Crime and Security Bill

I can assure the shadow Home Secretary that I will be writing to the Home Secretary to confirm that what I have described is the case. Of course I accept the assurances of Front Benchers—they are right hon. and hon. Members, and we cannot possibly not do so—but just to be on the safe side, I will write and confirm that point, and perhaps even get the date on which all that happened. We give the Government full marks for their intention to try to reduce bureaucracy, but let me say this to the Home Secretary. I know that we are near a general election, but both Sir Ronnie Flanagan and Jan Berry, as well as the Select Committee, in a unanimous report, have suggested that there is a need to invest in new technology and give every police officer a hand-held computer, whether that be a BlackBerry, a blueberry, an iPod or whatever—I am 53 and I do not know what the technology is; I just know whether it works when I switch it on and I can communicate. We should give the police what they need so they do not have to run back and take statements, but can take them from witnesses at the scene. We should save time and reduce bureaucracy by investing in technology. That is not in the Bill, because it does not need to be—it can be done by the Home Secretary in his settlement or in his frequent meetings with the Association of Chief Police Officers—but let us get on with it. That leads me to my last point, which is about the DNA database and the reason why, although I support much of what the Government propose in the Bill—for example, on compensation and the reduction in police bureaucracy—and do not feel that I can vote against Second Reading, I none the less cannot support them with a positive vote. I shall be abstaining, unless I can be convinced by the Minister when he winds up that I am doing the wrong thing, over the issue of the DNA database. I appreciate what the Home Secretary is doing today—he is allowing us to have a debate on this issue—but I cannot possibly support a measure that will keep the inadequacies of the DNA database for six years when I was not satisfied that they should be kept for 12 years. I am not satisfied that the Government have dealt with the ruling of the European Court on the issue. I regret that, because there has been a long gap between the end of last year, when the ruling was made, and now, when we ought to have had a debate on the matter in Government time, rather than tying it to a piece of legislation that has so many good things in it. I want to pay tribute to the many Members who have campaigned on the issue for so long—for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) recently secured a debate in Westminster Hall that was answered by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell). The hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who is not in his place at the moment, went through what I regard as the trauma of having to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act for some very simple pieces of information, including how many applications for removal from the DNA database had been made in each area. Why he had to go through all that palaver to get such simple information from the Home Office is beyond me. That is the kind of information that the Home Secretary should feel happy to publish, because he did not make the decisions; they were made by 43 different chief constables. The Home Secretary is going in the right direction, but he has not arrived at the position in which I would like to see him and the Government. He is right to reduce the period for which such data are held, for a start; in my view, it should be reduced further, in line with the principle that innocent people's DNA should not be on the database. That is why, in our inquiry tomorrow, the Committee is taking evidence from the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who was totally innocent of all allegations against him, as he will tell the Committee. I do not want to pre-empt his evidence, but a remote family situation was the reason his DNA was taken in the first place. We asked the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham to give evidence not because of the family circumstances that he went through but because it took him so long to get a reply from the chief constable of the West Midlands police. In the end, he had to table a parliamentary question. Members of the public cannot table parliamentary questions to find out whether they are on the database.