Change of Name by Registered Sex Offenders

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

I support my hon. Friend’s recommendation. Anything we can do to try to close this loophole I support, because the scale of it and the fact that the systems we have in place are not working mean that we need—Minister, we need—urgent attention and urgent reforms.

BBC research found that more than 2,000 criminal record checks carried out by the DBS in the past three years flagged that the applicants had cautions or convictions, and that they had supplied incorrect or missed out personal details, such as their past names. Those figures are shocking. It is a relief that the DBS found so many of those cases but, if even a few slip through the gaps in the system, the consequences are devastating.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady and I hope my name was added in support of this debate. It is breathtaking. I raised the issue over six years ago when we had the case of Ben Lewis, who changed his name after being convicted and put on the sex offenders register. He then turned up in Spain, working with children. It was only found out about accidentally, I think through the Australian police. The Home Office acknowledged that this was a problem and said it was taking it on board. There are 67,000 sex offenders on the register in this country and 16,000 have changed their names. This is not just a tip of the iceberg—it is deliberately being used as a cover for their identity and potential future criminal activity. Does she agree that, frankly, other than in exceptional circumstances, people on the sex offenders register should not be allowed to change their name while they are on the sex offenders register and that, secondly, there is absolutely no reason that somebody in prison should be able to change their name while they are serving a prison sentence? It is not necessary and it is clearly for ulterior motives that cannot be good.

[Sarah Champion]

My personal position is that when someone carries out such heinous crimes, some of their liberties will be taken away. We need the Minister to look very closely at what those liberties are, particularly when there is an incredibly apparent safeguarding risk from names being changed, as the hon. Member outlined. I will come to Ben Lewis, because his case outlines a number of flaws in the system.

Let me say to the Minister that our systems are not joined up. People are actively looking for those weaknesses and exploiting them. I urge her to do all she can to close them as quickly as possible.

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[Joanna Cherry]

I could not agree more.

The hon. Lady reminds me that, at the outset of my speech, I should have congratulated the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) who, as always, is completely across the subject. She often raises important issues, both in this House and in the public domain, that others have not dared to raise. I pay tribute to her for that.

I am talking about the Huntley case because it is disgraceful that, 18 years later, safeguarding loopholes remain whereby applicants can submit identity documents for DBS checks that display a new identity, despite the efforts of various hon. Members. At least the Government have acknowledged the safeguarding loophole whereby registered sex offenders are able to change their name by deed poll, but I am afraid that the ability to change identity in a more fundamental way, about which the hon. Member for Telford spoke so powerfully, by simultaneously changing one’s name and one’s gender, remains unaddressed.

In our public life, across the United Kingdom, self-identification has become a de facto right without legislation. Any individual can easily, and for any reason, change their name and gender on documents commonly used to establish identity via a process of self-declaration. That includes documents such as passports and driving licences, which can be presented for the purposes of a DBS check and show the individual’s new name and acquired gender instead of, and as opposed to, their sex.

The DBS grants enhanced privacy rights to individuals who change their gender when changing their identity. Those are exceptional rights that are granted only to individuals in that group. The result is that identity verification is compromised, meaning that there is no guarantee that the information returned during the check and displayed on the certificate will be accurate or complete. Those exceptional privacy rights also allow an applicant who has changed gender to request that all their previous names are withheld from the DBS certificate that is issued. That right to conceal previous identities is not given to anyone else; disclosing previous identities is a key component of safeguarding, and DBS certificates issued to all other individuals display all other names the applicant has used.

No doubt there were good reasons for the privacy requirements set out in section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act. I hasten to add that I am completely in favour of equal rights for trans people, but I am not in favour of a system that allows sex offenders to exploit the principle of self-declaration to evade the safeguarding process. Applicants who change their gender are also permitted to conceal their sex, and the DBS certificate issued will display their acquired gender instead. That right is not granted to any other individual; the importance of sex to safeguarding means that for all other applicants, their sex is always displayed on the DBS certificate. These are all serious risks to safeguarding that compromise the validity and reliability of the DBS regime.

This is a particular problem as we roll out digital identities, including for DBS checks, because there is a risk that the existing loopholes will be perpetuated in the digital realm. In the drive for convenience and ease of use, digital identities risk creating a new safeguarding loophole. In-person identity verification acts as a safe- guarding protection in and of itself, yet digital identities can be shared remotely, meaning that that important step is removed. The current operation of the DBS regime means that identity verification is compromised and organisations requesting DBS checks cannot have confidence in the information that is disclosed.

There are steps we could take to close the loopholes: the mandatory use of national insurance numbers for DBS checks and identity changes; having DBS certificates that display the sex registered at birth; and having DBS certificates that display other names used for all applicants, including those who have changed gender as part of changing identity. We are talking about rules of safeguarding that apply to people who have been convicted of sex offences, so all of this should be a no-brainer. In order to be effective, the rules of safeguarding must apply equally to everyone.

