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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Andy Burnham):
I congratulate the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) on securing this debate. Normally, it would be considered "a difficult one" for someone in my position to get the Adjournment debate just before the Easter recess, but I
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am actually pleased to be here, because this is an important subject. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to it, and it is right that we are here to discuss it and its implications.
This debate provides a useful opportunity to discuss the contribution that the database makes to the work of the police and the wider criminal justice system, and I want to begin by thanking the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has put forward his remarks today. He has balanced them by recognising what he called the "amazing benefits" that the database has brought, and it is important that the debate should be seen in the context of those benefits, although of course there is a balance to be struck. He has also aired some of the concerns about the retention on the database of the DNA profiles of people who have been arrested but not convicted of an offence, and it is right that we are here to debate those important issues.
Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con): Has the Minister considered the difficult and sensitive issue of the benefits and disbenefits of taking DNA samples from anyone who seeks to come to live in this country from abroad?
Andy Burnham: That question relates to the possible expansion of the database, which I will deal with more fully in a moment. However, the answer to the hon. Gentleman's specific question about people coming to this country is no. The Government's position is that we are moving towards a system of external identifiers, commonly known as biometrics. These are being progressively introduced into the British visa—that process is under way as we speak—and the hon. Gentleman will also know that many countries are introducing biometrics into their passports. They are external identifiers, and there are no plans to go further and to take DNA from people wishing to travel here.
Bob Spink: The Minister might not be aware that the Science and Technology Committee has looked at biometrics, including iris and facial recognition and fingerprints, and found no evidence from any large-scale project that using multiple biometrics in the way that the Government propose would work technologically. The Government are simply making an assumption that they would work, but there is no evidence of that. In the absence of a working biometrics system, would the Minister consider the use of DNA?
Andy Burnham: No, I would not. I do not believe that people would accept that. Even for someone often accused, as I am, of not having regard for such matters, it would raise substantial civil liberties implications. On that basis, I would rule it out categorically. As to the questions that the hon. Gentleman raises about the effectiveness of biometrics, I do not accept that that is the case. I do not know whether he has travelled to the United States recently, but it has a large-scale immigration system that uses biometric information extremely successfully. His assertion that there is no evidence of external biometrics providing a higher standard of identification in travel documents is therefore wrong.
Like the hon. Member for Gravesham, I recognise that the national DNA database is an extremely powerful tool. It therefore follows that it needs to be
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used carefully and proportionately, with the fullest possible parliamentary scrutiny. That is why I am pleased that he has secured this debate and that we are here today. I want to make a commitment to him and the House that that scrutiny will continue, and it is important that it does. He is right to say that it is important to explain the benefits of the national DNA database so that we can continue to build a consensus in support of it. It is right that the debate should be taken forward with openness, not secrecy. In that way, we will maintain and secure confidence.
As the hon. Member for Gravesham rightly says, the database is achieving some extraordinary public benefits by solving crime, especially some appalling crimes that have remained unsolved for many years. It rightly commands solid and sound public support, and in my view the majority of our constituents support it and want it used to the fullest possible extent. I want to give some examples of that success. It is important to conduct the debate, and explain the benefits, without resorting to language likely to raise fear or alarm unnecessarily among the public. In certain quarters, the database is viewed as something necessarily to be feared. I want to deal with that directly.
There is no material disadvantage or cost to the individual simply from being on the national DNA database—it is not a criminal record. A cost arises only if a further crime is committed. Even before the advent of DNA technologies, the police always retained information relevant to an investigation that they had carried out, even if that investigation did not subsequently proceed to charge or trial. Those decisions have always properly been at the discretion of the police and, ultimately, of the chief constable of a force. I would not want that to change. It is right, however, that processes are put in place to ensure that people can question the legitimacy of their data being held on the DNA database. The Association of Chief Police Officers has recently been working on guidelines for those procedures.
We can also consider other safeguards, such as the proviso that DNA is only taken when an individual is arrested in connection with a recordable offence. The hon. Member for Gravesham suggested a couple of times, although I do not think that he sought to be misleading, that someone arrested for a road traffic offence could have their DNA taken. That would only occur in the case of a more serious road traffic offence. It would not happen, for example, if someone had not been wearing their seatbelt, but in cases of serious offences such as failing to provide a specimen of breath when requested or tampering with a vehicle. It is important to put that on the record.
A further safeguard is that access to the database is strictly limited. Only a small number of people—less than 30—have direct access to the database. People cannot access the database from police stations all over the country. That is an important safeguard, which people want to hear about. The individuals who can access the database are highly vetted and security-cleared. The statutory purposes of the database are also clearly defined: those relating to the detection and
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prevention of crime, with the extension to the identification of dead bodies, following the awful events of the tsunami.
