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Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974: Reform

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, on securing this important, if exclusive, debate. He has clearly and concisely set out the history and the concerns surrounding the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, so I will try not to reiterate too much of what he has already said. I would however like to thank him for his kindness in allowing me to see his briefing on the subject before the debate. It is a timely debate as the Offender Management Bill is due its Second Reading in the other place next week. I am sure that the debates around it will touch on the issues raised today. I will watch, as I am sure your Lordships will, with interest its progress towards this Chamber. A product of the Gardiner committee of 1972, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act was set up at a time of a much-needed system limiting disclosure requirements for many offenders who offended once or twice, served their sentence and then tried to settle down to a law-abiding life. The short debate secured in October by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, highlighted the significant difference that projects such as speech and language therapy in young offender institutions, among others, can have in rehabilitating offenders who are serving their sentence. The vital work that goes into preparing offenders for some form of employment goes hand in hand with the knowledge that the noble Lord shared that the risk of reoffending is reduced by between one-third and one-half if the offender can get and, more importantly, hold down a job. I am sure we all agree that a job can give a person a sense of purpose and self-esteem as well as the finance to help remove the temptation to offend again. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is now more than 20 years old. In 1999—seven years ago—the Home Office admitted that it felt the legislation was, "““cumbersome, anachronistic, and ineffective in its primary aim of reducing offending by helping those with criminal convictions who stay ‘straight’ to leave their offending past behind””." Yet, despite the announced plans for reform, we have yet to see anything implemented. While there can be no doubt that a careful balance needs to be struck between potential risks to the public and the criminal disclosure regime, checks on those working with vulnerable groups such as children, the disabled and elderly are vital. Issues such as sentence inflation and the introduction of the Criminal Records Bureau, as well as the ever-present factors surrounding Part 5 of the Police Act, have only made the system more complex and increasingly restrictive. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has put it to the House that these changes are enabling increasing unfair discrimination against ex-offenders in the job market, with many offenders who would previously have been helped by the Act now being unable to take advantage of the balance it was set up to strike. To state the obvious, this means that ex-offenders cannot get the jobs which are one of the keys in preventing their return to crime. In the current climate of crisis in our prison service, I would have thought that cutting the numbers that reoffend would make a significant difference to an already over-stretched system. I believe that the report Breaking the Circle made recommendations that merited further serious consideration. I conclude by again congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, on this debate and join him in pressing the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, on this issue.