Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support for this Bill introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

I have made two previous attempts to reform the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act that ultimately received the support of the coalition Government. It is for this reason that I want to put on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who is now the chairman of the Youth Justice Board. I endorse what the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said—namely, that this is probably one of the most successful agencies operating in the criminal justice field today. I also add my thanks to the former Justice Minister, Kenneth Clarke, who was the Secretary of State at the time, for the support that he gave to my measures.

The impact of these measures has helped to shape the lives of thousands of people by directing them away from the criminal justice process. The Bill seeks to extend the protection which the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act provides to former offenders who have served sentences of over four years but have left crime behind them and stayed out of trouble for periods of eight years or more—a long time.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 provided that, after specified rehabilitation periods, ex-offenders do not have to declare spent convictions when they apply for jobs. The Act does not apply to people applying for jobs in sensitive areas of work such as criminal justice agencies, financial institutions and work with young people or vulnerable adults.

Initially, the Act applied only to offenders serving sentences of up to two and a half years. However, following my introduction of a series of Private Members’ Bills to reform the Act, the coalition Government agreed to extend the Act to include offenders who have served sentences of four years or less. Even now, however, many genuinely reformed ex-offenders can never benefit from the Act. More than 7,000 people a year are given sentences of over four years. At present they can never be rehabilitated for the purposes of the Act, however much they do to change their ways and over however long a period. Our provisions are still notably less generous than the rules which apply in many European nations—a point well made by my noble friend Lord McNally. Most European countries typically apply rehabilitation periods to sentences that are longer than four years, and their rehabilitation periods are often significantly shorter than ours.

Since the Act was implemented, sentence lengths in this country have significantly increased. Many offenders who would have received sentences of four years or less in 1974 are receiving sentences of five, six or seven years today. This means that many offenders who would previously have been helped by the Act now find that their offences will never become spent during the whole of their lifetime.

The buffer periods which are proposed in the noble Lord’s Bill would begin after the sentence was completed—including any post-release supervision. The offender would then have to remain crime-free for a buffer period of four years for custodial sentences of four years or more. This would mean that those benefiting from the Bill would have to avoid crime for at least eight years, and in some cases for a much longer period, before the provisions applied to them.

The new provisions would not apply to jobs in sensitive occupations, as I mentioned earlier. However, the provisions of the Bill would further reduce the scope for unfair discrimination against ex-offenders in the job market. Regrettably, such discrimination is still widespread. Surveys of ex-offenders in Nacro projects—I declare my interest as president of that organisation—have shown that 60% have been explicitly refused a job because of their criminal record.

Of course, it is sometimes reasonable to refuse an ex-offender a job because of his record. For example, obviously we must bar offenders with a history of offences against children from working with children. We should bar offenders with a history of offences against elderly people from work caring for elderly people. The Bill would not apply to cases such as these, which are covered by the exceptions to the Act. However, in many cases employers turn down applicants because of offences that have no relevance to the jobs for which they are applying. Unfortunately, the scope for discrimination against ex-offenders is wide, because decisions to employ or refuse people jobs are not made at the top of companies; they are made by a large number of individual managers and personnel staff who usually have had no specific training in how to deal with applications from people with criminal records.

Unfair discrimination against ex-offenders is wrong in principle, because it imposes an additional illegitimate penalty of refusal of employment on people who have already served the judicially ordered punishment for their crime. It also reduces public safety, because an ex-offender’s risk of reoffending is reduced by between a third and a half if he or she gets and keeps a job. The whole community benefits when offending is reduced—and reformed offenders are also helped to avoid returning to wasting their lives in criminal activities.

I conclude by saying that the Bill would enable more people with criminal records to start again with a clean slate after a substantial number of years free of criminal activity. This is a worthy aim, and I am delighted to commend it and to support the Bill.