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9 Dec 2009 : Column 122WH—continued
"However, it should be remembered that this is an estimated maximum which is based solely on a consideration of relative risks. Other considerations could result in an actual policy which is longer or shorter than six years-the evidence we present in this paper is not able to say what this final decision should be."
Therefore, in fairness, that document could not be said to be in any way conclusive. Indeed, it suggests that after three years, the sharp dissipation in the hazard curve starts to level off, which supports setting a limit at the three-year point. Interestingly, even when one burrows down into the detail of the evidence document the Home Office published alongside its proposals for a six-year period, one does not find the robustness of approach that might be presented as supporting the Home Office's case.
We have several questions on the proposals in the Crime and Security Bill, which will be debated by the House in greater detail at a later date. However, before I finish my speech, I have one question for the Minister on the advice and consideration that the Home Office has taken on the legality of the blanket, indiscriminate, six-year period, which would not take into account any specific crime. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has written a letter to the Council of Europe, stating of even the revised proposals:
"This fails to address the Committee's decision that 6 years for non-serious offences lacks the required level of proportionality. The Commission believes that treating adults in this category the same regardless of type of offence is too indiscriminate and lacks the required level of proportionality. It does not comply with Committee of Ministers Recommendations Rec(92)1."
It is important to put on the record what consideration the Government have given, even in introducing these proposals, to whether they are compliant with the terms of the European convention on human rights. Indeed, I believe that the Home Secretary's statement in November implied that there was some question about their compliance. He stated:
"Although the ECHR"-
the European Court of Human Rights-
"suggested that the seriousness of the alleged offence should be a factor in determining what length of retention was proportionate, the best available evidence indicates that the type of offence a person is first arrested for is not a good indicator of the seriousness of offence he might subsequently be arrested for or convicted of in future."-[Official Report, 11 November 2009; Vol. 499, c. 26WS.]
That statement was made by the Home Secretary.
We can, I am sure, have a detailed discussion about this in future, but it would be interesting to hear responses from the Minister on those specific points. My party takes a different view from the Government on the retention of DNA. We believe that the DNA profiles of those arrested for a crime of violence or a sexual offence could be retained for three years with a potential extension for a further two years if a court was satisfied that that was appropriate. That proportionate approach is similar to the one used in Scotland and was specifically recognised by the European Court in the S and Marper judgment as being compliant with the convention.
We believe that it strikes an appropriate balance between the interests of the state in seeking to solve crime and protect the public, and the privacy interests of the individual citizen.
I look forward to continuing this important debate when the Government reintroduce their Crime and Security Bill in the Commons in the new year, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response to some of the questions that have been raised this afternoon.
3.41 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Alan Campbell): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Hancock. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on securing this important and timely debate, given the wider debate that is taking place around DNA and the database. She will know that the matter formed part of the Policing and Crime Bill but, unfortunately, not the Policing and Crime Act 2009; however, it will be part of the Crime and Security Bill to be reintroduced shortly in Parliament.
Let me begin with common ground. My hon. Friend and I share the ambition of keeping the right people on the database, but we clearly will not agree on who they are or the best way to achieve that. In the time that I have, I would like to address some of the particular points that have come up, and then address general points in the body of my remarks.
I begin with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes). As the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) said, we have locked horns on this issue many times. As I understand it, the hon. Member for Chesterfield complains about a lack of evidence for the changes that we are proposing, and he hopes that we will come back later with proposals based on better research, yet his party's policy proposes largely dismantling what today we know as the DNA database. He quotes the police in aid of his argument. I have not heard that argument from many police officers, and I caution him if he believes that that is the case.
I thought that the hon. Gentleman's comments about the safety and security of the DNA database were particularly ill-judged. The people who keep it safe do a remarkable job. I do not believe that he has any evidence of DNA data somehow being leaked from the database, and the suggestion that dedicated officers who work on the database would be tempted to sell data is as outrageous as it is ill-informed.
Paul Holmes: Of course, I said no such thing. What I said, in a discussion about the Government following the logic of their arguments and having a DNA database of 60-odd million people, was that the bigger a database gets, the more chance there is, first, of mistakes, and, secondly, of material getting out of the domain where it should be into another domain, as we have seen with many other databases.
Mr. Campbell:
The assumption would be that that has already happened and that the problem would get bigger. The other assumption is that we intend to have a universal database, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows,
I have assured him on many occasions that that is not the case. The two key words are "balance" and "proportionality". We need to strike a balance, and when there are various views from different bodies-scientists, the police, victims, Members of Parliament and the general public-the Government have to decide and make a judgment on where the balance actually lies. The difference between the hon. Gentleman and the Government is that we would draw the line in different places.
