Policing and Crime Bill

I shall respond to the amendments and new clauses tabled by Opposition Members and speak to those tabled by the Government. I begin by saying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) that, in line with commitments given by the Home Secretary in her speech in December, I am pleased to confirm that the DNA of all under-10-year-olds has been removed from the database. My right hon. Friend also asked about the security of data on the DNA database. There has not been a single instance of the loss or misuse of data retained on the DNA database. I hope I have reassured him on those points. I shall respond to the points raised by Opposition Members in the substance of my remarks. I welcome the aim of new clauses 1, 2 and 3 because they acknowledge that it is important to ensure that the biometric data of those suspected of violent or sexual offences are subject to a different regime of retention and destruction from the biometric data of a person arrested but not convicted. We would, however, have great difficulty supporting the amendments. I shall deal with the technical problems with them and then put them in the context of the wider argument. First, the amendments do not clearly define the status of a person who has been released without charge. They could apply to a person released without charge and on bail, or to a person released without charge and informed that no further action would be taken. I can only assume that the latter is the intention of the amendment. The definition of an offence""of a violent or sexual nature"" may be too vague. It may be more appropriate to list the actual offences involved and, therefore, clarify what offence is and what offence is not subject to a specific period of retention for DNA and fingerprints. It is neither correct nor appropriate to amend section 113 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, as proposed, because the section allows equivalent legislative provision in part 5 of the Act to be applied to the armed forces, subject to modifications that are considered necessary to cater for the different circumstances in which the armed forces operate. Any amendments in respect of part 5 of the 1984 Act would be reflected in the statutory instrument that applied those provisions to the armed forces. Those are technical points. I now turn to the more substantive point about the need to engage the public in any new framework that we propose for the retention of biometric data that are taken during a criminal investigation. I shall also reply to the accusation that we are responding simply to the judgment, because, in fact, we seek to go further than that. I recognise that some people who are currently on the national DNA and fingerprint databases who have been arrested but not convicted may well ask why, in the light of the European Court of Human Rights judgment, their samples are not being destroyed. The judgment did not hold that any retention of samples of unconvicted people is unlawful per se; rather, it held that we cannot maintain a blanket scheme of retention that applies to all samples. Moreover, as Members will be aware, the existing law stands until such time as Parliament changes or amends it. The contents of the Government's enabling clause will allow for a retention and destruction framework to be put in place to ensure compliance with the European Court judgment within a reasonable time, and for such regulations to be subject to the consideration of both Houses. Hon. Members who tabled new clauses 31 and 32 may have done so in the absence of sight of the Government's proposals that were published on 7 May in the consultation paper entitled, "Keeping the right people on the DNA database". It sets out very clearly our proposals to implement the judgment of the European Court in the case of S and Marper, but it also shows that in some areas we have gone further than the judgment requires. One such area is samples. It is important to get on the record the fact that we have announced our intention to destroy all samples, whether they were taken from a person who was arrested and not convicted, or arrested and convicted, amounting to about 4.5 million samples. That is in direct response to the level of public concern about the retention of living samples by the criminal justice system. In addition, we have indicated that in future all samples must be destroyed as soon as possible and held only up to a maximum of six months for the purposes of ensuring that an acceptable profile is placed on the DNA database. The proposals that hon. Members have set out in new clause 32 do not make the important distinction between samples and profiles, and they fail to take into account a key area of public concern and an issue that was raised in the S and Marper judgment.