Crime and Policing Bill

Committee (6th Day)

Clause 87: Notification of name change

Amendment 317

317: Clause 87, page 100, line 34, at end insert— “(aa) if the name change is by deed poll, seven days prior to submitting an application for change of name (if that day is earlier than the day specified in paragraph (a)), or” Member’s explanatory statement This amendment clarifies that if a person is changing their name by deed poll, they must notify a new name to the police prior to submitting the application.

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses a vital aspect of public protection, closing the loopholes that allow registered sex offenders to evade detection and monitoring by changing their identity. Effective management of offenders in the 21st century requires a justice system that is not only legally robust but properly resourced and technologically capable.

On these Benches, we strongly welcome Clause 87, which requires sex offenders to notify the police of a name change seven days before using that new name, in the words of the clause. This is a significant improvement on the current retrospective notification regime, which has allowed offenders to disappear from the radar of the authorities. However, my Amendment 317 seeks to tighten this provision further regarding deed polls. As currently drafted, an offender could theoretically go through the legal process of obtaining a deed poll to change their name without the police being aware until the moment they intend using it, again using the language of Clause 87.

My amendment specifies that if a name change is by deed poll, the offender must notify the police seven days prior to submitting the application. This would ensure that the police are alerted at the very start of the administrative process of changing identity rather than at the end. It provides authorities with the vital time needed to conduct appropriate risk assessments and, if necessary, intervene before a new legal identity is formally established. This proposal has been championed by campaigners such as Sarah Champion MP in the other place, and it is a common-sense safeguard to ensure that the police are always one step ahead.

I stress that the management of offenders today is not just about physical monitoring but about digital monitoring. Just as we have seen criminal recruitment drives for money mules take place on social media platforms, we know that the internet provides avenues for offenders to reoffend or breach their conditions. Although Amendment 317 seeks to tighten the management regime legislative framework, I urge the Government to ensure that the police and relevant agencies have the digital resources and data-sharing capabilities required to enforce these new powers effectively rather than relying on a fragmented system that allows offenders to slip through the net. This measure would strengthen the safety net around our communities immeasurably. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment as a logical extension of the Government’s own objectives in Clause 87. I beg to move.

My Lords, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was designed for a world with low demand for gender recognition certificates and did not anticipate modern safeguarding realities. I believe that that context has fundamentally changed, and that creates a serious gap that my amendment seeks to close. The system is no longer confined to a small number of older adults. New Ministry of Justice data shows that almost 10,000 GRCs have been issued. Last year alone, over 1,169 were granted. That is the highest number on record and more than triple the annual figure five years ago. This is quite a dramatic generational shift: almost a quarter of new certificates now go to people born since the year 2000. Demand has changed but safeguarding has not kept up.

I recently tabled a Written Question to the Government after I had seen multiple cases of male-born sex offenders changing their gender identity, so by the time they appeared in court or were sent to prison they identified as women. I was curious, so I asked the Government what safeguards would prevent a convicted rapist or sex offender going on to obtain a gender recognition certificate and being legally recognised as a woman. First, I was troubled that this Question, when it came to be answered, had been transferred to the Minister for Equalities rather than being answered by the Home Office. I believe it is fundamentally a matter of safety and not about equality. It should have been answered by the Home Office, so I worry that that demonstrates a confusion at the heart of the Government on this issue. Rape and sex offences are not about equality or identity but about safety.

Moreover, and more importantly, the response ignored the core issue. While of course we welcome the measures on name changes, passports and police notification, they do not prevent a convicted sex offender, if I understand it correctly, changing their legal sex under the Gender Recognition Act and going on to live the remainder of their life legally as a woman. To me, that highlights a serious safeguarding gap, and this amendment seeks to close that.

We should not sit back while a legal framework that has been developed for one specific purpose is abused by sex offenders, thereby adding to victims’ pain and trauma; for example, the victim of Ryan Haley. She was sexually assaulted multiple times when she was a child and feared she would be raped. Later, the perpetrator—Haley—changed his name to Natalie Wolf, and now publicly identifies as a woman.

