Change of Name by Registered Sex Offenders

Debate between Tim Loughton and Mark Fletcher

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.