Change of Name by Registered Sex Offenders

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the change of name by registered sex offenders.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to lead this debate. I thank all the Members who have supported this campaign. I particularly thank the survivors, many of whom are here today, for their tireless work to try to close this loophole and make sure no one else suffers as they have been forced to.

This debate is specific: it is about registered sex offenders changing their name without the knowledge of the police, leading to many offenders going missing, securing a Disclosure and Barring Service check under the new name and then reoffending. Unless this loophole is closed, it makes a nonsense of the schemes the public rely on to detect offenders. For example, the sex offenders register, the child sex offenders disclosure system, the domestic violence disclosure scheme and the Disclosure and Barring Service all rely on having the correct name.

I first found out about this dangerous loophole through the incredible campaigning work of the Safeguarding Alliance three years ago. Its findings and the impact this has had on survivors are truly chilling. I have repeatedly raised the issue with the Home Office and Justice Ministers, as well as the Master of Rolls, who oversees the enrolled deed poll, yet still no tangible change has taken place.

Currently, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, all registered sex offenders are legally required to notify the police of any change in their personal details, including a change of name and address.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this forward. I think every one of us in this House supports her in everything she does, and we greatly admire her tenacity and courage on these issues. Unfortunately, I cannot stay for the debate as I have other engagements, but does she agree that the fact that, from a period in 2019 to June 2022, there were 11,536 prosecutions of sex offenders for failing to notify the police of a change in their personal information, such as their name, shows the scale of the issue and demonstrates that we must legislate to protect our vulnerable as a matter of urgency? I know that is what she wants and it is certainly what I want as well.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is as tenacious as I am in trying to challenge these gross abuses of the system. The figures he quotes are Safeguarding Alliance figures that it got as a result of freedom of information requests, but they are only for some police forces, so the scale of the issue is much greater than even that shocking figure.

If a registered sex offender wants to change their name, they must tell the police within three days, or they could face up to five years in prison. But these notification requirements leave the onus entirely on the offender to self-report changes in their personal information. If the sex offender breaches these requirements, and therefore faces prison, they must first be caught.

Data that I and others have collated shows that the scale of this issue is breathtaking. The Home Office confirmed, in responses to my written parliamentary questions, that over 16,000 offenders were charged with a breach of their notification requirements between 2015 and 2020. A Safeguarding Alliance FOI request to the Crown Prosecution Service found that over 11,500 registered sex offenders were prosecuted for failure to notify changes of information between 2019 and 2022. Those breaches are likely to have been for name changes or other such changes. It is clear that offenders are changing their names and not disclosing their new name to the police, but the exact scale of the problem remains impossible to capture. It is important to emphasise that these are only the cases we know about: many more offenders could have breached their notification requirements without the police’s knowledge. Offenders are also required to visit a police station to comply with notification requirements, but only once a year.

Evidently, thousands are getting caught when they breach their requirements, but it appears that many are not. An FOI request by the Safeguarding Alliance to police forces confirmed that at least 913 registered sex offenders have gone missing between 2017 and 2020. However, only 17 of the 45 police forces responded to the request, indicating that that figure is only the tip of the iceberg.

New data secured by the BBC demonstrates the same ongoing pattern, allowing offenders to slip through the cracks. Over 700 registered sex offenders have gone missing in the last three years. It is highly likely that they breached their notification requirements without getting caught, making them an active risk to the public. Again, only 31 of 45 police forces responded to that request.

Many offenders are following the rules. At least 1,400 registered sex offenders have notified police forces of name changes in the past three years, with 21 of the 45 police forces able to provide that data. However, the number of cases where notification requirements are not being obeyed far outweighs those where they are. We cannot rely on a system that depends on registered offenders self-reporting changes in their information. If we do not urgently improve the system, we will have to accept that hundreds more offenders will continue to disappear from the system meant to safeguard us.

When I first learned about this breach, I spoke to my local police chief. He was genuinely stunned. We was unaware of the loophole and asked how he was meant to find someone when they no longer knew who they were looking for. If we are going to protect children and vulnerable people, and prevent further abuse, we must be able to keep track of those who are already known to be a safeguarding risk. Unless we address the failure in the current system, police will continue to be unaware of a name change and the sex offenders register will not be up to date with the new names, therefore considerably reducing its effectiveness.

