Paul
Holmes: I made a dual point. First, the Government should
not have been surprised, partly because we were so out of kilter with
the rest of the democratic world. Secondly, having been surprised, they
should realise the arguments have been well rehearsed over a long
period. If the Government could bring forward clauses for primary
legislation on gangs so quickly in response to the court judgment on
the Birmingham case, why could the same not have been done on DNA? This
is a well-rehearsed argument.
Mr.
Campbell: The hon. Gentleman started his remarks by
stating how important this issue is. I hope that he also accepts that
it is a complex issue. As I told him, the Home Secretary said in
December 2008 that children under 10 would be taken off the database. I
have assured him that a lot of work has been done on that, but that it
has not yet been completed. There are a small number of cases. It is
not a case of going to the database and simply taking them off. Many of
these cases are complex. Taking them off can be justified, but often
there is also a reason for leaving them
on. The
hon. Gentleman underestimates the complexity of the case in saying that
we should have proposals for primary legislation in February in
response to a judgment that was made in December. As I keep saying to
him, to do so would write out the other part of the equation that we
want to see, which is a full and proper debate. That was part of the
judgment in December. The court accepted that there was public concern
and that, by implication, there should be public
debate.
Paul
Holmes: Could the Minister explain what that complexity
is? I am not talking just about children under the age of 10, which is
one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the democratic
world, but about children from 10 to 18. The matter is not complex. If
they have been charged and convicted, they should stay on the database.
If they have not been charged or have been charged and found innocent,
they should be taken off it. The only complexity relates to a small
section at the bottom end of the database made up of under-10s who are
below the age of criminal
responsibility.
Mr.
Campbell: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has
started to raise exceptions. Once one gets into what looks like a very
straightforward principle exceptions often emerge. It is often more
complex than he suggests. He himself, in raising issues that were part
of amendments that were not selected, started to put conditions. He
started to describe the sort of areas where exceptions would be made.
When we start on that process it is anything but easy. Other factors
often need to be taken into
consideration.
James
Brokenshire: The Minister has given us various reasons why
the Government are proceeding down this route. He sets great store by
the need for public consultation and public engagement, which I do not
necessarily deny, albeit that I disagree with his analysis of what
primary legislation can do. However, can he tell us what form he
envisages the public consultation will
take?
Mr.
Campbell: I cannot give a definitive answer to that. I do
not think that the hon. Gentleman really expected me to say that I
could. This is work in progress. We are committed to bringing forward a
White Paper. I have told him, because some of them grow out of the
judgment itself, the sort of areas that we will be looking at. He is
well aware of the kind of issues that are involved here. We will have a
full consultation with the public on this
matter.
James
Brokenshire indicated
dissent.
Mr.
Campbell: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. But in an
earlier debate when we talked about consultation on the mandatory code
on alcohol I gave him a commitment that we would share information
about who was part of the pre-consultation and what the issues were at
a very
early stage. If the hon. Gentleman does not have that information he
will get it extremely shortly. I can also tell him that there will be a
full consultation on that practice. Could he give us the benefit of the
doubt and accept that if a Minister stands up and says, “There
will be a full consultation on this matter,” we will stick to
our word? I cannot, of course, tell him exactly what the consultation
will be, but I am sure that if he and others find that it is not
extensive enough they will seek to make it so. We want the fullest,
widest consultation.
Let me return
to the other comments that the hon. Member for Chesterfield made. He
raised some pretty fundamental issues. Can we trust the database? Why
is it so large? Why should some people be on it and others be off it?
Those are precisely the issues that the consultation will look at and
Parliament will decide upon. But he and others are in danger of
ignoring the other side of the argument. Of the 200,000 profiles that
would not have been on the register had things taken a different route,
6,290 were from people involved in 14,000 offences, including 114
murders and 116 rapes.
We all get
e-mails from people asking how they can get off the register and why
people should hold data on them. But we have a responsibility in this
House to think about the other side. We have to think about the
families of people who have been murdered and raped and the families of
people who have been exonerated by the use of this database. If we had
gone down the route that the hon. Gentleman suggested at an earlier
stage it would simply not be available to
us.
Mr.
Burns: I am impressed by the Minister’s impassioned
plea on behalf of the victims of crime, but there is another side to
the coin. What about those people who are innocent who have given their
DNA and are then not charged because they are innocent? Why should they
have their DNA on a register when they are totally
innocent?
Mr.
