Business of the House

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I commend what my hon. Friend has done, but I cannot think of anyone less like a dragon than him. It is important that schools do more to prepare children for the financial challenges in life. Some schools have started schemes whereby pupils are given a relatively small sum of money and challenged to grow it—there have been real successes from that, and there is an encouraging increase in self-employment among young people. I applaud my hon. Friend’s initiative in encouraging young people in his constituency to become attuned to financial matters, and I hope that many of them turn out to be budding entrepreneurs.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

On Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) raised the issue of how the principles of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 are being undermined by Criminal Records Bureau checks, because people’s lives are being blighted for ever by offences or even cautions that took place years and sometimes decades earlier, often in people’s unruly youth. In view of the utterly complacent reply my right hon. Friend received from the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), who was answering as a Minister, may we have a debate to expose and hopefully remedy this ongoing injustice?

[Sir George Young]

The rehabilitation of offenders legislation has, I believe, recently been reviewed, but I will take on board the point the right hon. Gentleman makes and see whether further tweaks are needed to ensure that people are not unjustly penalised, when they seek employment, for relatively trivial offences that happened some time ago. I will raise the matter with the Home Secretary.