It is vital we remember not only the danger posed to society by sex offenders changing their names, but the devastating impact it has on their previous victims. Della Wright is an ambassador for the Safeguarding Alliance and a survivor of child sexual abuse. Della has spoken so bravely to tell her story in support of so many other victims who have been impacted by this serious safeguarding loophole. I pay huge credit to her, as her tenacious campaigning is what has brought this issue to public attention.

When Della was a child, a man came to live in her home, becoming one of her primary carers and repeatedly sexually abusing her. Years later, when Della reported the abuse, her abuser was already known to the police and he had committed further sexual offences against many more victims. Della was made aware that he had changed his name; he had changed it at least five times, enabling him to relocate under the radar and evade justice. When Della’s case was finally brought to court, he again changed his name, this time in between being charged and appearing in court for the plea hearing. That slowed down the whole process as new court papers needed to be submitted in the new name.

The additional distress to Della made a complete mockery of the justice system, but sadly Della’s case is far from unique. The Safeguarding Alliance is working with dozens of survivors—a number of them are here today—who have discovered their abuser has changed their name. Many say their perpetrators change their name before charging, meaning their birth name remains unmaligned. Perhaps most chilling for me is that, with a new name, they can apply for a new passport and driving licence, which means they can apply for a clean DBS check in that new name.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does she agree that, in addition to ensuring that registered sex offenders have markers on their files at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and His Majesty’s Passport Office, the DBS should require all applicants to produce a birth certificate to better verify their identity?

[Sarah Champion]

I support my hon. Friend’s recommendation. Anything we can do to try to close this loophole I support, because the scale of it and the fact that the systems we have in place are not working mean that we need—Minister, we need—urgent attention and urgent reforms.

BBC research found that more than 2,000 criminal record checks carried out by the DBS in the past three years flagged that the applicants had cautions or convictions, and that they had supplied incorrect or missed out personal details, such as their past names. Those figures are shocking. It is a relief that the DBS found so many of those cases but, if even a few slip through the gaps in the system, the consequences are devastating.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady and I hope my name was added in support of this debate. It is breathtaking. I raised the issue over six years ago when we had the case of Ben Lewis, who changed his name after being convicted and put on the sex offenders register. He then turned up in Spain, working with children. It was only found out about accidentally, I think through the Australian police. The Home Office acknowledged that this was a problem and said it was taking it on board. There are 67,000 sex offenders on the register in this country and 16,000 have changed their names. This is not just a tip of the iceberg—it is deliberately being used as a cover for their identity and potential future criminal activity. Does she agree that, frankly, other than in exceptional circumstances, people on the sex offenders register should not be allowed to change their name while they are on the sex offenders register and that, secondly, there is absolutely no reason that somebody in prison should be able to change their name while they are serving a prison sentence? It is not necessary and it is clearly for ulterior motives that cannot be good.

[Sarah Champion]

My personal position is that when someone carries out such heinous crimes, some of their liberties will be taken away. We need the Minister to look very closely at what those liberties are, particularly when there is an incredibly apparent safeguarding risk from names being changed, as the hon. Member outlined. I will come to Ben Lewis, because his case outlines a number of flaws in the system.

Let me say to the Minister that our systems are not joined up. People are actively looking for those weaknesses and exploiting them. I urge her to do all she can to close them as quickly as possible.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is being very generous. My constituents, and those of the hon. Lady and of all Members, want legislation to give safety to mothers and children. We do not see that at the moment, as she has reinforced to the Minister. Does she feel that this debate should be the start of a campaign to change legislation to protect those who are under threat?

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree. So many MPs are here, even though on Thursdays we are usually in our constituencies, because they have changed their diaries to show their support and solidarity. I hope that the Minister recognises that.

Registered sex offenders are supposed to inform the police if they go abroad but, again, that does not always happen. Let me turn to the example of Ben Lewis. He was a registered sex offender who changed his name, moved to Spain and obtained a clean DBS check under his new name. He then worked in British schools in Madrid until he was arrested for further offences. I am in touch with the mother of one of the children he abused, and I thank her for all her campaigning to raise awareness of this safeguarding failure, but it should not have happened. Action to stop it happening is long overdue.

