Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames]

420: After Clause 148, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to review treatment of childhood convictions and cautions(1) Within a year of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report on the management of childhood convictions and cautions.(2) The report must consider at least—(a) the prevention of automatic disclosure of childhood conditional cautions;(b) the prevention of adult treatment of offences committed by individuals who were minors at the time of the offences in question taking place;(c) the range of childhood convictions which are removed from standard and enhanced checks after five and a half years.(3) In considering the areas outlined in subsection (2), the report must consider the policy merits of reform of the existing management of childhood convictions and cautions, and which actions would be required in each case for reform to take place.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish a report reviewing how childhood convictions and cautions are handled within one year of this Act being passed.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, in this group on childhood convictions, Amendment 420 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Brinton seeks a general review and report on the management of childhood convictions and cautions. Later in the group, there are four specific amendments. Three are tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, with all his wide experience of working as a magistrate, particularly in the youth court, and is also in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Spellar and Lord Hampton; the other is tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere. I support all four specific amendments. They are all consistent with our general proposition that we should be very careful before we mark people out with a criminal record for mistakes committed when they were children.

I am grateful for the briefing we have received from Unlock and Transform Justice. They make a number of helpful proposals for reform. Our amendment calls for a report to be commissioned and laid before Parliament within a year to enable Parliament to be fully informed on the issues and possible reforms in this difficult area —and it is a difficult area. We must not only consider the position of young people who acquire criminal records that may blight their futures but balance their position against the need to protect future employers and others who might be affected by repeat offences in the future, in particular vulnerable children, and society as a whole.

The position of children in England and Wales is exacerbated because we have a very young age of criminal responsibility—10 years old—with the result that, in this jurisdiction, children aged between 10 and 17 can be convicted of criminal offences. This compares with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scotland, which raised the age of criminal responsibility in 2019, and with Germany, Spain, and Italy, where it is 14, along with many other countries. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child requires states to set a minimum age of criminal responsibility without expressing what that should be, but the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urges states to raise the age to 14.

The reasons why this matters are not confined to the unfairness of punishing children for crimes when they lack the maturity or responsibility to be held criminally responsible by state laws. The unfairness extends to exposing them to the long-term disadvantage of being scarred with criminal records acquired for childhood offences for longer than is necessary for the protection of the public and often well into their adulthood.

There is a wealth of evidence of the ages at which young people’s brains and cognition mature. Although it differs, the best evidence provides that full maturity is not reached until the early 20s and that full responsibility does not develop until the late teens at least. That matches the obvious and instinctively understood reality that children and young people are that much more likely to get into trouble than adults. Yet, we do not presently match our law on the acquisition, collation and disclosure of criminal records to that obvious reality.

There are many injustices. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds and minority communities are much more likely to acquire criminal records than children from more privileged backgrounds. There is a vicious circle in operation here. Disadvantaged children are overwhelmingly more likely to be in care, to be excluded from school and to develop personality disorders and other mental health issues. Those factors make them significantly more likely to commit offences and get into trouble with the law.

By saddling children with criminal records, we make their disadvantages worse in securing employment or training opportunities, and even in further education. Fines and community orders generally stay on a child’s record for two years on a basic check, and maybe for much longer if an enhanced check is sought, which it is likely to be for any work in a school, for example.

It is not just convictions, though, that damage children. Cautions in childhood can prevent children and young adults securing employment. A basic DBS check provided by the Disclosure and Barring Service, which it is open to any potential employer to seek, will disclose youth conditional cautions, which are intended to be an alternative to formal criminal proceedings. Such conditional cautions can be given to anyone aged between 10 and 17 and avoid the need for criminal proceedings. That is clearly a sensible strategy to provide an alternative criminal justice solution to avoid the need for proceedings and a formal conviction. However, the caution will stay on the child’s record on a basic DBS check for three months or until the conditions have been complied with, whichever is earlier. Even in that time, the caution is capable of being really damaging to that child’s prospects.

Then again, the effect of court backlogs has been, as we know, that convictions are delayed. Such delays may last from the date when a person charged with an offence was a child to a date long after that child’s 18th birthday, so they are then an adult. So, a person can commit an offence as a child and be convicted as an adult but, for the purposes of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, the date when the conviction becomes spent depends on the date of conviction rather than the date of the offence. So, through no fault of their own, children’s convictions for offences that ought to have been spent are unspent for far longer.

This is an area in serious need of review. We need wider consideration of all the issues concerning the treatment of criminal records acquired for childhood offences, including: whether and for how long children’s offences should stay on their records; how far the seriousness of the sentence passed should be the sole or even the main criterion for convictions becoming spent; what other criteria there should be; whether conditional cautions should be treated as giving rise to a criminal record; how far it should be open to children convicted of offences committed in childhood to apply for their records to be expunged—when, to whom and on what basis; and how far such offences should still be disclosed on standard and enhanced higher-level DBS checks.

These are serious issues affecting many lives that are currently blighted by a past that sticks with them, and they are important to society as a whole. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I do not think that I can improve on what I have said. I will make inquiries into the statistical evidence that we hold and write to the noble Lord.

I reiterate that I am very happy to meet any of your Lordships, including, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, ahead of Report to discuss these issues in more detail. In the meantime, I hope that the noble Lord will be content to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the support that I have had from across the Committee, and for the very detailed and helpful response from the Minister. I will gladly take up her invitation to have a discussion. It is important that the Government intend to review this area, at least in part. If we can commission a review of the sort that I have suggested, I would be very pleased to help with that. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 420 withdrawn.