HL Deb 08 May 2001 vol 625 cc973-7

8.20 p.m.

Lord Davies of Oldham rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 23rd April be approved [14th Report from the Joint Committee.]

The noble Lord said: My Lords, these are important regulations for debate today. The regulations extend the requirements in Part I of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 on those convicted of a specified range of sexual offences. Currently, they are required to register their name and address and any subsequent changes to either of those with the police. They must also notify the police if they spend 14 days or more at another address within the UK.

The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 amended the Sex Offenders Act to provide for such offenders to be subject to additional requirements to give notices when they propose to leave and return to the UK. These regulations specify those additional requirements.

The fact that the Act does not require registered offenders to notify the police that they will be leaving the UK has limited the ability of the police to know their whereabouts and consequently their ability to monitor them. Some offenders, when found to have been missing from their registered address, have been able to claim that they were abroad at the time and thus were not in breach of the registration requirements of the Act. The second issue is that the police have not known that the offender, who might pose a risk overseas, has been intending to leave the UK. These regulations before the House will address both those issues.

Part I of the Sex Offenders Act is essentially about relevant offenders notifying the police of certain information. It was not intended and could not properly be used to prevent the offender from travelling. Should there be a justifiable need to do this, other measures are available such as conditions in licences to which offenders are subject if they are sentenced to more than one year's imprisonment. In proposing these regulations, we have had to strike a balance between recognising their potential usefulness to the police for operational purposes and recognising that the Sex Offenders Act is an important measure for protecting the public, but it is not the only one. It is part of a set of measures which link together.

By way of finishing my introductory remarks, perhaps I may say that those offenders registered under the Sex Offenders Act have been convicted of a range of offences. They will include those convicted of the most serious sexual assaults against small children but also those who have committed offences of lesser gravity against adults. However, saying that in no way seeks to understate the distress caused to any victim. In some of these cases, the victims will have been strangers but in the majority they are likely to have been known to the offender. Not all those registered will pose a risk to individuals abroad. Where it is believed that they do, however, these regulations will provide the police with more information about their planned trip abroad.

I should like now to turn to the content of the regulations. There were 14,813 offenders registered in England and Wales on 1st March 2001. The regulations apply to every registered sex offender in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who intends to leave the UK for eight days or more. In order to maintain a common registration regime north and south of the Border, the Scottish Executive intend that parallel provisions will be introduced in Scotland.

The period of eight days has been chosen to reflect both the large numbers of registered offenders and thus the potentially high volume of notifications and to ensure that there is time for the police to take any necessary action resulting from the notification.

The regulations require that every offender intending to leave the UK for eight days or longer must give notice to the police at least 24 hours before he leaves the UK. The Act itself provides that the notice must disclose the date of departure from the UK, the country to which he will travel, or if there is more than one, the first country and the point of arrival in that country. The deadline for making the notification of 24 hours before departure has been specified to allow the police the opportunity to judge whether any further action is necessary, such as notifying the authorities overseas.

The regulations provide for the offender to be required to give additional information about his trip, if he has that at least 48 hours before he goes abroad. This further information comprises the intended point of arrival in each country to which he intends to travel; any carriers with which he intends to travel from one country to another; details of his accommodation arrangements for his first night outside the UK; the date of his intended return to the UK; and the intended point of arrival on return.

The regulations further require the offender to make a fresh notification if the information he has previously notified becomes inaccurate or incomplete at any point up to 48 hours prior to departure.

Many offenders are likely to return to the UK on the date and at the point of arrival previously notified. Where this is the case, they need do nothing further about advising the police of their return. If, however, an offender's return arrangements have changed from those previously notified, or if he did not have any fixed return plans at the time he left the country, he must notify the police of the date of his return and the point of entry within eight days of returning to this country.

