Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The amendment addresses not the period of 10 years from the date of conviction, but 10 years from the date of release—the completion of the sentence. That may also include a period of licence after the physical imprisonment has ceased. So we are looking well into the future, long after that person has left prison or hospital, or had his supervision order discharged. As the noble Earl said, surely there comes a time when a person is entitled to say, ““I have led a blameless life since my release from prison 10 years ago””? We cannot then go through the risk assessment process that I outlined, getting the local policeman to collect a few names and produce them before the magistrate to ask him to make one of these orders. It is only fair and just that there should be a limitation. There are limitations in almost every other field, apart from the actual commission of crime.