Clause 54
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
2:30 pm
David Hanson (Minister of State, Ministry of Justice; Delyn, Labour)
Clause 54 introduces schedule 12, which is essentially the nub of the discussion that both hon. Gentlemen have provoked. The schedule provides for the extension of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 to cover reprimands, warnings, cautions and conditional cautions as well as convictions. The out of court disposals that the Bill introduces are not currently within the scope of the 1974 Act and therefore they never become spent. What that means, in effect, is that, in the event of clause 54 and schedule 12 not forming part of the Bill, the youth conditional cautions in particular—simple cautions that may have been given, for example, several years ago for relatively minor offences—will have to be disclosed when the Bill comes into effect. The purpose of the clause and the schedule is to ensure that those disposals become spent.
The 1999 consultation paper “The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and Cautions, Reprimands and Final Warnings” proposed that those three out of court disposals should be brought within the ambit of the 1974 Act and that they should be immediately spent, because, as we have discussed, cautions are used primarily for less serious offences. Therefore, the Bill provides that simple cautions, reprimands and final warnings should become immediately spent.
Since that consultation exercise was undertaken, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 has introduced conditional cautions for adults, as has been mentioned, and the Bill proposes the introduction of youth conditional cautions for offenders aged 16 or 17. I believe that both of those cautions need to be brought into the scope of the 1974 Act.
Clause 54 and schedule 12 set the rehabilitation period for conditional cautions and youth conditional cautions at three months—the midpoint between simple cautions and the least serious court disposals. They also ensure that such cautions remain on record while the conditions are outstanding. I hope that hon. Members will welcome those facts, because I am sure that they would not wish to see the maintenance of those youth conditional cautions on offenders’ records in the future.
Our intention has been to legislate when parliamentary time allows, and the introduction of youth conditional cautions now makes it all the more important that we provide for those cautions to become spent. Clause 54 and schedule 12 will do so. I commend the clause to the Committee.