Justice secretary and deputy prime minister David Lammy is considering changes to how childhood criminal records are disclosed in England and Wales, in a move aimed at preventing minor teenage offences from damaging people’s job prospects decades later.

The plan, first reported by the Daily Telegraph as a proposal to “wipe” childhood records, would form part of a wider effort to simplify the criminal records regime while, ministers insist, maintaining safeguards for the public.

It comes amid growing concern that the current system forces people well into middle and old age to reveal long‑ago offences committed as children, even when they have not reoffended, restricting access to work, education and volunteering.

‘We will consider opportunities to simplify the criminal records regime to ensure it is clear and proportionate, particularly in relation to childhood offences,’ Mr Lammy told the Telegraph, echoing wording used in a government statement issued last week.

The Ministry of Justice said: ‘We want to help children who have committed crime to stop re‑offending and turn their lives around. That is why the government is actively exploring opportunities to simplify the criminal records system, while always putting public safety first.’

No detailed proposals or timetable have yet been published, and officials have not set out whether any changes would amount to deleting records, restricting their disclosure to employers, or some combination of both.

Under current rules, many convictions eventually become “spent” and do not usually have to be declared, but they can still appear on standard and enhanced checks carried out by the Disclosure and Barring Service for work with children, vulnerable adults and in certain regulated roles.

Filtering rules introduced over the past decade mean some old and minor matters are removed from most certificates, and since 2020 youth cautions and reprimands are no longer automatically disclosed. However, any offence that led to a custodial sentence, and a wide range of specified serious crimes, will still appear, regardless of how long ago it was committed.

The underlying entries on the Police National Computer are not automatically deleted, and typically remain on file until a person’s 100th birthday, even if they no longer show up on many routine checks.

Campaigners say the result is a “blunt” system that can expose decades‑old childhood mistakes long after people have rebuilt their lives. Freedom of information data reported earlier this year showed more than 35,000 criminal record checks over the past decade disclosed offences from when applicants were children more than 40 years earlier, many involving people with only a single conviction.

Charities working with people who have convictions say hundreds of thousands of DBS checks in recent years have included youth records, including offences committed at the age of ten, the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales.

Groups representing care‑experienced young people have long warned that children in care, who are more likely to be drawn into the criminal justice system for low‑level behaviour, face a lifetime of stigma from minor offences recorded in their teens.

Legal and human rights organisations, including those that brought a successful Supreme Court challenge in 2019, argue the regime for disclosing youth records is disproportionate and infringes privacy rights, and have pressed for a more flexible, case‑by‑case approach.

The direction of travel outlined by Mr Lammy closely aligns with recommendations he made in his landmark 2017 review of racial bias in the criminal justice system, commissioned by the then Conservative government.

That review called for a US‑style system of “sealing” criminal records, under which people who can show they have been rehabilitated are able to apply to a judge or similar body to restrict access to their record, particularly where the offences were committed in childhood or early adulthood.

Supporters of reform say limiting the disclosure of old youth records would help people into work and reduce reoffending, pointing to evidence that stable employment is one of the strongest predictors of desistance from crime.

But any move framed as “wiping” records is likely to attract scrutiny from opposition parties, some employer groups and victims’ advocates, who have previously warned that cutting back disclosure too far could hamper efforts to identify risk in sensitive roles.

Safeguarding groups have in the past pressed for exceptions in areas such as sexual and violent offending, domestic abuse and roles involving contact with children, even where offences date back many years.

Key questions for ministers include the age cut‑off for any new protections, which categories of offence could be covered, and whether changes would be automatic after a set period or depend on individuals applying to a court or tribunal.

It is also unclear how any reform would interact with the power of police forces to add “local intelligence” to enhanced checks where they consider it relevant, even if it does not appear on the central record.

The criminal records review is emerging as one strand of a broader programme of justice reforms being driven by Mr Lammy, who last week announced “swift courts” and expanded judge‑only trials for many mid‑level offences in an attempt to cut a Crown Court backlog now standing at about 80,000 cases.

Ministers are expected to set out more detailed options for overhauling the disclosure of childhood records in the coming months, either through a dedicated consultation or as part of wider legislation on criminal justice. Until then, youth offences will continue to be disclosed under the existing rules.