Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the implementation of legislation preventing registered sex offenders from changing identity without detection; and whether she is considering additional safeguards to improve monitoring and compliance.

The system for managing sex offenders and those who pose a risk of sexual harm is a crucial part of preventing sexual violence and delivering our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

Registered sex offenders are required to notify the police of any change of name. Failure to comply with this is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.Through the Crime and Policing Act we are strengthening the approach by introducing measures which will enable the police to serve a notice on offenders who pose a risk in relation to name change which requires them to seek authorisation before applying to change their name on identity documents. We are also introducing a new requirement for all RSOs to notify the police of an intended change of name in advance of using it.

These measures will be reinforced by operational safeguards to detect unauthorised name changes.