Let me turn to some of the specific remarks. I promise to come back in the body of my evidence to the general remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington, in which she again repeated the suggestion that being on the database somehow means that one is halfway guilty and halfway innocent. Let me remind her that being on the database is proof of neither guilt nor innocence. In this country, the courts decide whether someone is guilty or innocent. However, I accept that for someone who has been arrested-that is the threshold that we use for taking DNA in this country-having their DNA taken may leave them with the impression that somehow they have done wrong even though the courts have not found that.
Ms Abbott: My hon. Friend talks about stigma attached to the database. He needs to come to one of the advice surgeries that I run for innocent children whose names are on a database. Their anxious parents are very grateful to me, because that is when they hear for the first time that they can even do anything. I see nervous and frightened children who sometimes are not aware that their DNA has been taken for an indefinite period. There may not be a legal stigma, but I tell him that, in the eyes of the young people, parents and other people in the community who have their DNA taken, there is a definite stigma attached to it.
Mr. Campbell: And in the remarks that followed my original point on this, that is exactly what I was saying. I recognise that people may feel that there is a stigma, but I am making the point for the record that it is not the DNA database that finds people guilty or innocent but the courts.
Jeremy Corbyn: My experience and knowledge of this is that young people are frequently arrested in groups on the streets of any of our cities, particularly in the part of north London that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington and I represent. They are questioned, DNA is taken, and they are warned that the DNA will probably be kept for all time. On many occasions, they are not subsequently charged but are let go. Sometimes, the police make the arrests as a way of calming a situation down and diffusing a problem. That may be a reasonable police tactic, but it is not reasonable then to take DNA evidence which is difficult to remove from the database. At a later stage, the young person finds that they are on some kind of list of suspects as far as the police are concerned because there is a DNA record of them.
Mr. Campbell:
I disagree with the final point in my hon. Friend's remarks. Earlier, he spoke about this coming back to haunt people. I hope that people do not go away with the impression that DNA is put to a wider use than its actual purpose. I believe that he is referring
to the point about removing DNA from the database and the guidance that is given, which I shall deal with in a moment.
On over-representation on the database of a particular ethnic group-in short, the number of young men on the DNA database-I know that that has been a concern for some time, and I shall address the point in detail, but I wish to respond to a point that was at least alluded to in earlier comments, that somehow there is indiscriminate collection of DNA, as recently headlined in the evidence of one retired police officer. Let me put on the record that both the Home Office and the police have entirely refuted the claims that were made. In fact, in reporting them, even the newspaper distanced itself somewhat from them. Let me quote Chief Constable Chris Sims, who is the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on DNA. He stated:
"The suggestion that using powers of arrest to obtain DNA has become routine policy is plainly wrong. The law around powers of arrest is very clear."
The police going further than they ought to would not simply be about breaking the rules; it would, of course, be tantamount to breaking the law. I will return to proportionality and over-representation, but I wanted to make that point now.
The point about removing people from databases was made forcefully, and as a Member of Parliament I understand people's ferocity about that. At the moment, removal is at the discretion of chief constables, because they own the data, but in the Crime and Security Bill we are setting out the criteria for removal. Clause 14 will amend the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, and set down not just guidelines, but statutory criteria against which individuals may have their profiles removed. I am happy to go further, and to have a conversation about whether there should be guidelines to be absolutely sure that chief constables know what their responsibilities are in that regard.
Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Minister anticipate that the new guidelines will include guidelines on whether to take DNA in the first place, particularly of young people who are often brought into custody for a short period? Is it necessary or proportionate to take such DNA samples?
Mr. Campbell: We are verging into territory where we must trust the police's discretion in many ways. That involves an argument that I want to develop later about what happens when young people come into contact with the criminal justice system, and the police are often at the front line of that. I prefer to deal with that remark then.
I want to return to why we have a DNA database, which we are told is the biggest in the world. Of course, we must be concerned about individual privacy, but the database exists also to provide justice for victims and their families. Without it, thousands of crimes would be unsolved, and many serious and dangerous criminals would be walking our streets. Added to that is the deterrent effect if someone knows that they are on the DNA database and believes that they would be detected if they did something wrong. It can have a deterrent effect.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington listed a catalogue of all sorts of cases that may give rise to concern. I do not want simply to
compare my list against hers, but I want to put on record the importance of the DNA database which, in the words of Chief Constable Sims, helps to detect 40,000 crimes a year. I shall give some brief examples.
