Police Cautions (Young People)

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

You will be happy to know that I have prepared for this debate, Mr Gray. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time and I am pleased to have secured the debate. I am still wearing a black tie after the events of this morning, but I think that this debate involves good news. I look forward to the Minister’s winding-up speech. The debate provides an opportunity for me to discuss an issue that can blight the lives of many hard-working young people in our constituencies and seek clarification from the Minister on recent developments in Government policy.

Police cautions can have a detrimental impact on the lives and employment prospects of young people. An e-mail from one of my constituents led me to initiate the debate, and I know that many other Members have received similar correspondence. My constituent, who is now in her final year at university, received a police caution in early 2007, when she was 15 years old, for a minor shoplifting offence while part of a dominant group of girls. Her e-mail explained to me that the huge peer pressure that she felt so as to be accepted as part of that group and coercion by her then friends were key reasons for her behaviour, which she admits was poor. I am sure that many of us have some sympathy with that.

Looking back, my constituent admits that she feels utterly embarrassed by and ashamed of her actions, which were completely unrepresentative of her character. She has not acted similarly before or since. She is not a dishonest person—I have seen several character references from employers and former teachers that she has provided to back that up—and in the years since the offence she has not kept in contact with any of the people involved and has gone on to achieve success in her exams and at university.

My constituent’s ambition is to pursue a career in law, and her academic success and involvement in voluntary and extracurricular activities make such a career possible, but that dream has been jeopardised by the police caution that she received more than six years ago. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has informed her that it is more likely than not that her application will be rejected due to her caution. She is understandably devastated that she may not be able to pursue her chosen career.

As the Minister will be aware, the Justice Committee, of which I am a member—I am pleased to see our Chairman, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), here today—published a wide-ranging report on youth justice on 14 March. Among our many recommendations, one is particularly relevant to this debate. Paragraph 21 of the conclusions and recommendations reads:

“We support the reduction in rehabilitation periods introduced via the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, which means that many young offenders’ convictions will become spent sooner. We also agree with the Minister that employers, as well as schools, colleges and universities, should consider taking young people on despite their previous offences, as many do. Nevertheless, while we recognise that for very serious offending, disclosure of convictions will continue to be in the public interest, we consider there is potential to go further in relation to more minor convictions. We therefore recommend that, in addition to keeping the youth rehabilitation periods under review, the Government considers legislating to erase out-of-court disposals and convictions from the records of very early, minor and non-persistent offenders at the age of 18, so that they cannot be disclosed to employers under the Exceptions Order to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.”

Since 2008, more than 1 million child arrests have been made in England and Wales, about one third of which resulted in a police caution. Lest I am misunderstood —heaven forbid—by certain sections of the press or even the House, I want to be clear that I believe young people should be punished according to the rule of law, like anybody else, when they do wrong. How we respond to often low-level bad behaviour by youngsters, however, has the potential to blight the rest of their lives by further alienating them from society. Our country cannot afford and would not be right to put young people, in effect, on the scrap heap before they had ever had a chance. Those young people need support, not perpetual criminalisation, and this change would provide that.

The Justice Committee report’s recommendation aims to improve the prospects of young people who have received police cautions for minor offences and have not reoffended by wiping their records, thereby preventing cautions from being disclosed to certain potential employers during criminal record checks.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the problem can be hugely discriminatory against youngsters in inner cities, many of whom receive cautions at an early age, blighting their lives? We are in danger of creating a perpetual underclass of people who can never escape due to minor offences for which Parliament never legislated such a disproportionate penalty.

[Steve Brine]

I very much agree. We are often talking about people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. As a country, we are crazy to hold them down, as we do in some cases. They need support, not perpetual criminalisation.

Although not entirely down to the actions of our Committee—it would have been a swift move by the Minister if so—I am pleased that the Government plan to lay before Parliament a statutory instrument to amend the exceptions to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, so that some spent convictions and cautions do not have to be disclosed and cannot be taken into account in employment decisions. Nevertheless, that development still leaves us with several questions.

On 29 January this year, the Court of Appeal ruled that the system of Criminal Records Bureau checks constituted a breach of article 8 of the European convention on human rights and of the Human Rights Act 1998, and that requiring the disclosure of all convictions and cautions relating to recordable offences is disproportionate to the aim of protecting children and vulnerable adults. Why, therefore, did the Government feel the need to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court?

The statutory instrument that the Government will lay before Parliament will help my constituent and many others, so I welcome it. It is proposed that cautions and equivalents administered to a young offender will not be subject to disclosure after two years, and that a conviction received as a young offender resulting in a non-custodial sentence will not be subject to disclosure after five and a half years. May I press the Minister, however, to implement the measure as quickly as possible? How long will it be before the order is laid before the House? Will he confirm that any changes will be applied retrospectively?

Finally, my constituent highlighted two other important issues, which concern other Members as well. First, on the role of local constabularies in removing or retaining a caution on a young person’s record, my constituent contacted Hampshire constabulary in the hope that it might be able to remove the caution from her record, but she was told that nothing could be done in that regard. However, in certain circumstances, do not chief constables have the discretion to prevent the disclosure of cautions? Where does the truth lie?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman might be aware that we are conducting a cautions review at the moment, so feeding into that is important. As I am about to explain in detail, we are concerned to encourage the use of out-of-court disposals but to ensure that, first, the length of time for which they are active beyond the period of the commission of the offence is properly limited and that, at the same time, they provide confidence in the wider justice system and in particular a feeling among victims that appropriate reparation has been made. That is the balance to be struck.

[Mr Spellar]

The initiatives that the Minister is announcing are useful and heading in the right direction, but we might be getting away slightly from the core of the issue: misdemeanours or offences committed at a young age, whether leading to cautions or convictions and minor punishments, can blight people’s lives. We saw that, in particular, with the elections for police and crime commissioners, when a number of individuals of all political parties were prevented from standing 40 or 50 years after committing the offences. That should have highlighted the necessity of taking action, to prevent them from appearing on people’s records and their life being affected.

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman is right; that was certainly a vivid example of the long-lasting effect. I gently point out, however, that that legislation was passed by the House over the past couple of years entirely unopposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Spellar]

All parties made a mistake.

[Damian Green]

However, the time for which an offence should hang over a young person or anyone else is contentious, and we must be careful to strike a balance. Ensuring appropriate punishment and particularly appropriate reparation for victims, so that they have confidence in the system, form the other half of the balance that I am sure all hon. Members want to strike.