Sex Offenders Register

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The sex offenders register has existed since 1997. Since that time, it has helped the police to protect the public from those most horrific of crimes. Requiring serious sexual offenders to sign the register for life, as they do now, has broad support across the House, but the Supreme Court ruled last April that not granting sex offenders the opportunity to seek a review was a breach of their human rights—in particular, the right to a private or family life. Those are rights, of course, that those offenders have taken away from their victims in the cruellest and most degrading manner possible.

The Government are disappointed and appalled by that ruling. It places the rights of sex offenders above the right of the public to be protected from the risk of their reoffending, but there is no possibility of further appeal. The Government are determined to do everything we can to protect the public from predatory sexual offenders, so we will make the minimum possible changes to the law in order to comply with the ruling. I want to make it clear that the Court’s ruling does not mean that paedophiles and rapists will automatically come off the sex offenders register. The Court found only that they must be given the right to seek a review.

The Scottish Government have already implemented a scheme to give offenders an automatic right of appeal for removal from the register after 15 years. We will implement a much tougher scheme. Offenders will be able to apply for consideration of removal only after waiting 15 years following release from custody. In England and Wales, there will be no automatic appeals. We will deliberately set the bar for those reviews as high as possible. Public protection must come first. A robust review, led by the police and involving all the relevant agencies, will be carried out so that a full picture of the risks to the public can be considered.

The final decision on whether an offender should remain on the register will be down to the police, and not, as in Scotland, the courts. The police are best placed to assess the risk of an offender committing another crime, and they will rightly put the public first. There will be no right of appeal against the police’s decision to keep an offender on the register. That decision will be final. Sex offenders who continue to pose a risk will remain on the register, and will do so for life if necessary.

When we are free to take further action to protect the public, we will do so. We will shortly launch a targeted consultation aimed at closing four existing loopholes in the sex offenders register. We will make it compulsory for sex offenders to report to the authorities before travelling abroad for even one day. That will prevent them from being free to travel for up to three days, as they are under the existing scheme. We will force sex offenders to notify the authorities whenever they are living in a household containing a child under the age of 18. We will require sex offenders to notify the authorities weekly of where they can be found when they have no fixed abode. We will tighten the rules so that sex offenders can no longer avoid being on the register when they change their names by deed poll.

Finally, I can tell the House that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary will shortly announce the establishment of a commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of rights. It is time to assert that it is Parliament that makes our laws, not the courts; that the rights of the public come before the rights of criminals; and, above all, that we have a legal framework that brings sanity to cases such as these.

I commend my statement to the House.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

This is an important matter involving some of the most serious crimes in society. I thank the Home Secretary for supplying me with the statement within the last half hour, but I must say that it is worrying that the Home Office has again allowed information to be given to the media before it has been given to the House.

The depravity and seriousness of sex offences, and the harm and damage that they do to victims, mean that the systems that we operate to protect the public must be paramount. We have an obligation to ensure that vulnerable children and other victims can be protected from such terrible crimes. As the Home Secretary knows, that is why the sex offenders register was established in the first place. The law rightly requires people who have been convicted of such serious crimes to meet further registration requirements once their sentences have been served, in the interests of public protection and to prevent further terrible crimes from taking place.

The priority now must still be public safety, and the protection of our young and vulnerable people. Those victims of crime have suffered and continue to suffer greatly because of the actions of sex offenders. We know, too, that many such offenders can still pose a serious threat to the public. The court judgment to which the Home Secretary has responded today itself quotes the research finding that just over a quarter of those imprisoned for such offences did reoffend. Those offences included some that were very serious, a large number of which were committed many years later.

Does the Home Secretary agree that, while of course proper and fair processes must always be followed for individuals through the courts, the protection of families and communities up and down the country is paramount? She has said that the new system will be tough. Let me say to her that it is vital to the safety and protection of children in particular, but also to that of other victims, that the new system is extremely tough if it is to have the support of the House.

The Home Secretary said that Parliament should decide the level of protection that is needed, and that Parliament should set the laws. However, she has given Parliament very little information today about the way in which the new system will operate. Will the new framework be enshrined in legislation? Will Parliament have an opportunity to debate the details? The Home Secretary will know that many Members of Parliament and members of the public will be very concerned about the possibility that any new framework might enable serious offenders to manipulate the system. It is essential that that is not allowed to happen, but it is also important for Parliament to have an opportunity to debate it to ensure that it does not happen.

