Draft Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2023

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 General Committees

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the Minister for outlining the provisions of the draft order. As he explained, it will amend schedule 1 to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 by adding new provisions to cover chartered management accountants, fire and rescue authority employees, justice system intermediaries and notaries public of England and Wales to allow questions to be asked about cautions and convictions that have become spent under the 1974 Act where necessary.

The Opposition are able to support the draft order. Supporting ex-offenders into employment is something that we must all endeavour to be better at, especially given the central role that employment can play in preventing future offending. It is vital that our criminal records system does not unnecessarily trap people in the past when they are committing to reform, staying out of the offending cycle or rebuilding their lives. However, the overriding concern when legislating in this area must always be the protection of the public. The exemptions included in the 1975 order strike that proportionate balance because those areas of work, such as working with vulnerable individuals or potentially sensitive information, require high degrees of trust. We are satisfied that the extensions to the 1975 order under discussion today can be introduced while maintaining that vital proportionate balance.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is all well and good, but as we have seen with scandals in policing and recently in the NHS—there was a case in the papers this week about an NHS worker accessing documents for the purpose of stalking—it is only any good if the organisation in question has proper, ongoing safeguarding measures? These changes should not be a cause for complacency for any of the other organisations that we know still have a long way to go.

[Anna McMorrin]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Chartered accountants, for example, undertake sensitive accounting work that requires a very high degree of public trust, and the risk of abuse of that trust is higher than in many other jobs. Fire and rescue authority employees who come into contact with incredibly vulnerable individuals, including children and young people, have a particularly important safeguarding role when they attend incidents as medical first responders. Given the culture that we have seen across some of our fire and rescue authorities and police, as my hon. Friend mentions, we need to ensure that people are properly safeguarded.

Justice system intermediaries have very high levels of responsibility for the vulnerable individuals they assist, who include children, and they sometimes have unsupervised access to them. Notaries public also frequently deal with vulnerable people and highly sensitive information. It is right that individuals who undertake such sensitive work are subject to additional DBS scrutiny, so we are happy to support the draft order.

I recognise that the relevant organisations are producing guidance to ensure that a proportionate approach is taken with regard to the disclosure of criminal records in these additional areas to ensure that equality and individual privacy is upheld alongside public protection. I wonder whether the Minister can tell me what plans, if any, the Department has to review that guidance to ensure that it is proportionate and that it is drafted in line with the anticipated needs of the professions that he has set out today.

I also wonder whether the Minister can share whether the draft order represents the extent of his Department’s current intentions on changes to the criminal record system. As shadow Minister for Victims and Youth Justice, I have been following the #FairChecks campaign with interest, particularly in relation to its asks about offences committed in childhood. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he has had any meetings with the campaign or has any plans for further reform in the area.

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[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Argar]

I will, because I was just about to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Actually, I was going to be really cheeky and say that women’s centres offer a particularly good place for rehabilitation for women. The Minister came to visit my local women’s centre in Brighton, and we would love to see him back to see the improvements and the continuous struggles that the centre has had in delivering justice and rehabilitation for women in my area.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who typically puts in a plug for his own constituency and the services provided there. I recall that in my last stint in this role, I had the privilege of visiting his constituency, visiting his local women’s centre with him and seeing the team’s amazing work down there. I can still remember it: I think we posed for a photograph on the front step after spending quite a long time chatting with the team, service users and others about the amazing work being done there. If I am able to, it is always a pleasure to return to sunny Brighton, particularly at this time of year or during the summer.

On the point that the hon. Gentleman made in his intervention on the shadow Minister, I think that this measure is an important step forward, but he is absolutely right to highlight that no statutory instrument—no single piece of legislation—can solve the problem. Once it is passed, it is not a case of “Job done: there we are.” Every organisation in our public services and beyond, particularly one that works with vulnerable people or holds a position of trust, has an ongoing responsibility to continue to look at its behaviours and processes to ensure that safeguarding, particularly of vulnerable individuals, is front and centre in its approach. The hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to highlight that point.

The shadow Minister raised a couple of questions. I have not met the campaign group that she mentioned, but if she wishes to write to me about the campaign as a starting point, she knows that I will always read her letters with care. As I mentioned in my opening speech, we are reviewing the guidance around each of the professions. We want to do so with the professions to try, in so far as is possible, to make it jointly authored and ensure that it actually works for the specifics of each. We will seek to do so collaboratively where we can. I commend the draft order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.