§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish a list of the rehabilitation periods for each criminal offence or category of offences listed in his paper "On the Record". [152]
§ Mr. MacleanThe White Paper "On the Record", Cm 3308, sets out the proposed new arrangements for access to criminal records. It does not list categories of criminal offences. Annexe A to the White Paper sets out the categories of occupations or posts which are exceptions to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and which it is intended will be eligible for full criminal record vetting checks.
It is not possible to list the rehabilitation periods for individual offences. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 relates to sentences rather than to offences, and provides that after varying periods of time specified in the Act, offenders are regarded as having become rehabilitated and their conviction(s) spent. The key determinant of when a conviction becomes spent is the type of sentence passed in each case, not the offence itself. When a conviction becomes spent, it does not have to be disclosed other than in certain specified circumstances. Sentences of over two and half years imprisonment can never become spent.