Will the Home Secretary ensure that the focus is on public protection, rather than on the convenience or rights of those who have been convicted of serious crimes? Will she tell us how many offenders will be affected? Will she tell us what the level of the police assessment will be, and what standards the police will seek to meet as part of their review?

Will the police be given additional resources to do this? She will know that there is concern in the House about the police’s resources and about whether they are stretched already as a result of the cuts the Government are making. Will she say what additional resources the police will have, what additional resources they will require and the number of people on whom they will be expected to carry out reviews as a result of the changes she is proposing? She will know that some police forces have already expressed concern that as a result of the 20% cuts they are facing, their need to respond and their need to try to keep as many people in neighbourhood policing as possible, many specialist units within police forces are coming under the greatest pressure as a result of the decisions she has made. What reassurance can she give the House and the public that there will be no increased risk to the public as a result of these changes and of pressure on the police?

I welcome the Home Secretary’s proposal to consider other tighter measures on sex offenders, but does that have any implications for the changes that she appears to be making in the opposite direction to the vetting and barring provisions? She has also raised, as part of her statement, discussion of a Bill of rights. We would welcome a debate about that, although wider issues associated with written constitutions can also be debated. However, I am concerned at the form that this announcement has taken, because it is, in itself, a major announcement and the House should have an opportunity to have that debate and raise questions.

In conclusion, the Home Secretary will know that the public would be horrified if the rights, or even the convenience, of people who have been convicted of very serious crimes were to be put above the right to safety and family life of the public and of vulnerable people and vulnerable victims. She will know that Labour Members will not support any changes that will do that, and I hope that she intends not to do that. I look forward to her answers to the questions.

[Mrs May]

I can say categorically to the right hon. Lady that it is indeed the Government’s intention to put the protection of the public first. Had she listened to my statement or read it beforehand, she would have noted that it says that in a number of places. We are appalled by the Court’s decision. I would far rather not have to stand here saying that we have to make a change to the sex offenders register, but we do have to make a change. We will do so in the most minimal way possible to ensure that we do put public protection first, and that we give the police and others the ability to ensure that the public are protected from such serious and appalling crimes as have been committed by individuals on this register.

The right hon. Lady asked quite a number of questions. She asked whether we are making the protection of families paramount, and I have said that we are. She said that the system should be extremely tough and, yes, our intention is that it will be as tough as possible. That is why we have looked not only at what we can do in the minimal way to put this judgment into effect, but at ways to toughen up the sex offenders register regime—for example, by the requirement that we want to introduce for individuals on the register to have to notify when they are going abroad for at least a day. That is a toughening of the current system.

The right hon. Lady asked about Parliament’s opportunity to debate this measure. It will be introduced through an order—a statutory instrument—so there will be an opportunity to debate it. She asked about the numbers who will be affected. That will be set out in the regulatory impact assessment that will accompany the statutory instrument. She asked about the process of consideration that the police will go through. They will be talking to all other agencies that have an interest in this area, so they will talk to the probation service, local authorities, social services, youth offending teams and a variety of other agencies to ensure that they have the best possible picture of the individual concerned in order to make the best possible judgment. I am sure that she will agree that the police are very clear about the importance of public protection. That is why I want the police to make these decisions; I believe that they will put public protection first. They will examine a series of issues, such as the seriousness of the offences originally committed and the age of the victims. They will address a range of issues when they are considering whether a review should be upheld and whether the individual should stay on the register.

The right hon. Lady asked about the ability of the police to deal with this. ACPO and the National Offender Management Service have been actively involved in putting together and shaping the policy. One of their considerations has, of course, been its deliverability. We are confident that the policy can be delivered, as is ACPO. Like us, ACPO wants to ensure that we have the toughest possible policy to protect the public. It is different from the vetting and barring scheme, where the problem was that lots of innocent people found themselves on it and were subject to its requirements. This proposal is about the people who have been found guilty of heinous crimes and is about making sure that we reduce the risk of reoffending to members of the public. As I have announced in relation to the Bill of rights, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Justice Secretary will make further announcements about that imminently.