Almost two years ago, with cross-party support, I tabled a new clause to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which required the Government to conduct a review into registered sex offenders changing their names. The review has been completed, but Ministers say that it is an internal document and that the findings will not be published. The Home Office also asked former chief constable Mick Creedon to carry out an independent review into the management of sex offenders in the community. One assumes that it should have covered this issue—we do not know the terms—but, again, we have no information on its findings.

This is clearly a matter of acute public interest. More than 37,000 people signed a petition calling for action more than two years ago. Public money is being spent, but we have seen no outcomes. We need transparency to know that Ministers are working to provide solutions to these issues. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us on those reviews.

What can be done to address the loophole? There are simple, immediate changes that could take place to address some of the safeguarding failures. The College of Policing guidance states that police can take pre-emptive action where an offender is likely to change their identity or leave the country. Those actions include requesting the Passport Office and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to put an electronic marker on the offender’s file to alert the officer in charge if an application should be made. As I said, a driver’s licence or passport is required for a DBS check, so that would also prevent registered sex offenders acquiring a clean DBS check if applied to all registered sex offenders’ files. However, the guidance states:

“To avoid unnecessary or high volumes of requests to these agencies, enquiries should be limited”

to where, apparently, a specific risk factor applies. That means that it is not being applied to all sex offenders, though I would say that all registered sex offenders are a risk.

I believe that this electronic tagging must be mandatory for all registered sex offenders. I accept that that would only retrospectively alert the police to a name change, but at least it would enable them to act and to keep track of an offender’s identity once a breach occurs, so it would be better than what we have already. It would not pick up on cases in which offenders have already changed their name, so I will do everything I can to work with the Minister and find a solution where offenders have already carried out that change.

In response to BBC FOI requests, neither the Passport Office nor the DVLA was able to provide detailed answers about how often they actually use these measures. The deed poll records team at the Royal Courts of Justice said that

“we simply enrol the change of name applications completed by the applicants.”

That is a very passive position to take. They did say that they would

“check for particular change of name for specific year when a Data Protection Act request had been received”.

Again, that requires police or Ministers to proactively ask for that information, which a sex offender can just change without any restraint. I understand that there may be sensitive information linked to such requests, but parliamentarians and the public must be assured that systems are being used effectively.

I appreciate that electronically flagging every registered sex offender’s file requires additional resources, but surely preventing the risk of more offences would be worth the costs. To be clear, when sex offenders are no longer on the register, such a requirement would not be necessary, in my opinion. However, the current system is being exploited by hundreds of sex offenders, and action needs to be taken now.

I am not asking for a ban on all registered sex offenders changing their name. We must take a nuanced approach, and in any case how would we monitor the scheme if the responsibility were left to them? Circumstances differ, and we must allow police the operational independence to make decisions as to whether offenders should be able to change their name. However, where such decisions are made, victims and survivors must be informed, safeguarding must be prioritised and the systems must be joined up so that registered offenders can be tracked regardless of the name they use.

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[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

In anticipation of the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), I should say that I think we are all slightly baffled as to why we are here. This is a ludicrous loophole and we know that it is a problem. We have found out, to a certain extent, the scale of the problem, although there are still questions about that. The fact that there is a problem and that it should be solved is agreed, I think, by Members on both sides of the House, although I wait to hear from the Home Office on that front. It is very clear that we should be solving it. I did a local media interview yesterday, because I had a ten-minute rule Bill on the same subject, and the local BBC reporter, who was trying their very best to be devil’s advocate and to be impartial, reached the point of saying, “Are you banging your head against the wall? This seems an absolute no-brainer.” I feel that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) strayed into that territory.

I shall go back to where I intended to start, which is to thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate. I also thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) not just for securing the debate, but for all the work she has done on the issue. As she knows, I am a latecomer to the matter: I have ended up in this world because of some constituency casework. However, having spent the past two months or so looking into it, I cannot say that I am any the wiser as to why it has not been solved. Undoubtedly, there are some complications. She and I have a small and minor disagreement about how to solve the matter, and I will touch on that.

