A
BILL
TO
Facilitate access by members of the public to the registers of the Criminal
Records Office.
Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and
consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present
Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
(1)
A criminal records office must keep, in electronic form, copies of all
Magistrates’ Courts Registers, and any other registers produced by a court
listing convictions, and must make them accessible to the public.
(2)
5Information held by a criminal records office under subsection (1) shall not be
“personal information” for the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act
2000.
(3)
In order to comply with the requirements of subsection (1) a criminal records
office must ensure that—
(a)
10the registers it holds are no more than one month out of date at any
time, and
(b)
no registers are held for the purposes of this Act which relate to the
period before the day on which this Act is passed.
(4) In this Act—
15“a criminal records office” means the Criminal Records Bureau or any
successor body with similar statutory functions to the Criminal
Records Bureau;
“Magistrates’ Courts Registers” are those registers held in accordance
with the Criminal Procedure Rules made under the Courts Act 2003.
There is to be paid out of money provided by Parliament any expenditure incurred in
consequence of this Act by a Minister of the Crown, government department or other
public authority.
Criminal Records (Public Access) BillPage 2
(1) This Act may be cited as the Criminal Records (Public Access) Act 2011.
(2) This Act comes into force on the day on which it is passed.
(3) This Act extends to England and Wales only.