[Tim Loughton]

I am pleased that the hon. and learned Lady has raised this issue. It is extraordinary that more than 20 years on from what happened at Soham, we are still addressing here today the issues that came up then. It seems absolutely a no-brainer, as she puts it, that for people who have committed heinous crimes and whose sex offending history shows that they still pose a potential to harm children, the full identity should be available to those who need to see the DBS checks as they are taking them into employment. I think there is a degree of agreement on that. The change of gender qualifications, which I fully understand and which are necessary, should not apply to sex offenders. A full change of name history must be automatically linked at the DBS, and a change of name must be automatically linked to a DBS check, to make sure that all that information is available in respect of those people who pose a risk to vulnerable children.

[Joanna Cherry]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He correctly encapsulates what it is that I am asking for: in order to be effective, the rules of safeguarding must apply equally to everyone and there must not be loopholes or get-outs. Whenever the members of one group are excused from the normal requirements of safeguarding, a loophole is created that is ripe for exploitation.

I wish to make one final point. I am sure that we will hear that abusing the process and failing to disclose previous names is an offence, but that is just not good enough. A minor matter of administrative fraud such as making a false declaration is nothing in comparison to the significant risk posed by sex offenders abusing this system, which is really ripped open by the loopholes that I have described. It is high time that the safeguarding loopholes, which result in a situation where people—sex offenders—can change their identity, are addressed.

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[Mark Fletcher]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I hope that the cameramen who cover the Chamber had the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley in shot, because her facial expressions said almost everything that I would want to say about that, but I am not necessarily sure that I can.

It is undoubtedly true that there are complications around name changes. The simplest of those is that someone on the sex offenders register may get married, which may provide a complication or a barrier—again, I refer to my previous statements about giving up certain rights. Complications have also been alluded to with regard to changing gender, on which we have heard two excellent speeches, so I will not touch on that further.

Another complication, however, which falls outside what I suggested in my ten-minute rule Bill yesterday, and which I think was vaguely alluded to earlier, is the growing trend for someone to change their name when they are charged with an offence—not necessarily when they have been found guilty, but during the process before they go to court. Someone charged with an offence will therefore go through the court under their new identity—we often see cases in the newspapers of someone “also known as”—then once they have been found guilty, assuming that they are in this instance, and come out the other side, they change their name back to what they were originally known as.

That situation is a bit more complicated. If my ten-minute rule Bill had a flaw—it probably had more than one—it is that it did not capture that. Hon. Members have already alluded to two documents that we keep with us throughout our lives, however: our birth certificate and our national insurance number. They do not change, so if we want our system to be robust, the answer lies in those two bits of information.

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend raises some concerns about where exceptions can be made. We can do that, because as it stands the right for someone to change their name, which is an important right, is not completely unqualified. There are six criteria according to which someone cannot change their name—for example, if it promotes criminal activity; if it promotes racial, sexual or religious intolerance; or if it ridicules people or businesses. I recall that some years ago, a disgruntled customer changed his name to “Halifax building society are complete bastards” or something to that effect—I may be doing Halifax an injustice. Another criterion is if someone is intending to commit fraud, usually by conferring a title or honour on themselves. The situation that he refers to is effectively an attempt to commit fraud, so we need only extend the existing criteria to capture many of those people anyway. It is not a big deal—it is easily done; it is a no-brainer—so let us just get on with it.

[Mark Fletcher]

My hon. Friend, as always, brilliantly makes an incredibly eloquent point. I imagine that the Minister is scribbling down that suggestion, so I look forward to seeing it in the victims Bill alongside every other sensible recommendation that has come from hon. Members today.

I put some of those complications on the record simply because I acknowledge that this is not a perfect scenario. The issue is an absolute head-banger, however: some 20 years on from a horrific set of crimes in which it was identified, we still have not done anything.

I return to the proposed amendment of the hon. Member for Rotherham to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. I have read her speech in Committee, in which she eloquently told Della’s story. She tabled a sensible amendment, which was miniscule in the grand scheme of things, to ask for a report into the scale of the problem. One thing that I struggle with is that we do not know how widespread the problem is. We could change the law today to prevent it happening in future, but unfortunately we have had years in which it has been operational and not necessarily allowed, but happening.

I am relying on second-hand testimony, but it was easy to read that the Minister at the time said, “We will happily do the report, so please don’t move your amendment.” It is perfectly reasonable for the Minister to do that, but it is unacceptable for the Department not to release said report and to use many different reasons not to publish it. It is a tremendous slap in the face for the work of the hon. Lady, and for those who are sitting in the Gallery and are victims of the problem. I cannot fathom how that has been allowed.

We are dealing with a situation where we know there is a problem, but we do not know the scale of it. Until that report is released, I do not think that any of us will feel satisfied. It may be that that report is quite damning and that the scale is quite bad, or it may be the opposite. Either way, we as lawmakers have been co-operative and constructive with the Government Front-Bench team as far as I have seen—again, I thank the hon. Lady for being generous to me—so I cannot work out why we have not seen that report. I urge the Minister to give thought to that.

I conclude by saying that, simply, I am banging my head against the wall because we need to take action on this issue. I came to it because of constituency casework, and as we have heard, several other MPs have had similar casework. This problem needs to be fixed. The rights of sex offenders and the right of someone to change their name do not trump safeguarding in this country. I urge the Government to think long and hard about any forthcoming opportunities to amend the statute book and to ensure that, legally and operationally, this problem is not allowed to continue.