I should also say thank you to the staff of the Safeguarding Alliance, as I did yesterday, who have provided so much data, so much leadership and so much coherence, and who, I fear, have been banging their heads against the wall a lot more than I have in recent times. It is a great credit to them that so many MPs are in the Chamber today. Many of my Conservative colleagues are in Windsor for an away day. Some lucky Whips and others have drawn the duty of avoiding that, and it was probably wise of them to volunteer to do so.

I do not wish to draw on any of the details that I covered in yesterday’s ten-minute rule Bill, when I set out the problem, as the hon. Member for Rotherham did today, and the sheer horrendousness of this situation. It feels as though we are prioritising the rights of sexual offenders over the rights of the general public and over the rights of people who need to know whether the people working in their schools are safe, whether the people working in their care homes are safe, whether their partner has a past or whether someone who is interacting with their child is safe.

Yesterday, I drew on the Ian Huntley situation and the Bichard inquiry, to which the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West referred only seconds ago. That happened in 2004, and yet here we are in the same situation, still talking about the need to prevent sex offenders from changing their name. It is worth noting that the Disclosure and Barring Service that we now use came about as a result of Ian Huntley’s horrendous actions. Indeed, the Bichard inquiry led to the creation of the DBS system, and it is that very system that is being undermined by the ability of offenders to change their name and to escape recognition, thereby creating a blind spot for the authorities.

The hon. and learned Lady and I have a small disagreement over what needs to be done. I am not necessarily sure whether either of us would object to the other’s solution being accepted; it is the problem that needs solving. None the less, it is worth stating to the Minister, in advance of her speech, that I am pretty solutions-agnostic. The fact that there is a problem and that it needs solving is beyond dispute, but how we get to solving that problem is crucial. I think it is worth acknowledging that there are complications to what we are trying to do. Undoubtedly, they are what Home Office and Ministry of Justice officials will use to try to prevent any progress, so I shall put those complications on the record now, so that we can consider them together.

First, we have long and established common law rights in this country to change our name. That is well established in law. My perspective is that a person surrenders certain rights when they are charged and found guilty of an offence by the state. That is my opinion; it is not necessarily the opinion of this House, because we have not voted specifically on this issue. However, as I said yesterday, we have prevented prisoners from exercising their voting rights, which is a clear comparison.

It is worth noting that changing our name through the unenrolled process could not be easier if we tried. Effectively, the wording is:

“I [old name] of [your address] have given up my name [old name] and have adopted for all purposes the name [new name].”

I could leave this Chamber being called John Bercow if someone would kindly countersign my form. It is that simple. I use that example perhaps facetiously. I certainly do not wish to bring Mr Bercow back into this Chamber in any way, shape or form, but it is worth considering that that is the unenrolled process.

There is a slightly different system if someone wants to take the legal route. I changed my name when I was seven years old. My original name is Mark Hannington, which is my dad’s name. I changed it because my mum remarried. It is relatively common and, indeed, incredibly easy to change one’s name. I know that we are talking about a very extreme situation here, because we have to go through those who have committed an offence, are on the sex offenders register, and then wish to change their identity, and then may get a new document and then may get a DBS check. It is a flow chart that has to be followed through. We should consider the processes involved, but it is, none the less, an incredibly easy thing to do.

Yesterday, the Home Office released a statement in response, in part, to the BBC’s latest research, on which the hon. Lady has already touched, about our incredibly “robust” response. I found myself laughing about that in more than one local media interview. I find that very difficult to defend, because it is not a robust response. It might look tough on paper and Home Office officials might have persuaded themselves that this is actually a robust system, but the sheer scale of those breaching the system is huge, and that is before we even get on to the ones that we do not know about. I give great credit to the hon. Member for Rotherham for being so polite when she touched on that particular section; I will not be as polite when I come to her amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Bill in, I think, 2021. Our robust system is no such thing.

One thing we have not touched on is this: what is the sex offenders register? We have 43 different police forces in this country. They each have a version of the sex offenders register, which is usually highly localised. It is, in effect, a document or an Excel spreadsheet of some variety that sits with that force. The super-important national system that captures all offenders and is easy to refer to is no such thing, as I was horrified to discover from my discussions with the Safeguarding Alliance. It is part of the system and it sounds official—it sounds good—but it is not the robust and safeguard-friendly system that we would like to see.

