Draft Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2022

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 General Committees

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I have a couple of simple questions for the Minister. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge has highlighted, this measure is quite late in coming. When the scheme was being put together, there must have been some thought somewhere in the Government’s system that there would be a need for this new measure. When were the Minister’s Department and the Home Office first aware that there might need to be a change in the legislation? If there were any delays in bringing it forward from that date to now, can she explain why?

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[Rachel Maclean]

I thank all colleagues for their contributions to this debate. I will take the issues that were raised in turn before I come to the shadow Minister. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead raised very good points about the importance of using SIs for a specific purpose, which is exactly what we have done. There is a role both for the Ministry of Justice and for the Home Office. We have had to amend the Police Act 1997, as I set out in my initial remarks, and we are also having to amend the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. As other Members have suggested, the scheme has been incredibly important. I agree with the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch and pay tribute to all Members of this House and elsewhere who are hosting our Ukrainian guests. It is an incredibly compassionate act and demonstrates the true British spirit.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch asked when we became aware of the issues. It is fair to say I was part of the initial set-up of the scheme in my previous role in the Home Office under the previous Home Secretary, and we worked at pace, along with Lord Harrington, to set up the scheme, which was a true cross-Government effort. It was a completely new, bespoke scheme, so we worked through the night on many occasions to try to address the myriad issues that sat with our Department, with other Departments, with DLUHC, and, in some cases, with the devolved Administrations.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

On that point, the Minister says that it was a bespoke scheme. The Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, looked at the Syrian resettlement scheme, which we gave quite a big tick. There are always issues with big projects, but it worked very well, so there was an example of a scheme that went before. It was not domestic hosting, so the safeguarding was slightly different, but there were still issues there. Did she look back to that scheme? I am still puzzled why the Government drew up a whole new scheme when there was a fairly good model on the stocks.

[Rachel Maclean]

That is a perfectly valid question, but I fear that the scope of this debate is very narrow and is about the exceptions in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I was not the Minister responsible for the policy decisions. The right answer for colleagues who have raised valid points about the future of the scheme is probably to seek a Backbench Business debate—perhaps a Westminster Hall debate—so that the relevant Minister can come along and answer all those questions. It is not possible for me to answer them now, but I am happy to feed them back to my colleagues or to answer any correspondence on them.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge mentioned the fact that the scheme was initially going to run for a shorter period and that people are now coming to the end of that period, and asked what plans we have made for that. Again, it would be wrong for me to try to answer those questions as I am not the Minister with responsibility for those issues.

I very much hope that colleagues are reassured that the draft SI is an important part of the Government’s safeguarding responsibility, and I commend it to the Committee.