Campbell: That is precisely what the Court issue was all
about. That is why the Government are bringing forward not just
consultation but proposals to change the threshold. We will address
that issue. The point I am making is that one cannot make that argument
on the one hand and then dismiss the usefulness of the DNA database. It
plays a very important part in policing in this country. I got the
impression from listening to the hon. Member for Chesterfield that if
he is not careful he will not only underestimate but underplay the
importance of the database. He listed, twice, organisations that can
tell us that we have got it wrong. He talked a great deal about
Scotland, but Scotland has a different system and a devolved
Government, as he well knows. It does not have to be the same south of
the border as it is north of it. He not only gave a list of people whom
we should be listening to—whom we will listen to—but said
that the majority of people, and most rational people, certainly agree
with him. He might be right, but we will test that by letting the
public have their say. Let us have a public consultation. Going down
the hon. Gentleman’s route and looking at his prescription would
have denied the public their say. Let us get a sense of balance here. I
welcome a public consultation but I do not have the confidence in the
hon. Gentleman’s position that he
has.
Paul
Holmes: Will the Minister give
way?
Mr.
Campbell: Not at the moment, because I do not want to end
on a discordant note. The hon. Gentleman introduced a series of
amendments that were not accepted, and for obvious reasons I do not
wish to dwell on that. However, I welcome such amendments being tabled
because the ideas they contain are precisely the sort of things that
should help to form our debate. I very much welcome what the hon.
Gentleman has
said.
Paul
Holmes: As I said in what I think was my opening sentence
on the issue, DNA has been a fantastic advance in helping to catch
criminals. It should, however, never be used without corroborating
evidence. In only 0.35 per cent. of convictions based on DNA is the DNA
of the innocent 25 per cent. of the 4 million people on the database
used. That is a very tiny percentage. I hope that in the promised
public consultation the Government uses the stats and not emotive
headlines. I gave four examples, two in detail, of people who are often
quoted by the Government as evidence that having innocent
people’s DNA on the database leads to convictions, for murder
and so on. That was not the case in my two detailed examples. I hope
that the consultation will be based on genuine facts and not on saying
that having all those innocent people on the database is essential to
catching all these criminals. That is not effective in 99.65 per cent.
of
cases.
Mr.
Campbell: Before I finish my remarks, I say to the hon.
Gentleman that the judgment in the European Court of Human Rights was
not that innocent people’s DNA could not be retained. It placed
conditions on retention, stating circumstances in which DNA could be
retained. What I have tried to say throughout this debate is that the
Government will respond to the European Court of Human Rights. We will
comply with it, and in doing so the threshold will
change. This
is an appropriate opportunity to look at the wide issue. The hon.
Members for Chesterfield and for Hornchurch have both accepted that
there is widespread public concern and the need for a debate. We have
discussed the issue for some time; it is a regular at questions and it
is often raised in Home Office debates. So, let us have that debate.
Our proposal is the best way, within the time scale that the judgment
gives us, to get the balance right between the rights of the
individual, which the court case highlighted, and the rights of the
rest of the community to be safe and be kept safe. Part of that is
having and using a DNA database. Despite all that has been said, we
think that our new clauses are the correct way
forward. Question
put, That the clause be read a Second
time. The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
4.
Division
No.
11] Blackman-Woods,
Dr.
Roberta Question
accordingly agreed to.
Question
put, That the clause be added to the Bill.
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
4.
Division
No.
12] Blackman-Woods,
Dr.
Roberta Question
accordingly agreed to.
New clause
33 added to the
Bill.
New
Clause
34Retention
and destruction of samples etc: service
offences ‘(1) Section 113 of
the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (c. 60) (application
to armed forces) is amended as
follows. (2) After subsection
(1) insert— “(1A)
The Secretary of State may by order make provision as to the retention,
use and destruction of material obtained in connection with the
investigation of a service offence which is equivalent to the provision
made by regulations under section 64B, subject to such
modifications as the Secretary of State considers
appropriate.” (3) In
subsection (3) after paragraph (a)
insert— “(aa) the
exercise of functions conferred by an order under subsection (1A);
or”. (4) The amendments
made by subsections (2) and (3) apply in relation to material obtained
before or after the commencement of this
section.’.—(Mr.
Campbell.) This
amendment would allow equivalent provision to be made to that under the
power in amendment NC33, in relation to service offences as defined in
the Armed Forces Act
2006. 3.15
pm Question
put, That the clause be read a Second
time. The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
4.
Division
No.
13] Blackman-Woods,
Dr.
Roberta Question
accordingly agreed to.
Question
put, That the clause be added to the
Bill. The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
4.
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