Debate contribution: Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 16 June 2026.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

16 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Justice Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5625156

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish to discuss amendment No 87, which deals with the transfer of powers found in section 43 of the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. Those powers relate to the accreditation and registration of organisations that deliver restorative justice services in Northern Ireland, which were overlooked when relevant functions were transferred to my Department on the devolution of policing and justice. The transfer of powers has been agreed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and a draft clause to transfer those powers was originally included in the final Justice Bill of the previous mandate but was withdrawn when the scope of that Bill was narrowed. There have been a number of developments in restorative justice over the intervening period, including the publication of an adult restorative justice strategy and a comprehensive review of the restorative justice protocol, which governs that work. The new provisions will allow me, as Minister of Justice, and my Department to take decisions around the accreditation of organisations and individuals that provide restorative justice services and to maintain a register of accredited providers. They will also enable monitoring, inspection and reporting on those providers and, in extreme circumstances, their removal from the register of accredited service providers if necessary. My Department continues to progress work in that area under administrative agency arrangements agreed with the Secretary of State until the new provisions are in place. Amendment No 87 enables provisions to be placed on a statutory footing locally. I would like to reassure Members that underpinning the legislative provisions is a comprehensive and robust practice standards and accreditation framework. That clearly sets out the expertise, training and experience that service providers must have to provide restorative justice services as part of the criminal justice process. That is intended to provide reassurance about the quality of the service that is being provided, with the requirements increasing for more serious and complex offences. Importantly, expansion of the use of restorative justice is on a phased basis, starting with diversionary disposals in order that the process can be properly bedded in and ensure effective delivery before being extended to court cases. Amendment Nos 92 and 93 aim to deliver some long overdue legislative reforms to reduce rehabilitation periods for existing convictions and to allow more convictions to become capable of becoming spent. The amendments also create an order-making power to allow the Department to establish a review mechanism in future for some additional convictions not captured by the revised arrangements. Although the Supreme Court judgement of 6 March 2025, in the case of JR123, determined that a review mechanism is not required in order for a rehabilitation regime to be considered lawful, I believe that there is merit in continuing to develop proposals in that respect following further policy development, stakeholder engagement and public consultation. The main purpose of the legislation governing the rehabilitation of offenders is to boost the chances of former offenders gaining employment and living within the law by helping them to put their past convictions behind them. By reducing reoffending through the rehabilitation of offenders, we are aiming to ensure that there are fewer victims of crime, that our communities are safer and that less money is spent on repeat offenders circling within the justice system. Rehabilitation periods in Northern Ireland have remained essentially unchanged since first introduced in 1978. Since then, changes in sentencing practice have meant that longer sentences are now being imposed than when rehabilitation periods were first established. In addition, the bar on custodial sentences of over 30 months being treated as spent in Northern Ireland may act as a barrier to employment for former offenders who have not reoffended since their release. The reforms also reflect developments in neighbouring jurisdictions, thereby ensuring that ex-offenders in Northern Ireland are not treated less favourably than those in other jurisdictions. Members will be able to see for themselves the new rehabilitation periods contained in my amendment, so I do not intend to rehearse all the changes here. However, it is worth drawing Members' attention to some aspects. Rehabilitation periods for a fine will reduce from five years to one year, and rehabilitation periods for a number of community rehabilitation or supervisory orders will become spent when the requirements of the order are complete. Those changes are consistent with arrangements that have been in operation in England, Wales and Scotland for some years. So, too, are the rehabilitation periods for convictions involving sentences of imprisonment of up to one year, where the rehabilitation period becomes the term of the sentence plus one year, and sentences of imprisonment between one and four years will be capable of becoming spent after the term of the sentence plus four years. The changes that I am seeking to bring forward deviate from those in England and Wales in the treatment of sentences of imprisonment of over four years. In England and Wales, a sentence of imprisonment of over four years for a non-serious offence can become spent after the term of the sentence plus seven years. The exclusions to rehabilitation in England and Wales are public protection sentences, specified violent offences, specified sexual offences or specified terrorism offences, as defined in schedule 18 to the Sentencing Act 2020. There are 182 offences specified in schedule 18, under 36 different pieces of legislation. When officials in my Department analysed the responses to the public consultation exercise on my proposals to reform rehabilitation periods in 2021, they presented me with a number of options for consideration. The options included doing nothing by maintaining the existing regime; mimicking the arrangements in Scotland, where sentences over four years can never be spent; copying the model in England and Wales of allowing all sentences of over four years to become spent, except for those serious offences that I mentioned in schedule 1 to the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008; or adopting a hybrid option that mirrored arrangements in England and Wales for sentences of up to four years imprisonment, but with a fixed upper limit of 10 years for any offence. The latter option was not offered as a model for consideration as part of the consultation exercise. Rather, it was included in the options offered to me following officials' analysis of conviction and reoffending statistics specific to Northern Ireland, alongside the nature of the offending and consideration of responses to the consultation exercise that called for any reforms to be simple to understand and straightforward to operate. The rationale for setting the upper limit for that option at 10 years was that article 14 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008 defines a serious offence as one that is specified in schedule 1 to the order. Schedule 1 lists 120 offences, which, for public protection purposes, are considered serious because they carry a penalty of 10 years or more. Continuing to use the length of sentence as a measure of seriousness of offending for rehabilitation purposes, and using the 10-year sentence as a metric for what constitutes a serious offence, as set out in the 2008 Order, the latter option among those presented to me offered the most clarity and certainty and was the easiest for people to understand, in line with the requirements under which the original rehabilitation law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was established. I consider that adopting that model for implementation in Northern Ireland would enable more ex-offenders to put their convictions behind them, increase their opportunities for gaining meaningful employment and reduce the likelihood of reoffending. They will do so by not having to disclose as much conviction information to prospective employers for as long as required under the current rehabilitation regime. In some cases, disclosure of conviction information that would have to be made under the current regime will not need to be made as a result of the proposed changes. They may also be able to have more than one conviction become spent sooner than a single conviction under the existing scheme. I want to support the effective rehabilitation of offenders, while recognising that more serious offences attract particular public concern regarding safety and represent a more serious risk to the public where reoffending occurs. While I considered the options presented to me for a direction on the way forward, I was concerned, as some here today might be, that the prospect of certain offences becoming spent might be considered problematic, and I sought more information from my officials in that regard. By way of response, officials advised that there are certain jobs and professions where applicants must always declare their convictions, even where they are considered spent. Those are known as "excepted employments or professions", and they can include working or coming into contact with children or vulnerable people. They also include working in financial institutions, the medical world and law enforcement, amongst others, where a particular conviction could have a strong bearing on an individual's suitability for employment in that area. For Northern Ireland's purposes, those exceptions are set out in the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Exceptions) Order (Northern Ireland) 1979. Officials were able to reassure me that the 1979 Order, and the employments and professions specified as excepted therein, would not be amended as part of this reform exercise.