Mark Dixie, who murdered Sally Anne Bowman, was convicted as a result of DNA taken after he was arrested following a pub brawl in 2006, and subsequently released without charge. His DNA was found to match a sample found at the scene of Sally Anne's murder, and he was subsequently charged, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 34 years. When we announced our proposals on DNA, Linda Bowman was reported to have said:
"Before this...announcement, it looked like the police would have to destroy the DNA of anyone cleared of a crime."
When welcoming our proposals, she said:
"Holding DNA is a deterrent to criminals, right from those committing common assault to savage murders."
Paul Holmes: Does the Minister agree that Mark Dixie was not convicted because his DNA was on the database from some years ago when he had not been charged? Nine months after the murder, he was arrested during a pub brawl, and his DNA was taken and run against the national database, so it is not an example of old DNA from an innocent person proving them guilty years later.
Mr. Campbell: Okay. Let me try this example for the hon. Gentleman. Steve Wright murdered five prostitutes in Ipswich in 2003. A DNA sample was taken from him when he was arrested on suspicion of theft. His DNA profile subsequently matched DNA from the body of one of the five women murdered in Ipswich in 2006. Wright was eventually charged with and convicted of the five murders, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the small number of cases in which DNA is appropriate. Let me add significant cases, and let him make his case to the victims' families, because I assure him that their view is different.
Ms Abbott: These dramatic cases are all very well and affecting, but the House is waiting to hear from Ministers the statistical basis to prove that keeping innocent people's DNA solves so many crimes that the balance between privacy and civil liberties needs to be altered in the way the Government are suggesting. The Minister knows that individual cases make hard law.
Mr. Campbell: Let me quote again Chris Sims, chief constable of the west midlands who leads for ACPO on DNA. He said on 10 September that 40,000 crimes are matched every year, that the database is helping to keep us safe, and that reducing the numbers on it will tip the balance towards making people feel less safe. I pray in aid that point, because he is giving the other side of the story.
Ms Abbott: Where is the research?
Mr. Campbell: I will come to the research in a moment. I pray in aid that point simply to show that it is plain common sense that the further we diminish the database, the higher the number of crimes that might otherwise be solved but will not be solved. We must draw a line appropriately.
Paul Holmes: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Campbell: I am running out of time, so I will not give way.
We must strike a balance, and we consider that our proposals in the Crime and Security Bill do just that. There is a debate about so-called innocence, and I am sure that we will return to that.
We have not plucked the period of six years at random. There is not an enormous amount of evidence out there that we can bring to bear, but nor can the hon. Lady. We commissioned evidence, and we are basing our proposals on that evidence. On the best evidence available to us, six years represents the period for which someone who has been arrested once remains more likely than other members of the public to be arrested again.
In case the hon. Member for Hornchurch wants to point out where that line is drawn, six years is a shorter period, and the period of propensity to reoffend is longer than six years. We believe that it is appropriate to retain material from those who have been arrested, but not subsequently convicted, and that is not unique to this country; it applies in a number of countries throughout Europe. When the European Court of Human Rights considered S and Marper, it noted those systems with approval, and agreed that the state can keep fingerprint and DNA information if it pursues the legitimate purpose of detection and, therefore, prevention of crime. The question is: where is proportionality?
Let me turn briefly to over-representation. The DNA database is not self-populating. Before someone's profile can be added, that person must have been arrested for a recordable offence, and that arrest must have been necessary in law. That is a significant threshold. The problem is that over-representation of any group in the rest of the criminal justice system is likely to be reflected on the DNA database. Our work to look at over-representation of particular groups in the criminal justice system is particularly important. Just focusing on the DNA database, which is somewhat upstream, is interesting, but the reality is that we need to make changes further downstream. We need to know why certain groups coming into contact with the criminal justice system are being arrested and having their DNA taken, which was the point raised by the hon. Member for Hornchurch.
Jeremy Corbyn: But not charged.
Mr. Campbell: But not charged. However, if the profiles of those who are arrested but not convicted are not kept, a significant group of people who are statistically more likely than the rest of the population to offend within the following six years will be removed from the database. That is the balance that we must strike between people's privacy and the right of the rest of society to keep itself and others safe.
Turning to the point about children-the European Court made special reference to children-I want to point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington that we have taken account of what the Court said. There are different proposals for children-
Mr. Mike Hancock (in the Chair): Order. We must move on to the next debate.
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