Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Robert Neill]

That is absolutely right, and it tallies with some of the examples given to us directly by people who have been through the system. I agree entirely that it does not make sense.

Let us look at the remaining bits of the system. We have filtering for single convictions. Single or multiple cautions for lesser offences can be filtered out once six years have elapsed, or two years if the person was under 18 at the time. That structure is complicated enough, frankly, but we then get to what we cannot filter, including convictions and cautions for listed offences and multiple convictions for lesser offences, no matter how long ago they happened and regardless of the circumstances.

Those of us who have practised criminal law can think of many instances in which it is perfectly possible to charge more than one offence arising out of the same set of facts. For example, actual bodily harm and a theft, both of which ended up in a conditional discharge or a fine; two offences of theft; or two assaults, because more than one person was involved in a stupid fight. Those are multiple and cannot be filtered, however much time has gone by. That, to us, seems to be nonsense. The view of many witnesses to our inquiry is that the system is complex and arbitrary. It is a blunt instrument, it is restrictive and it is disproportionate. It has exactly the problems that the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I completely agree on the need for flexibility in the system. If we are interested in rehabilitation and support for offenders, there is an argument that, for example, schools should be told something of the past activity of an individual, particularly if mental health issues were involved, so that they could provide the necessary support to make sure that the individual was looked after.

[Robert Neill]

It is ironic. At the moment we have a box-ticking exercise in which a conviction can be disclosed. As the right hon. Member for Warley rightly said, an employer may well have 200 applicants for a post so will simply play safe and delete anybody who has ticked the conviction box, regardless of how relevant that is for the job that they seek to employ a person to do. That is a burden for a small employer.

However, frequently when people apply for jobs through large employment agencies, it is almost as if an algorithm exists and that anyone who ticks the box is automatically filtered out by the computer system before their application gets any farther. None of those show the level of discretion that was perhaps anticipated when the scheme was drawn up. But it is not fair to push the burden on to employers. There is an obligation on the state and Government to set up a fair and appropriate regime that gives them comfort that they can make appropriate checks and that equally helps people to rehabilitate themselves.

The other point is the disproportionate impact on young people. That may seem obvious, but I do not think it is really recognised by those who run the system. The qualifying period of five and a half years is a great proportion of a child’s life, and is perhaps one of the most critical portions of a young person’s life as they grow up, mature and move into the employment, work and qualification phase. To have this hanging over them then, rather than further down the track, could not come at a worse time. There is not enough recognition of that.

The Law Commission gave compelling evidence to us, observing that the filtering regime might be well regarded as disproportionately harsh on young offenders. Our report concluded that too many childhood offences are unfiltered, undermining rehabilitation and denying children—which is what they were at the time they committed the offences—a second chance. We urge the Government to revise that as a matter of urgency. We also heard powerful evidence on the adverse effect that childhood criminal records have on employment, education and housing, as well as on insurance and visas for travel—everyday things, not the obvious things that we think about. We heard clear evidence of the discriminatory and adverse impact of that.

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend mentioned insurance, which includes car insurance. We rely on cars for our jobs, for pleasure and for all sorts of things. The way that insurance companies look out for these people is not very helpful at all and can leave people in difficult situations.

[Robert Neill]

Absolutely. Because it is blunt, employers and insurers will inevitably take the risk-averse approach. I do not entirely blame them for doing that; the system does not help them to be proportionate and more careful in their judgment than would otherwise have been the case. We also concluded that there is clear evidence of particular impacts on black and minority ethnic children and those who came through the care system, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham hinted.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I will make a few comments about the impact of what we looked at in the report on education, housing and the insurance market. Those issues are adequately set out in the report, so I will just bring out a few points.

My starting point is the need to provide proper rehabilitation and support for people who have obtained a conviction, however they obtained it. If we do not come from that position when we discuss the subject, we are lost. Therefore, as I mentioned in my intervention, there is a great need to ensure that education institutions are aware of an individual’s particular needs. It may be that an individual has an admittedly spent conviction that came about because of mental health capacity needs. It is absolutely appropriate for the education establishment to know about that to provide the necessary support to make sure that he or she can be looked after in the best way.

It should not be possible, however, for an institution to act as in the case of the nurse who, at the age of 15, received a conviction for actual bodily harm for tackling a school bully. As a result, her place to study nursing at university was revoked and she had to appeal, which meant that she had to go through the process of explaining what had occurred. The decision was reversed, but after that woman had looked for jobs, she said she had found that her career progression was inhibited because of that spent conviction. That is where the unfairness in the system emerges, and it is why we need some of the flexibility that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) mentioned.

The second area that I will touch on is housing. I need to tread carefully here, being a member of the Ministry concerned. However, there is a great case for making sure that the allocation of housing and the schemes to organise that allocation do not create avoidable barriers when it comes to providing people with accommodation.

We all know that accommodation is one of the best routes to stability and to providing an individual with a job and a good background. We need to encourage individuals to find accommodation. So I will just finish on housing by asking the Minister whether he can explain what conversations have been had with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to take this process forward and to make sure that the issue is being addressed.

Lastly, I will look at the issue of insurance, which we have already discussed briefly. In that area, we found a number of examples of avoidable barriers. One of them, which I mentioned in my intervention, related to a complaint involving motor insurance, where the insurer had cancelled an existing customer’s policy on discovering that she had a spent conviction. The woman involved complained about that because it was she who had revealed that she had a spent conviction. The ombudsman found that it was unfair and unreasonable for her to be punished for her honesty in making sure that she disclosed that information. I think that the insurer in that case was fined.

Nevertheless, that example is a very good one of how the insurance industry has not been properly managed to tackle this issue. I know that in their report the Government said that they were talking to the Association of British Insurers, for example, about trying to deal with this issue. I would like to know how those discussions are going and what we can look forward to.

Those are just three areas where there is an impact on the lives of individuals, and I think all of us have recognised that this issue is not one for a nice legal discussion but something that affects the lives of individuals in a big way. I am glad that this report has done its job in tackling the issue.