Criminals are not barred from becoming MPs - but that's set to change

[IwantToRetire]

Parliamentary candidates could be barred from standing if they do not pass an enhanced DBS check which flags criminal records to employers, under a new plan put forward by MPs.

While many professionals working with the public such as teachers, NHS staff, and social workers are required to meet stringent safeguarding standards, MPs are not subject to the same checks, despite holding roles that routinely involve contact with vulnerable individuals. The expectation is that would-be candidates with convictions for violence or sexual offences would ring alarm bells in party headquarters before being selected. Lesser convictions could be overlooked at the party’s discretion.

“But we also need to be careful because decisions about who is appropriate to stand may be made by individuals who are not versed in the law nor understand the nuances of sentence types. This may lead to complete risk aversion to refusing to put forward any potential candidate with any form of criminal record.

“This could mean that the 12.4 million people who have criminal records but who have turned their lives around could be excluded from democracy. There is also a risk information gained from background checks could become public knowledge and potentially misused for political gain.”

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/criminals-not-barred-becoming-mps-set-change-4084469

Also can be read in full at https://archive.is/wmoGn

(Not that DBS checks are full proof.)

Fraud convictions should also be a disqualifier.

Sounds like one of those things that doesn't seem a bad idea on the face of it, but would be perhaps difficult to put into practice effectively and fairly.

If you're not fit to be allowed to work with vulnerable adults & children then it's perfectly reasonable to bar you from sitting in parliament. Why should our standards for MPs be lower than those for teachers and doctors?

You could say that about anything.

If political parties aren't competent to do what is a standard procedure for any number of people, but also balance that against understanding how the system works then they certainly shouldn't be putting themselves forward to run the country!

Agree also about financial convicions.

Interesting one. It would be more democratic to have mandatory disclosure of a candidate’s criminal record, then the voters can decide.

One of the suggestions that make me say 'this wasn't a law already?'.

I think there are very good reasons for not excluding people with criminal records from standing for public office per se. It's an incentive for the malicious prosecution of political opponents. One would hope most people wouldn't want to vote for those with a terrible record, though, and I can't imagine them not getting outed in the modern world.

Is that because Tommy Robinson has been in prison perchance?

There was a case a few years ago where a candidate had to withdraw as a potential Police & Crime Commissioner as he'd robbed someone as a young teen. Sounds terrible, but being caught and punished was a wake-up call for him; he turned his life around, worked with young offenders throughout his career and did a huge amount of community work. Would have been an ideal Commissioner - he was middle-aged when he found he was disqualified from standing.

I'd be in favour of having to disclose this information, perhaps even putting it on the ballot paper. But fundamentally voters should be able to choose the person they want to represent them.

Barring people with criminal convictions seems like it would end up encouraging politically-motivated prosecutions in order to prevent people standing, which is ultimately bad for democracy.

Agree.

Convictions should be public knowledge for voters but not a veto on being able to vote for a candidate.

I thought the law was changed in 1981 when the hunger striker Bobby Sands (in Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison) was elected as MP for for Fermanagh and County Tyrone. When Sands died, the Representation of the People Act was passed to stop other hunger strikers being elected to take his place.

But I’ve just read up on it and I see the Act only disqualifies people who’ve been in prison for over a year.

Agree.
They would not be excluded from democracy. They can vote and join a party.

Because the two are not the same.

And if you allow one to impact the other, it becomes politically significant overreach.

Have politically difficult thoughts? We'll catch you when you work with kids, and you're done.

The electorate are not children and treating them as if they are is ridiculous, honestly.

Yes, but then the power is deciding who is not able to work with children.

Which isn't a democratic system.

It's decided by government.

Which will then influence the next government....

That would be Simon Weston. The Welsh Guardsman who got his face burned off in the Falklands War and has been a massive advocate for veterans and the disabled ever since. But that crime that he committed at 16 obviously made him unsuitable for public office.

I thought that crimes committed at that age, (18 and under) were considered "spent".

And as said up thread this is about people using their heads.

If someone has been committed for offences against children or violence against women, or serious fraud even a party political drone can work out the difference.

And if not, or maybe anyway, should be written down so that low status admin disengaged employees or volunteers dont end up taking what are policy decisions.

In fact I think fewer candidates will come forward if the price of doing that is having any convictions listed publicly.

Honestly if the selection board of something to do with police dont even know about when convictions are spent what hope is there for this country.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rehabilitation-periods

You criticise my comments about the difficulty of getting the balance right, OP, but then seem to concede that point when you talk about Simon Weston.
To be clear, I obviously agree that anyone who has committed offences against children or violence against women, or serious fraud, should not be allowed. And honestly, the way that recent legislation has gone, I'm far from convinced that the right balance could be struck.I fear this is an opportunity for a Jim Hacker-style, "let's show that we're doing something".

I'm going to be deliberately vague on this because it may be outing, but there's a particular issue in Northern Ireland with people who've been released under the peace process. You have to do your due diligence, but you also have to have some regard to the need to reintegrate ex-prisoners into the community.

So there was a case I was involved with where someone with a spicy personal history was under consideration for a job, and there was quite an in depth discussion about this, and the final conclusion was that luckily his conviction was only for murder; if it had been fraud we could have held that against him.

The basic point being that a past conviction may be relevant if it reflects on propriety in a similar role, or if there's a safeguarding issue, but if someone has kept his nose clean since release, you can't hold it against him that he got involved with the paramilitaries when he was a teenager in the 1970s.

More so, I think, for MPs, because their past will be part of the election campaign and the voters will have the opportunity to have a say.

I think it's about time we had more vetting of people standing for public office but I really disagree with it being done this way. Political parties should not be the arbiters of who is suitable for public office, the voting public should be. People who stand for election should have their criminal records released to the public. It is the public who should get to decide if they consider the conviction too serious to vote for or not.

And not all candidates are put up by political parties. Some are independents. So you're going to have to be fair to all parties.

I wasn't talking about getting the balance right.

I have no faith in any adminstative systems to do that.

I was pointing out that there is existing legislation.

And without in fact knowing that the allegation made about Simon Weston being refused because of a crime conviction when an adolence is true, at the point in time there was guidance.

So if the guidance had been followed he would or could have been selected.

The last thing you need is individualistic decisions based on some warm and fuzzy feeling.

And by the way doing good works is no recommendation for someone doing a job that isn't about good works. As it is good works are nearly always about people virtue signaling.

I suppose the only good think about the system we know have is the ongoing revelations about how many Reform politicians turn out to have very lax moral standards.

Who would have thought!

It's always been assumed that anyone who is eligible to vote, should be eligible to run for office.

If they were serious about this (spoiler: they aren't, it's posturing) then the suggestion would be to maintain that principle and prevent criminals from voting.

I suppose the only good think about the system we know have is the ongoing revelations about how many Reform politicians turn out to have very lax moral standards.

Another way of putting that is, we know which politicians Hope Not Hate is motivated to publish hit pieces on.

HNH is a curious body that manages to combine charitable status, close links to Labour bigwigs like Morgan McSweeney and David Lammy, generous funding from the Home Office on the grounds that they're experts in "extremism", and blatantly partisan campaigning which would seem to be in tension with their charitable status.

It also targets women whose views on trans issues it deems insufficiently "inclusive".