Crime and Policing Bill

Baroness Sater Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. As is my way, I must sound a note of caution for one group of people. I know that many noble Lords have a problem with our very low age of criminal responsibility, but it affords a level of protection to young children being groomed for gangs. We need to bear that in mind.

I have great sympathy for these amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Spellar, spoke about the Lammy review. I was on the Lammy review. I ran a job club for over 12 years, and many of the young men I dealt with were unable to seek employment because of what we used to call a blip when they were younger that was still appearing on their DBS. That small blip often drove them to much more serious crime, because they were older and needed to raise more money.

We should do a review, because it is a complicated area, but there are two things to focus on. First, returning to my theme, the single biggest driver of crime is the idea that you have got away with it. If we are going to remove some of the consequences, we need to think clearly and carefully about how that will be perceived by people who are involved in criminal activity—particularly if they are young and do not have all the experiences to risk-assess their own behaviour. We must bear that in mind, because, inadvertently we might be encouraging them to approach criminal behaviour. The myth on the street will be that when you are 18, it is wiped out anyway. We might argue about the nuance of what we are prepared to wipe out or not, but that will not be the conversation on a dark night in the park when the boys are planning their next manoeuvre. It is important that we bear that in mind.

Secondly, there are people in gangs whose sole job is to recruit young people. One of the big things they say to those young people is, “You are too young to go to court”. We have to be careful about making that true, or at least appear to be true. Removing these spent convictions would be such a powerful thing to help people move on, and I support it, but let us think very carefully about how we talk about it, where we draw the lines, how we explain it and how it is enacted in reality rather than just in concept as we sit in this Chamber.

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to all these amendments, particularly Amendments 476, 477 and 478. These amendments highlight how the system of criminal record disclosure, particularly as it relates to children, is complex and very confusing. I am an advocate for criminal record reform, having been a youth magistrate for over 20 years and having been on the Youth Justice Board. Those roles have consistently demonstrated to me how decisions made in childhood, often in relation to relatively minor offences, can have consequences that extend well into adult life, as we have heard this evening.

As noble Lords will know, I recently tabled an amendment to the Sentencing Bill to address the anomaly in youth sentencing whereby the first court appearance, rather than the date of the offence, determines whether a young person is treated as an adult. I am therefore very conscious of the unfair impact these technicalities beyond a child’s control can have on their future.

Although we have had success in reducing the number of children in custody because we wanted to keep young people out of prison, we have at the same time increased the threshold of seriousness of offending in these disposals of conditional cautions over a number of years.

I know that the Justice Secretary has recently acknowledged publicly that aspects of the criminal records and disclosure system are in need of reform. Rehabilitation is about giving people a chance to change, and, where appropriate, we should work to ensure that childhood mistakes do not turn into lifelong punishments, giving them the opportunity to get on with their lives.

I am also attracted to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier referred. It is very important that the Minister view these amendments on childhood as an opportunity to reflect on a broader review of criminal records and the DBS disclosure system, which might now be appropriate.

These amendments highlight just how complex the system has become. Ensuring that the system is fairer, while keeping in mind the importance of rehabilitation and protection to the public, would, in my view, be a worthwhile objective.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to Amendments 476, 477 and 478 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, to which I have added my name. I am also sympathetic to the other amendments in this group and declare, as ever, that I am a schoolteacher in Hackney. I would also like to acknowledge the help of Transform Justice.

I rather innocently assumed that one of the cornerstones of the justice system in this country is rehabilitation, but this does not seem to be the case with our young people. As we have heard, every year in England and Wales there are 13,000 convictions of children aged 10 to 17, who are disproportionately from poor backgrounds, minoritised communities, in care or excluded from school. Those convicted acquire criminal records which only add to their disadvantage.

Some of these criminal records remain through life. A child charged for affray for a playground fight would have to disclose that for ever on a standard and enhanced DBS check. Also, currently, as we have heard, a criminal record is acquired on conviction rather than according to the date of the offence itself. This means that many people commit offences as children but acquire an adult criminal record because, through no fault of their own, the hearing at which they are convicted happens after their 18th birthday. This situation has got worse because of the recent delays in the court system. This is patently absurd.

As the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, has said, brains do not mature until people are well into their twenties. Also, research has shown that teenagers take more risks when they have an audience. As I see in the playground every week, children are immature and often reckless, not seeing the consequences of their actions.

Our criminal records should allow for rehabilitation in order to allow young people to move on from childhood mistakes. These amendments would mean that young people should be able to be free of their childhood offences at a specific interval after they have finished their sentence, so they do not have to explain old and no longer relevant childhood offences to potential employers—even if they manage to get as far as an interview. We are not talking about the most serious crimes here.

For everyone else, these amendments would mean that childhood offences should automatically be taken off the records five and a half years after conviction. We also propose that a conditional caution, when accepted by a child, should not appear on the records. We propose that those whose conviction is delayed until after their 18th birthday should not acquire an adult criminal record.

With the number of NEETs approaching 1 million, we should be doing everything we can to remove barriers to employment and let rehabilitation of the young be truly part of the justice system.