In the victim’s statement, she said:

“Ryan Haley wants everyone to know him as Natalie Wolf, in my eyes he is Ryan Haley, the man who sexually abused me”.

She said that watching how he celebrated his “life, body and choices” felt like salt in her wounds. Would any of us be happy if this predator was—in the future—able to obtain legal recognition via a gender recognition certificate and live as a woman following these crimes? That would be obscene. I cannot see how it could be defended in any circumstances, and even the most ardent believer in second chances would raise an eyebrow.

In this debate, we have spoken often about the need for the Government to be one step ahead, as is so often the case when we see these crimes occurring, and not to wait until bad things happen. It is really difficult to obtain data about the individuals who have gender recognition certificates and the overlap with the offender and prison cohort. Therefore, we just do not know how many individuals fall into these categories or what the risk would be.

However, we have evidence from some cases where we have left the gap open. For example, noble Lords will be familiar with the case of Karen White, who was a male-born sex offender who identified as a female. She was transferred to a woman’s prison—or “he”, I should say. He then went on to assault women in custody. That was a foreseeable failure.

The Supreme Court has now clarified that “sex” in the Equality Act means biological sex, which is helpful, but that ruling was not intended to and does not solve the operational confusion faced by prisons, hospitals and public authorities, which must navigate two legal regimes without clear guidance while we are still waiting for the Government to publish their advice. It is my understanding that the court judgment is narrowly concerned with the definitions of “man” and “woman”, and therefore any policy choices regarding the certificate regime will be outside of the guidance. In short, the legal status of the gender recognition certificate is unchanged. Without this amendment, therefore, a sexual predator can still obtain one.

This amendment is not about identity; it is about safeguarding. It is about ensuring that a person who has committed a serious sexual offence cannot obtain a certificate—that should be a privilege to obtain—that changes their legal sex in a way that compromises the safety of women. I would be very grateful if the Minister could answer some specific questions when he comes to respond. Could a convicted sex offender obtain a GRC while serving a prison sentence for sexual offences? Could a convicted criminal offender obtain a GRC while serving a prison sentence for any other offences? Could either of these groups obtain a GRC after their convictions are spent? Will the long-awaited guidance from the Government include in its scope any changes to the GRC policy framework? I look forward to the Minister’s reply, and I commend my amendment.

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Baroness, Lady Maclean of Redditch. Both amendments have been spoken to very well and very strongly.

I want talk about one particular case, of a sex offender called Clive Bundy, who was in prison for some years for sexually abusing and raping his daughter, Ceri-Lee Galvin, from a young age. It was incestuous sexual abuse and rape. He went to prison in 2016 and before he was released, he declared he was a woman. Bundy then changed his name via deed poll, very generously helped and abetted by the prison authorities, to aid his release.

I have spoken about this issue in this House before, and there are a number of reasons why it has been brought to my attention. One reason is that Clive Bundy changed his name to Claire Fox—consequently, I know about it. Claire Fox now wanders freely. However, the most important reason is that I was contacted by his daughter, Ceri-Lee Galvin. Before we had the Supreme Court ruling, I raised this a number of times in a number of Bills to note that Ceri-Lee Galvin as a victim had been badly betrayed by this story. She was never told that her incestuous, rapist father was being released, because he was not—Claire Fox was. And of course, guess what? If you google Claire Fox, you will get horror stories, but they are about me and not him.

In all seriousness, it was a deed poll change. Therefore, Clive Bundy might well be on the sex offenders register, but Clive Bundy does not exist. Claire Fox exists, but Claire Fox is Clive Bundy the rapist and is therefore free to live in the same town as his daughter, which he has done, and he has harassed her. I will not go into the details, but Ceri-Lee Galvin has been incredibly brave in giving up her anonymity to talk about this story to the press various times. As she says, she cannot get anywhere when she tries to lobby on this point.