Draft Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2022

Mike Penning Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 General Committees

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I refer the Committee to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a non-executive director of a law firm.

The Minister’s portfolio was my portfolio when I was a Minister for some two and a half years, and this type of SI is being used in exactly the right way. There have been extensive criticisms about using secondary legislation from Members of different parties over many years, but sometimes it is absolutely spot on to do so, and the draft order is an example of that. The shadow Minister is absolutely right to say there will be other loopholes and other things that need to be addressed, but at the end of the day, this is about the safety of those who come here for their protection and making sure that those who open their doors are the right people and that we have had the right checks on them.

I commend the Government for introducing the draft order, but there are still issues outstanding. We need to be agile, and SIs are exactly how we should do it.