[Sarah Champion]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who has used every tool that the House provides to fight this campaign and I am grateful to him for doing that in such a cross-party way. On the specifics of the national database, there is HOLMES 2—the Home Office large major enquiry system—but it requires the officer to input the details. It does not flag, so it means that they have to know that someone has changed their name to know that they need to look for them, and the once-a-year check gives someone a lot of scope to go around in their different identity. It is madness. The public believe that the systems are there; they are not there.

[Mark Fletcher]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I hope that the cameramen who cover the Chamber had the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley in shot, because her facial expressions said almost everything that I would want to say about that, but I am not necessarily sure that I can.

It is undoubtedly true that there are complications around name changes. The simplest of those is that someone on the sex offenders register may get married, which may provide a complication or a barrier—again, I refer to my previous statements about giving up certain rights. Complications have also been alluded to with regard to changing gender, on which we have heard two excellent speeches, so I will not touch on that further.

Another complication, however, which falls outside what I suggested in my ten-minute rule Bill yesterday, and which I think was vaguely alluded to earlier, is the growing trend for someone to change their name when they are charged with an offence—not necessarily when they have been found guilty, but during the process before they go to court. Someone charged with an offence will therefore go through the court under their new identity—we often see cases in the newspapers of someone “also known as”—then once they have been found guilty, assuming that they are in this instance, and come out the other side, they change their name back to what they were originally known as.

That situation is a bit more complicated. If my ten-minute rule Bill had a flaw—it probably had more than one—it is that it did not capture that. Hon. Members have already alluded to two documents that we keep with us throughout our lives, however: our birth certificate and our national insurance number. They do not change, so if we want our system to be robust, the answer lies in those two bits of information.

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[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I must congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) for putting the case extremely well yesterday and today. I was also fascinated by what the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) had to say based on her experience—and for people dealing with these individuals, it is some experience.

I will not repeat the exercise of describing the problem, or come up with any sort of solutions, but the United Kingdom has probably led the way on legislation dealing with the protection of children. We started that with a proactive approach—rather than a reactive one—which I think is the right way to do it. If it is possible, we get the offender before the offender has got the child. That is the thinking, in a way, behind what we are talking about today.

I went on a parliamentary police course with the Metropolitan police in the early 2000s, which included a session with the Met police paedophile unit. Most people read about cases on the front pages—or some other page—but they do not really know; they do not really have a feel of what it was like. That session with the unit was an enormous shock to me—an absolutely mind-boggling shock. It is unbelievable what some people will do to children.

I asked the then DCI Bob McLachlan, who was head of the unit—a relatively small one, which was a fraction of what it is now—a stupid question. I asked him if he could give me a wild guess about how many active paedophiles there were in England. This was 20 years ago, before the internet really got hold of it, and he said that there were enough active paedophiles in this country to have one for every street. He also said that 20% of them were female. Half of that 20% were females working with males, but the other 10% were females working without males. That has since changed—not the percentages, necessarily, but the numbers—because of the internet.

The biggest basic ground-level step, along the lines of protecting children proactively, was the 2003 anti-grooming legislation. It was a big step; we were the first country to do it, and it has been mimicked across the world.

I know a senior barrister who has worked on a considerable number of high-profile child-protection cases, both as a prosecutor and defender. She said to me, after a glass of wine, that these individuals are the slipperiest, most devious liars she has ever met. It must be expected that what is colloquially known as the “sex offenders list”—there is no actual list that we can look at, but that is the way that the papers put it—means that these individuals will try to get around the system.

They take jobs because the job is secondary to the primary thing they want to do, which is to abuse children. Many have tried to change addresses, and we had to change the law several times to overcome that difficulty. Many of them have got around, for a while, the attempts by the police or probation officers to inspect, but we changed that loophole.

Today, we are looking at another loophole that we can change. If the Minister, for whatever reason, is not going to take forward the ten-minute rule Bill, he can do what happened before we brought in the legislation on grooming. He can put together a small team to look at the problem and come forward, quickly, with legislation that is acceptable to the Department, and to us, to close that loophole. That is what David Blunkett did.

