Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of amending the filtering criteria for DBS checks to automatically exclude sentences of 12 months or under on levels of employment of people with criminal records.

The criminal records regime seeks to strike a balance between providing employers with the information they need to make safer recruitment decisions and enabling ex-offenders to rebuild their lives.

We are carefully reviewing the evidence in this area before we consider whether adjustments to the regime are necessary or desirable.

In the meantime, we are working hard to support employment of prison leavers. In January, we launched regional Employment Councils, which for the first time bring businesses together with prisons, probation and the Department for Work and Pensions to support offenders into jobs.