Let me give some background to the debate. The DNA database has been in existence for 10 years. It was begun under the Conservative party, and was set up as a police intelligence database to hold DNA profiles from persons charged with, reported for or convicted of a recordable offence. Between 1995 and 2000, the number of DNA profiles from sampled individuals grew slowly from zero to approximately 750,000. In the late 1990s there were around 21,000 DNA matches per year, providing the police with leads on the possible identity of offenders.
It was clear that DNA was having an impact on serious crime, and on high-volume crimes such as burglary and vehicle crime. That illustrated the potential value of the database. In 1999, therefore, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced plans to increase the use of DNA technology through the setting up of the DNA expansion programme, and significant investment—some £300 million—was allocated to the programme. Its aims were to expand the database to hold profiles of all active criminals—the hon. Gentleman mentioned that—and to take DNA materials from more crime scenes and load them on the database. The database holds both types of sample. We believe that the programme has achieved its aims, and that is borne out by the recent progress report on it.
It is impossible to be precise, but we believe that the database now covers a large proportion of the criminally active population. At the end of February 2006, it held more than 3.5 million profiles from sampled individuals. Between 2000 and 2005, more than 2.25 million persons were sampled and their profiles were added to the database. That is treble the number of profiles loaded in the previous five years, between 1995 and 2000.
The database is a key police intelligence tool, helping to identify offenders more quickly, eliminate suspected offenders earlier in investigations, make earlier arrests and secure more convictions. Those are very important public policy objectives, of which I am sure Members in all parts of the House approve. The database provides criminal leads for police investigations.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the forecast growth of the database. Forecasts indicate that it is likely to expand to 4.25 million profiles by 2007–08 as a result of the sampling of arrested persons and newcomers to crime. It is not the case that anyone added to it is "innocent". The hon. Gentleman may not have meant that, but it was possible to interpret what he said in that way. There are currently more than 6.2 million records on the national fingerprint database. That is to be expected, as the national fingerprint collection has existed for far longer—since the first half of the last century.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of a universal DNA database, and the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) strayed into the same territory, wondering whether DNA should be collected more generally. It remains our view that the national DNA database is an intelligence database for police service use, to assist in the fight against crime. That is clearly laid out in the statutory purpose of the database. The Government
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have no plans—I repeat, no plans—to introduce a universal compulsory, or voluntary, national DNA database, or to seek to obtain DNA samples from the entire population. Nor is it our intention to build the database by stealth. It is our intention simply that the samples will continue to match arrests made and crimes committed.
We believe that seeking to obtain DNA samples from the entire population would raise significant practical and ethical issues, and there would need to be a national debate on it. I do not think that the country is ready to hold that debate, as may be shown by our long debates on identity cards. I do not believe that we have reached the point at which people would accept such a step. I do believe, however, that we have reached the point at which people accept the existence of the national DNA database for the policing and crime detection purposes that I have described—as long as there is proper scrutiny and debate, and testing of issues around the edges of the debate, notably the retention of samples from arrestees.
Following an amendment to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the police have been able to retain DNA and fingerprints taken from persons who have been charged with, but not convicted of, recordable offences, and detained in police stations. DNA samples retained under PACE may be used only for the purposes of prevention and detection of crime, the investigation of an offence, the conduct of a prosecution or, since April 2005, the identification of a deceased person.
The Government firmly believe that the 2001 amendment is both proportionate and justified in the interests of preventing and detecting crime. That view was supported by a Judicial Committee of the other place in the case of R v. Chief Constable of South Yorkshire in July 2004. The case was a rape case, in which DNA evidence had been ruled inadmissible, even though it established the identity of one of those involved. Following that case, the House debated fully the issue of whether the rule needed to be changed, and whether the police required greater flexibility to retain DNA samples.
Since May 2001, some 200,000 DNA samples have been retained that would previously have had to be destroyed. From those, approximately 8,500 profiles of individuals have been linked with crime scene stains, involving nearly 14,000 offences. Those offences include 114 murders, 55 attempted murders, 116 rapes, 68 sexual offences and 119 aggravated burglaries. I urge those who campaign against the DNA database to reflect on those figures, which are evidence of substantial public benefit for the victims and their families of the policy that was introduced on the retention of DNA samples.
In 2003, following representations from the police service, new powers were introduced enabling the police to take DNA and fingerprints from persons who have been arrested for a recordable offence and detained in a police station. The great majority of profiles on the database are from individuals who have been either convicted of or charged with an offence. As at early December 2005, only around 125,000 profiles related to persons who had been arrested but no further action had been taken in the case.
It is a fact that the police arrest more people than they charge, and we do of course accept that broadening police powers in that way has civil liberties implications.
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The Government appreciate that some people may be concerned about building a larger DNA database, particularly where it relates to arrested people who have not been proceeded against for an offence. Although we recognise all those concerns, we have nevertheless concluded that any intrusion on personal liberty is both necessary and proportionate to the benefits for victims of crime and society generally in terms of detecting crime and protecting the public against criminals.
