I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to ensure all those who should be provided with the benefits of privacy in relation to offences committed as a minor do in fact receive such protection.
The Children Act 2001 was very important legislation. It introduced a range of very positive reforms and protections for young people before the courts. It helped protect vulnerable young people before the courts. However, it was a little confused because some of the sections applied retrospectively and some did not. If someone was 17 years at the time it was passed or even if they had just turned 18 or 19 shortly before it passed, they would have some, but not all, of the benefits of the Act. There is a problem where a small cohort who could benefit from the protections provided under the Act but who just missed it because of the age they were when the Act came in so there is the confused aspect that somehow some of the provisions applied retrospectively and others did not.
This Bill addresses the prohibitions around reporting names. Currently, if a minor under 18 years is before the courts, we cannot report their name. That is a very important protection, particularly because it ensures that when they go on for the rest of their life without offending again, they can put the mistakes of their youth behind them and move on without that burden hanging over them. This is the same logic that is applied in the spent convictions Act. Spent convictions are a very important way of ensuring rehabilitation and preventing recidivism and ensuring that once someone has paid their price and moved on that we let them move on instead of pulling them back. Again, it is the same logic we apply in the right to be forgotten.
This is a very simple Bill with two sections. It will prevent the reporting of a crime committed by someone when they were under 18 years even if that crime was committed before the Children Act came in. It will mean that cohort who would have aged out before the Act came in can still get the protections and benefits we put into the Act that we recognise are positive. We have put them into the Act so that young people now can get them. There is a small cohort who are left with this stain on their record which they would not be left with if they committed the crime now. That is a gap in the law that needs to be corrected; this is a very simple two or three section Bill to do that. I hope the Government will heartily support it.