[Sarah Champion]

My hon. Friend was one of the first Members to speak to me about the risks that paedophiles, in particular, present to society. Does he agree that the biggest flaw in the legislation around changing names by deed poll is that it is entirely based on the honour and honesty of the sex offender to give the correct details to the current scheme? That is the loophole that we have to close.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I completely agree. Putting honesty and these individuals together is an almighty clash; they do not match.

David Blunkett set up a small team in the Home Office to look at the child protection legislation in 2003, and he asked me to join that small team, along with a man called DCI Dave Marshall. As we were starting to look at this, there was a terrible case in which an individual in London had rung a telephone number advertised in Texas. He asked, when the phone was answered, if they could provide him with a five-year-old child for sex. The Texan said, “Come on over; sure we can.” The individual said, “I can’t come over. Can you give me the number of somebody in London?” The Texan cop—because it was a sting—said, “Yes,” and gave the number of the Met police paedophile unit, fortunately.

When the individual rang there, the unit said, “Yes, we’ll provide you with a five-year-old child,” and, of course, when he knocked on the door, expecting a five-year-old child, he got a 6-foot-something police officer, who arrested him. But, the big problem was that they did not know for sure what legislation could be used to prosecute the individual, because he had not seen a child, had not touched a child, and so on. That is where we went back and came up with the grooming legislation.

There is now an opportunity for a loophole, and the paedophiles will constantly look for loopholes, but a loophole can be changed. I hope that, if the ten-minute rule Bill is not acceptable, the Minister will set up a small team of competent people, with both sides of the House represented, as well as police, officials and lawyers, to come up with something quickly to shut down the loophole, because it will be abused. I suspect that—as I have found when dealing with this type of legislation—the people who will avidly read the Hansard report of the debate will be paedophiles, and that some who had not thought of changing their names will now think of doing so and of using and abusing the loophole. Our children are too precious; we have to look after them. I want my grandchildren to be safe.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Sarah Dines)]

I start by thanking the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for her work on this important issue and for securing the debate. I welcome those in the Public Gallery and those listening at home, and I thank the Safeguarding Alliance for all its work. To each and every person who has been sexually abused, be they male, female, young, old, children or adults, I say that the Government do take it seriously.

I reassure Members that we recognise their concerns. It was amusing to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) say that junior Ministers come and go. Of course she is right—we do—but in the short time I am here, I want to make sure that I make a difference on this issue. I have some experience in this field from a job I held previously, and what is salient for me is looking into the eyes of somebody who has been abused, or those of their mother, brother, relative or friend. It is horrendous. These crimes are heinous, and the Government must do more to crack down on those who perpetrate them.

As safeguarding Minister, I reassure the House that I am committed to ensuring that we have the most robust system possible for managing registered sex offenders. While a lot of criticism is made of the system for good reason, it is salient that we are still considered, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said, to be one of the most stringent countries in the world for the management of sexual offenders, not least because of the sterling work that people in this House have done. But it is not enough, and more has to be done.

It may assist the House if I set out some of the general background in this area. I know that some here will have heard this before, but for those listening at home and for the record, I will turn to the specific concerns regarding registered sex offenders and name changes. Members will be aware that registered sex offenders are required to notify the police of certain personal details. This system is often referred to as the sex offenders register and it applies automatically to those offenders who receive a conviction or caution for a sexual offence. They are required to provide their local police station with a record of, among other things, their name, address, date of birth, bank details and national insurance number, and that must be done annually and, importantly, whenever their details change. That means that registered sex offenders are legally required to inform the police if they change their name. Offenders who are subject to notification requirements are also required to notify the police of all travel outside the United Kingdom. Breach of the notification requirements, including failure to provide notification of a name change, is a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison.

