Criminal Records (Public Access) Bill

Greg Knight Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nuttall]

I agree with the Minister. I made the point at the outset that in due course I would like to see the legislation go further. It would be widely welcomed by the public if further information could be made available in the future. It would add to the transparency agenda, which I know the Government are keen on pursuing.

One side effect of such a Bill, which is not intended to be a crime reduction measure, is that if people knew that their neighbours could easily turn on their computer and check whether someone had been convicted of a criminal offence, that might have the effect of reducing crime in this country.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Might not the Bill have the opposite effect? If the residents of a street discovered that one resident had a criminal record, they might decide to try to hound him out of the area by threatening and abusive behaviour.

[Mr Nuttall]

That information is already public. We are all aware from our own communities that people will often know whether someone living in their area is constantly visited by the police or has had spells in prison. I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but the provisions would be no more likely to cause an increase in attacks on individuals than is the case at present as a result of the information being in the public domain.

[Mr Knight]

I was only pontificating that it might lead in some circumstances to an incident or incidents, but it is clear from the Bill that public knowledge of those who have convictions is likely to increase. Indeed, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that if the Bill became law, someone might develop an iPhone app, for example, that would show how many people in the neighbourhood had convictions.

[Mr Nuttall]

My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point, which fits neatly with my point about available technology and the sort of database that could be created. It is quite likely that a private sector organisation could put such information into a searchable database on the internet, which, as my right hon. Friend rightly says, could easily be accessed on a mobile phone. That is the way in which the internet is going. It is more and more likely that people will carry their own personal computers around with them—tablets are already available —and if a search can be made on a desktop computer in an office, it can be made as one walks down the street. I see no reason why that should not be the case. I cannot see the problems with that.

The main point is that the information must be accurate. We already have the technology to make that happen; of that there can be no doubt. We have already seen the excellent Home Office website that enables individual householders to search right down to street level to find the number and category of crimes committed in their area. Having seen how complicated that website is, covering every road and street in the entire country, I think that the proposed database would be much easier to construct. Provided that measures were in place to ensure that the information on the register was accurate, which could be done easily by ensuring that people could check their own record free of charge, I see no reason why—