Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to require all of an applicant’s previous names to be displayed on a DBS certificate.

The purpose of a criminal record certificate issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is to assist employers and others to make safer recruitment decisions by providing details of an individual’s criminal history. A criminal record certificate will include the individual’s gender and any other names that they may have used in the past.

The DBS also offers a sensitive applications route which takes into account both the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010. This gives transgender applicants the choice not to have any gender or name information disclosed on their DBS certificate that could reveal their previous gender identity.

Those applying via the sensitive applications route are required by law to provide all name details to the DBS, including any previous identity, in the same way as applicants using the mainstream route. The criminal record certificate issued by the DBS will contain exactly the same criminal record information as a certificate obtained via the main route, including any relevant convictions, cautions or other information dating from when the applicant had a different gender identity.s