Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I salute the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for once again bringing forward a Bill to rectify the Government's shameful delay in honouring their 2003 commitment to review the outdated Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and for his habitual skill in so clearly outlining its content and intent. In vain we have waited for a Bill in all five Queen's Speeches during this Parliament. To be quite blunt, I believe that when the Government look back over what they have not done, they must hang their head in shame over the time that they have taken to do nothing to honour publicised commitments such as the review of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and acting on the European Court's ruling on the right of prisoners to vote, each of which exceeds the total length of World War 2. As the noble Lord has reminded the House, the 1974 Act was a response to the 1972 Gardiner committee's report, Living it Down, which proposed the restoration of the offender, ""to a position in society no less favourable than that of one who has not offended"." However, 1975 saw the start of an increasing diminution of that position, which continues to this day, by the introduction of an exceptions order to limit the rights of the offender to ensure the protection of the public. Particular and understandable concern was expressed over the safety of children and vulnerable adults. I say "diminution" because the period since then has been marked by the inflation of sentence lengths, which affects the time during which disclosure is required, and the addition of more exceptions, quite apart from the problems faced by those awarded indeterminate sentences for public protection, which have yet to be resolved. In 1999, the Better Regulation Task Force recommended that the Government should review the periods during which disclosure applies, following which the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, ordered a more fundamental review of the Act. He felt that what the task force had recommended had not gone far enough. The resulting 2002 report, Breaking the Circle, has been mentioned many times today, and I merely remind the House of its key findings. First, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is not achieving the right balance between resettlement and protection and, secondly, it was confusing for offenders and employers alike. I should like to focus on the second finding for a few moments. I believe that not only is the current Act confusing, it is also arcane and complex. To put those feelings in context, I must repeat that I find it extraordinary that a Government who continually praise themselves for their concentration on the reduction of reoffending and the successful resettlement of offenders should fail to follow up their announced intention to remedy one of the principal impediments to their being able to turn those claims into realities. The present Act is confusing to offenders who not only do not understand it, but are unsure of what they are required to disclose. As a result, they often inadvertently disclose convictions that are spent, which may be used unofficially by the employer to disadvantage an applicant for a job. In their eyes, the legislation constitutes nothing less than an additional punishment because the fact that employers have the freedom to ask about all convictions puts offenders in a particularly difficult position. Many feel that while they have the freedom to lie about spent convictions, to do so potentially initiates a dishonest relationship with an employer. Here I must declare an interest as president of UNLOCK, the National Association of Reformed Offenders. The Act is also confusing to employers and insurers, who in turn have a poor understanding of the Act, leading to their inadvertently asking questions to elicit information which may result in illegal discrimination. The Act is a paper tiger in this context because the consequences of contravening it are minimal. Finally, the Act is confusing within the criminal justice system itself, among prison officers, probation officers, legal advisers and third sector workers, whose lack of understanding often leads to inaccurate advice being given to offenders. As far as achieving the right balance between resettlement and protection is concerned, I believe that in bringing forward the Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has not presumed to rectify all the shortcomings of the 1974 Act, but has rightly focused on the one issue on which every other reform depends; namely, the length of the disclosure period. I hope therefore that the Government, not least to exculpate themselves from the shame of having done nothing over the past five years, will make time to ensure that it reaches the statute book before the end of this Parliament. Once that is done, the next logical step must be for the next Government, from whichever party they come, to commit themselves to a full-scale revision of the 1974 Act at a very early stage. There is no need to conduct yet another review of the situation because all the information they need has already been established and articulated. Numerous organisations such as the Prison Reform Trust, NACRO and UNLOCK can produce countless papers detailing the results of hours of research and study. All that is needed, as it has been for the past six years, is action and not prevarication in the certain knowledge that a strong body of supporters, certainly in this House, are ready and willing to help with such work. I appeal to the Minister to ensure that that process is put in train by pledging his support for the Bill today.