We know that some individuals pose a risk beyond that which can be properly managed by a straightforward notification requirement. We also know that there are individuals who come to the police’s attention and pose a risk, but who have not been convicted of an offence. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 reformed the civil orders available to the police on application to the court to manage those risks. It introduced sexual harm prevention orders, which can be applied to anyone convicted or cautioned for a sexual or violent offence; and sexual risk orders, which can be applied to any individual who poses a risk of sexual harm, even if they have never been convicted. Those orders have been deliberately designed to be as flexible as possible so that they can be tailored to the specific risk an individual poses. They can be used to impose any restriction the court considers necessary to protect the public from sexual harm, which can include restrictions on the ability of the individual who is subject to the order to change their name—something that should be used more frequently, in my view. For both orders, breach is a criminal offence punishable by a maximum of five years’ imprisonment.

Moving on to recent changes, registered sex offenders have committed some of the most abhorrent crimes and we must ensure that our approach mitigates the risk of their seeking to exploit weaknesses in the system. Following proposals from the National Police Chiefs’ Council based on feedback from operational policing on how things can be improved, which the police always have an eye to, we have made changes to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. It is now the case that through both SHPOs and SROs, the courts can impose positive obligations as well as restrictions, including requiring an offender to engage in a behavioural change programme. That is totally new and it has helped in some cases. None of these things will be a panacea, but they do assist. The court must also apply the lower civil standard of proof—namely, the balance of probabilities—which will lead to an increase in such orders being made.

The Secretary of State has a new power to prepare a list of countries deemed to be at high risk of child sex abuse by UK nationals or residents. That list has to be considered by applicants and the courts when applying for or making an order for the purpose of protecting children outside the UK from the risk of sexual harm.

In addition, to ensure that the police, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and others have the right systems in place to share information on registered sex offenders and other dangerous individuals, the Home Office and Ministry of Justice are investing in a new multi-agency public protection system—MAPPS. The new system will enable more effective and automated information sharing, which will, in turn, improve the risk management of all offenders managed under multi-agency public protection arrangements.

[Sarah Champion]

I believe that many Members are aware of the legislation and restrictions that are being outlined. Does the Minister believe that they are robust enough when a sex offender chooses to ignore them?

[Miss Dines]

The hon. Lady raises a good point. I never believe that any system designed to protect children and adults—be they men or women, boys or girls— is ever robust enough. There is always a way for a deceptive, calculating perpetrator to get round it. It is not enough for a Government to say, “We’ve done something, which is great.” The Government have to be conscious not to just park that on the side, but to constantly look to the next reform. I hope we can work together to achieve that spirit. To give more context, it is planned that MAPPS will replace the violent and sex offender register—ViSOR—next year.

I turn to the issue of name changes, and some of the good and interesting points raised by Members. I recognise and understand the concerns hon. Members have raised, and I reassure them that this Government and I take these issues seriously. Public protection is and will remain our utmost, foremost priority. I have already outlined the legislative measures that we have put in place, but there is, of course, more that can be done.

There are safeguards built in at an operational level, such as through His Majesty’s Passport Office, which has a watchlist to provide some protection for the public in the passport issuing process. That includes supporting the police in managing offenders of concern, including registered sex offenders, and to prevent those who pose a high risk of harm from obtaining a passport in a new name without the police first being consulted. We also have arrangements in place for the police to notify the Passport Office and other relevant bodies of individuals who pose a risk to the public to ensure that we properly control name changes in those cases.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister for her encouraging words and I really look forward to working with her to close this gaping loophole. I also thank every Member who has spoken today, and all those who could not be here but are very supportive of this. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to have this debate. This is not a political issue, but a cross-party safeguarding issue, and I thank everybody for entering the debate on those terms.

The problem we have is that we are currently reliant on registered sex offenders doing the right thing and telling the police if they are going to be changing their name, for good reasons or nefarious ones. That system is being breached again and again. With the data we can get, which is very incomplete, we know that approximately 200 registered sex offenders are going missing a year and that 2,000 are being prosecuted for breaches of their requirements. So we know that is a problem. How big does the problem need to be before the Government close this loophole? The first step towards that is publishing the report that the Government have done: both the internal report—I understand the sensitivities, but we can have it in redacted form—and the report that is currently being done, and may have been completed, by Mick Creedon. We need to know the reality of this problem, rather than just having to rely on the incredibly brave survivors to tell us what is really happening on the ground.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the change of name by registered sex offenders.