation has got worse because of the recent delays in the court system. This is patently absurd.

As the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has said, brains do not mature until people are well into their twenties. Also, research has shown that teenagers take more risks when they have an audience. As I see in the playground every week, children are immature and often reckless, not seeing the consequences of their actions.

Our criminal records should allow for rehabilitation in order to allow young people to move on from childhood mistakes. These amendments would mean that young people should be able to be free of their childhood offences at a specific interval after they have finished their sentence, so they do not have to explain old and no longer relevant childhood offences to potential employers—even if they manage to get as far as an interview. We are not talking about the most serious crimes here.

For everyone else, these amendments would mean that childhood offences should automatically be taken off the records five and a half years after conviction. We also propose that a conditional caution, when accepted by a child, should not appear on the records. We propose that those whose conviction is delayed until after their 18th birthday should not acquire an adult criminal record.

With the number of NEETs approaching 1 million, we should be doing everything we can to remove barriers to employment and let rehabilitation of the young be truly part of the justice system.

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I am going to speak to Amendment 486D, and I support all the other amendments in this group. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for his compelling introduction, and for the other powerful speeches. You may wonder why I have tabled this very specific amendment. The best way I can relate it is to tell a brief story. I was truly shocked when a friend drew my attention to an incident involving his teenage daughter a few years ago, but which, I believe, affects many of our young people, receives very little publicity and ruins many lives.

My friend’s daughter had arrived at a railway station to find that the ticket machines were not working and there was a long queue for the ticket office. Desperate to catch a train to get her vaccinations for charitable work abroad, she foolishly jumped on a train without a ticket.

When she got out at her destination, she offered to pay at the barrier. The inspector told her to get a ticket at the ticket office. However, there was a long queue, so, knowing that she would not have time to do that, she went to the machines, but she found that she could not get a machine ticket for a journey from the station where she had left to the station she had arrived at.

Very naively, she thought she would therefore get the ticket after her appointment for vaccinations, and she left the station in a state of some panic. It was then that she was approached by the ticket inspector and told she was to be prosecuted under Section 5(3)(a) of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 for travelling without paying the fare with intent to avoid payment. It was the first time she had ever done something like this. Her ticket would have cost £3.20. That is less than a cappuccino coffee.

I discovered that, if convicted, she might not only face a fine of up to £1,000 or imprisonment for up to three months, but her conviction would be recorded on the Police National Database and future potential employers would see it after a basic criminal records search for up to six years and for up to 11 years, I believe, after an enhanced check. Through just one moment’s teenage lack of judgment, her prospects of obtaining a job and a career would be blighted during a crucial period when most young people are trying to get on the career ladder—all for a £3.20 fare.

Acting as a friend, I had many exchanges of correspondence with the rail company, all to no avail. The upshot was that I ended up joining her and her desperately worried parents at the local magistrates’ court for her hearing, where I intended to plead the mitigating circumstances of her case. To my horror, I discovered she was one of dozens of other children and young people queuing up that morning, charged with exactly the same offence, which was a regular occurrence at that magistrates’ court, I found. It was nothing unusual. I managed to persuade the train company to drop her case if she paid a fine, but thousands of other young people are not so lucky.

This was a young teenage woman who was on an important journey in connection with unpaid charitable work abroad. Her heart was in exactly the right place. On the spur of the moment, she panicked and thought she might miss her train. She had tried to pay the fare at the train barriers when she arrived, so she emphatically did not intend to avoid it. Of course—and I emphasise this—she thoroughly deserved the fine, but did she really deserve the likely prospect of being unable to obtain a decent job for the next six to 11 years, all for a one-off, first-time offence relating to a £3.20 train ticket? She was no serial offender.

The charity FairChecks has demonstrated that, with a criminal record, young people can be locked out of future employment opportunities and even voluntary work. Research shows that at least 30% of employers automatically exclude a candidate with an unspent conviction. But the facts show that, as we have heard, young peoples’ brains are still developing, which makes them more impulsive and less able fully to understand the consequences of their actions. It is therefore crucial that they be given the opportunity to move on from their mistakes without carrying the weight of those childhood errors during early adulthood. In all honesty, might not many of us say, “There but for the grace of God go our children”?

My amendment would give our children a second chance if they are found without a valid ticket on the railways. They would still be liable for a penalty fare or a fine but, provided it was a first offence, their lives would not be ruined by being given a disclosable criminal record. I emphasise that my amendment would not apply if they were caught a second time. In those circumstances, they would not have learned from their mistakes and potential employers would have just cause in wanting to know they were dishonest.