The regulations specify that offenders must attend a police station to give the required notices. There are a number of reasons for this. First, offenders may not remember from one trip to the next precisely what information is required of them and the only way of ensuring that they provide what is required is by attendance in person. Secondly, it is important that the required information is conveyed within the timescales specified and requiring attendance in person is the best way of achieving this. A notification made by post may not arrive in time or there may be disputes about whether or not faxes have been sent.

We have also been conducting a wider review of the Sex Offenders Act in order to examine whether there are other aspects of it which could also be strengthened. We will be announcing the start of a period of public consultation on these proposals in due course.

These regulations cover a complex area in which there are no easy solutions. They do not stand alone but add a new element to an existing range of measures designed to tackle the dangers posed by sex offenders and I commend them to the House.

Moved. That the draft regulations laid before the House on 23rd April be approved.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

Lord Goodhart

My Lords, according to an undertaking given to your Lordships' House by the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, any Minister who is moving regulations which require the affirmative procedure undertakes to make a statement that those regulations comply with the obligations under the Human Rights Act. I have heard no such statement on this occasion.

These regulations are quite intrusive. They do not require simply a statement of the country which is to be visited and the point of arrival in that country, but also the identity of the carriers and, somewhat surprisingly, details of the accommodation that has been arranged for the person's first night abroad. As the Minister has made clear, one of the main purposes of the information is to enable it to be provided to the overseas authorities, in particular the immigration authorities and police.

I accept that the exchange of police intelligence is highly important for the prevention and detection of crime, but that exchange must be subject to limitations under the Human Rights Act; in particular, we must be satisfied that the privacy of a person on the register is invaded only so far as is necessary in a democratic society. In the United Kingdom one consequence of that is that the register is not open to members of the public and the use that can be made of it is strictly limited, and very properly so.

The European Union Select Committee, of which I am a member, has made a close analysis of the various conventions between the members of the EU which regulate the powers of Europol. Those conventions prevent the exchange of information with countries outside the EU where that information may he used in breach of human rights. I ask the Minister how we are to be satisfied that this information is to be exchanged only in ways which recognise the human rights of people on the register. Those on the register have human rights along with those who are not on the register. There is no limitation expressed or, as far as I can see, implied within the terms of the regulations. Would we be prepared, for example, to exchange information with the immigration authorities or police in countries where that information is not kept as secure as it is in this country? Would we be prepared to supply information to a country where the police regularly used violence and torture against people suspected of paedophilia?

These are important questions which make it doubly important that the Minister should be able to state unequivocally that these regulations comply with the Human Rights Act. I hope that, on the basis of legal advice that the department has obtained, the Minister is able to confirm that the regulations do comply with the Human Rights Act. If not, I believe that this is a very serious matter and that in certain respects the regulations may well be found to contravene the provisions of the Human Rights Act.

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord who raises a fundamental point. If I was remiss in not indicating in my opening contribution the compliance of the regulations with the Human Rights Act, I apologise to the House. I take this opportunity to confirm that the regulations are compliant with that Act. I emphasise that the regulations are not about the exchange of information about the offender. The regulations are concerned with information that the offender is required to notify to the authorities; in other words, the regulations make no changes to existing police powers but merely require that the individual concerned indicates to the police—

Lord Goodhart

My Lords, the point is not that the regulations make changes to police powers but that they make changes to police information which can be passed on in a way which makes it possible for it to be used in breach of human rights.

Lord Davies of Oldham

My Lords, I understand the important point that the noble Lord makes. Under the regulations the information required is about travel and not any other aspect of the individual concerned. That information will be conveyed to other authorities only when it is consistent with the requirement to ensure that any offender is not likely to put at risk an individual in another country. The circumstances would be limited. I take on board entirely the point that the noble Lord makes. It would be quite wrong for information to be conveyed to regimes that might perpetrate unjustified actions against a United Kingdom citizen that would not be countenanced in this country; nor should we be compliant with such actions being taken elsewhere. In assuring the noble Lord once again that all aspects of the human rights legislation have been taken into account in the drafting of these measures, I commend the regulations to the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.