Those benefits are evidenced by the fact that since April 2004, sampling persons who have been arrested but not proceeded against has yielded a match with a crime scene stain in more than 3,000 offences, including 37 murders, 16 attempted murders, 90 rapes and 1,136 burglary offences. Those are links that might never have been made had the police not been given powers to take and retain DNA samples on arrest.
Questions have been raised about the under-18s and the database. Around 740,000 of the profiles on the database relate to young persons who were under 18 at the time the sample was taken. Many of those persons are now over 18. As at 13 December 2005, there were around 377,000 under-18s on the database. Young persons under the age of 18 who have their DNA on the database have been portrayed in some sections of the media as innocent children. We need to recognise that, sadly, that is not always the case. Under-18s make up approximately 23 per cent. of all arrests, and thus a comparable proportion of young persons' profiles on the database should not be unexpected. Home Office statistics published in 2003 indicate that the peak rate of offending is among young persons.
Many offences including burglaries, robberies, criminal damage and drugs offences are committed by under-18s, causing great distress to their victims. Some young people go on to commit very serious offences. For example, a case was reported last week of a 14-year-old who had raped four children of primary school age. It is crucial that the police have access to DNA intelligence to ensure that young people who commit such crimes are detected as soon as possible, for the sake of their victims and in order to prevent any further such crimes.
That said, there will inevitably be some instances where entirely innocent young people are arrested and sampled in a case of mistaken identity, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out. In such cases, chief officers have the operational discretion to remove the DNA profile from the database and to destroy the DNA sample. Recent guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers has laid down how the process can be pursued. Members acting on their constituents' behalf can of course follow that process, details of which have been placed in the Library of the House.
Let me give some examples of the benefits of a national DNA database. Almost every week the media report on the outcome of criminal cases in which DNA-matched intelligence has been used and relied on. On average, the database provides police with 3,000 intelligence matches a month, thereby enhancing their capability to detect crime; indeed, some 40,000 such crimes were detected in 2004–05. The hon. Gentleman gave figures for cases in his own region during Operation Advance 1, which, as he may know, was a nationwide review of cold cases. For example, in Tunbridge Wells in 1989, an 18-year-old woman was threatened with a shotgun and raped, and only when the offender was arrested in 2004—when Kent police began
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reviewing undetected serious crimes using modern DNA techniques—did he eventually plead guilty to rape and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Other cases in the hon. Gentleman's region include the sentencing to life of a man found guilty of raping two students at knifepoint, 16 years after those offences were committed.
A powerful feature of the database is that if someone who committed a serious offence many years ago commits a more trivial one some years later, that requires the taking of a DNA sample and the link between the two offences is triggered. The ability to link a range of criminal behaviour back to serious crimes is very important, and the two cases from the hon. Gentleman's region that I mentioned are powerful examples of how the database can uncover such links. Members may have read this week of "Wearside Jack", the hoaxer who disrupted the hunt for the Yorkshire ripper. The man in question, who has since been arrested and convicted, had a sample taken in 2001 when he was arrested and cautioned for being drunk and disorderly. A cold case review in 2005 of the original hoax case retrieved DNA from the seal on one of the envelopes used to send the hoax letters. That DNA matched the later sample.
Amazing stories are emerging in our press almost weekly, and when people read them they will immediately appreciate the power and benefit of the national DNA database. The cases are, at times, incredibly moving, and the victims are given a chance to regain their lives as they perhaps thought that they never would. Following a successful prosecution in a serious case, a senior investigating officer involved in the cold case review said the following:
"We would never have caught him had his DNA not already been on the database—he didn't even live locally so we had no intelligence leads either".
As Members will appreciate, the ability to make connections between cases in various parts of the country is a very powerful policing tool.
I could regale hon. Members with plenty more statistics and stories, but I do not want to keep them from leaving for their Easter break. However, I believe that the database is an intriguing subject, and that the House should take a close interest in it. I am ready to help it to do so, as I want the debate to be open and conducted in a spirit of explanation rather than the sort of scaremongering that would be a disservice to the public. The hon. Member for Gravesham has certainly shown the proper spirit in his approach to this debate.
I assure the House that it is not the Government's intention to build a database by stealth, or to amass more and more information for some ulterior purpose. We want that information to help the police—whom we pay to protect us—to do their job better. In that way, victims will get more justice, and the population as a whole will feel more secure. Apart from aiding the identification of deceased bodies—I am sure that no hon. Members will disagree with that use of the information—that is the only reason for compiling the DNA database.
The statutory purposes behind the database mean that people can be confident that it is being taken forward in the right way. From his remarks, I took it that the hon. Member for Gravesham supported the principles underlying the database's use, but that he wanted confirmation of its openness and accountability. That is a perfectly legitimate request, and I am happy to have been able to respond. I again congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, and in wishing the House a happy Easter break, I also hope that more parliamentary time can be given to this important matter in the future.
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