Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, this is about proportionality. Yes, children should not escape punishment, and a fine or penalty fare is entirely appropriate, but a criminal record for 11 years for a first offence by a child is totally disproportionate.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I have signed my noble friend Lord Marks’s Amendment 420 and thank him for his excellent explanation. I am also reminded that our noble friend Lord Dholakia has campaigned for decades for a review of the way in which society deals with children in the criminal justice system. His principal concern, and the subject of a number of Private Members’ Bills, was on increasing the age of criminal responsibility, and we will address that specific issue in the next couple of Committee days. He also expressed some concerns about the treatment that children and young people who had entered the criminal justice system would face later on.

Reference has been made to David Lammy’s review. I also remind the Committee about Iain Duncan Smith’s report for the Centre for Social Justice in 2012, in which he said:

“There is now a significant body of research evidence indicating that early adolescence (under 13-14 years of age) is a period of marked neurodevelopmental immaturity, during which children’s capacity is not equivalent to that of an older adolescent or adult. Such findings cast doubt on the culpability and competency of early adolescents to participate in the criminal process and this raises the question of whether the current MACR”—


minimum age of criminal responsibility—“at ten, is appropriate”. I think that also reflects on cautions and convictions for that age group, although I recognise that my noble friend’s amendment goes right up to the end of childhood.

All the amendments in front of us look at how convictions and cautions are handled and how they are disclosed. Mention has already been made of the organisation FairChecks. It has called for a major review of the criminal records disclosure system. Interestingly, it produced the same evidence as Iain Duncan Smith about the capacity of people of this age to understand and take responsibility for their actions. As has already been mentioned, young people hoping to move on suddenly discover that in trying to get work or a promotion they have to disclose their criminal records, and too often, on top of the almost inevitable rejection letters, their shame emerges once again, destroying their chance of creating a new life once they have served their time.

FairChecks proposes that there should be an automatic disclosure of a caution in criminal records, the slate should be wiped clean for childhood offences and we should stop forcing people to reveal short and suspended prison sentences for ever. But, it says—as has every other speaker so far today—safeguards must remain in place for more serious offenders in order to protect the public. At the same time, it would give individuals the chance to move beyond their childhood criminal record so they could get work and forge a new life as an adult, and the first steps towards that would be a review. I hope the Minister will look favourably on Amendment 420.

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[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to move Amendment 420A. Although it is in my name, it is a product of tireless campaigning from my honourable friend Helen Grant MP. I thank her for her long-standing commitment to this issue. It is thanks to her unwavering commitment that we are one step closer to making a child cruelty register a reality.

I thank the Government for their ongoing communication with us on this important topic and their assurances that they would like to implement a policy that supports a child cruelty register. When this amendment was tabled during the passage of the Sentencing Bill in your Lordships’ House, government officials requested that it be reserved for Home Office legislation, rather than that of the Ministry of Justice. That is why I am moving this amendment today.

This proposed register would be very similar in kind to the register for convicted child sex offenders, for whom notification requirements already exist. It would ensure that those convicted of cruelty to vulnerable children must notify the police of their home address and other relevant details following their release from prison. The register would act as a safeguard by providing the police with the oversight needed to manage offenders and reduce the risk to children. It would mean that those who commit cruelty to children in a non-sexual manner cannot simply disappear back into the community.

These provisions already exist for sex offenders, and we see no reason why they should not similarly pertain to those convicted of child cruelty. Although the offence is different, its effects are detrimentally serious in nature. Child cruelty is a heinous crime that can have a lifelong impact on victims and affects the most vulnerable individuals in society.

Common sense requires that those who commit crimes such as allowing the death of a child, neglect of a child, violence towards a child, infanticide or female genital mutilation should not be able to slip under the radar in local communities once their custodial sentence is spent. There should be a centralised mechanism for the police to know where these people live. This is particularly so given that, in the vast majority of child cruelty cases, the offender has parental responsibility for the victim. They are therefore likely to have connections to the child’s guardian, who, in many cases, will be a family member.

There is a clear gap in the child protection systems that unnecessarily endangers children. The child protection system must exist to free children from the conditions of cruelty towards them, but it must also contain preventive measures to ensure that children are not placed in such appalling situations. Child cruelty offences have doubled in the past few years; now more than ever, it is important to act swiftly to curb this rise. Given the Government’s previously stated support for this measure, I hope that the Minister will be equally able to offer her support today.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my colleagues in the Commons very much supported Helen Grant in her campaign for this amendment. I pay particular tribute to Jess Brown-Fuller MP. It is very helpful that it has been directed to this Bill, and we on these Benches are very pleased that the Opposition have laid the amendment to this Bill.

It is getting late, and I will not speak for very long. The only other people we need to credit are Tony Hudgell and his parents. After being taken away from his birth parents, he has lived for many years with his foster parents, who he describes as his parents. He has endured 23 operations after injuries that resulted in him losing both legs when he was a toddler. That is the sort of cruelty—although unusually bad in this case—that the amendment is intended to address. For all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, outlined, we absolutely support the progress of this amendment, and we hope that the Government will look favourably on it.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, notification requirements received attention during the passage of the Government’s Sentencing Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for ensuring this important matter remains firmly on our agenda. I join the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in paying tribute to Helen Grant MP and to Paula Hudgell, both of whose tireless campaigning has done so much to advance the protection of children. As my noble friend Lord Timpson set out in Committee on the Sentencing Bill, this Government are committed to safeguarding children and ensuring robust measures are in place to protect them from those who seek to cause them harm. We are working hard to consider the best way to manage such offenders effectively.

We are unable to support the amendment at present, as further work is needed to determine the most effective way to strengthen offender management. We need to consider fully all aspects of implementation when it comes to adding notification requirements to a new cohort of offenders, particularly in light of the Government’s recently published violence against women and girls strategy, which sets out significant reforms to offender management.

It is right that we take the time to understand the potential impact of these proposals. One of the issues is that adding notification requirements to a new cohort of offenders would involve significant costs for policing. For example, notification duties such as taking biometric data, verifying personal details, recording changes, conducting compliance visits and managing ViSOR data must all be absorbed into the general workload of the police. One of the tasks for the Government is to reflect that this could mean shifting resource from other important areas of police work.

I can reassure noble Lords, however, that since December, Home Office and Justice Ministers have met regularly to discuss options in this space and have held initial discussions with national policing representatives. So, I can add my reassurances to those already given by my noble friend Lord Timpson: Ministers will continue to pursue this issue with vigour. With these reassurances, I hope that at this stage the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.