I was, therefore, satisfied that there would be no increased risk to public safety as a result of the proposed reforms on the grounds that all spent and unspent conviction data would continue to be disclosed for sensitive employments such as work with children, young people and vulnerable adults. A successful rehabilitation system must strike a balance between allowing a person to put their past behind them, the needs of employers in the recruitment process, the need to maintain public confidence in the justice system and protection of the public. The provisions in my amendment Nos 92 and 93 strike that balance, and I trust that MLAs will be able to satisfy themselves similarly. I again wish to address concerns that, I understand, Mr Frew expressed in relation to differences between the text of the draft amendments shared with the Committee at the beginning of the Committee Stage in September 2024 and the text of the final drafts tabled in my name and before Members today. I reassure Mr Frew that, while there are a number of small changes to the text of the amendments, they are minor technical changes, rather than any change of policy or new content, to ensure that the amendments operate as intended and reflect comments made by the Attorney General's office for the purposes of clarity only. There are also minor changes to terminology used for certain service disciplinary offences in the table of rehabilitation periods and the removal of certain entries for under-18s subject to specific service disciplinary offences where those offences have been repealed and consolidated under existing disciplinary offences in service legislation. Those are technical changes that were made at the request of the MOD to reflect changes introduced in England and Wales through the Westminster Armed Forces Bill 2026 that it wishes to see copied here in order to ensure a consistent approach across both jurisdictions. They do not represent a change in policy or new policy content. I hope that Mr Frew will be satisfied with that reassurance and that there was no ulterior motive on my part. I want to speak to amendment Nos 94, 95 and 129, which introduce new clause 29A that amends section 113A of the Police Act 1997. The provisions make no substantive change to the offences listed in that section of the Police Act; rather, they streamline arrangements for maintenance and ease of understanding of what is known as the "list of specified offences". Essentially, that is a list of serious violent or sexual offences that cannot be filtered from AccessNI's standard and enhanced checks. Provisions under the amendment create a new schedule to the Police Act that will provide additional structure in legislation by setting out a clearly detailed list of offences that will replace the more cumbersome list at section 113A(6D) of the Police Act. New clause 29A also amends section 113A(6E)(f) of the Police Act to provide greater clarity as to the definition of "relevant matter", specifically with regard to the meaning of "sentence of imprisonment", "sentence of service detention" and "custodial order". Collectively, the amendments remove doubt as to what is in each of those disposal categories. Provisions in new clause 29A amend article 1A of the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Exceptions) Order (Northern Ireland) 1979 to ensure that the appropriate treatment of protected convictions accurately references offences listed in new schedule 8ZA to the Police Act 1997. That concludes my remarks on the group, other than to reassure Mr Paul Frew again that any changes that he may have identified between the texts are simply technical adjustments to accommodate changes made by the Office of the Attorney General with a view to ensuring that the provisions operate specifically as intended. There is no change of policy, new policy or change to the rehabilitation periods that have been proposed.

2,186 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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