Crime and Security Bill

Those are the very issues that we are looking at. I will table amendments on the issue for consideration in Committee, by which stage we will have further clarity on the points that the hon. Gentleman made. His contribution was important, and I know that my right hon. Friend has also been supportive on the matter. The second notable aspect of the debate was the fact that, for the first time in my parliamentary life, I agreed with almost every word in a speech made by the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies). He is certainly out of tune with members of his party on DNA, and I will return to that shortly. There are key aspects of the Bill other than DNA, the first of which is antisocial behaviour, which was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) and for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello), both of whom made valuable contributions. The parenting orders will be a valuable tool. Antisocial behaviour is also linked to under-18 gangs and injunctions. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough talked about early intervention, which is important, and gang injunctions will make a major contribution towards support for preventing individuals from becoming involved in gangs, which the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) also mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough also talked about dogs. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is in discussion with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the issue but, as he said, the Bill's injunction elements for serious violence will cover dogs. The Bill addresses police bureaucracy and stop-and-search papers, which were raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard). I assure them that the ethnicity of a person who is stopped will still be included, but our principle is one of reducing bureaucracy through not only the Bill, but the work of Jan Berry, who produced her report just before Christmas. We will look at the issues raised in detail and, even now, we are taking further steps with Jan on those concerns. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 was mentioned, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) said, it is a valuable tool. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I were both disappointed with the judgment last week and are in the process of appealing, and if necessary we will consider legislative options to support the retention of that provision so that we can do what the hon. Member for Monmouth indicated—have a random deterrent for individuals in the community at large. Domestic violence has featured heavily in the debate. Again, my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hillsborough and for Stoke-on-Trent, South mentioned it, and the hon. Members for Woking (Mr. Malins) and for Monmouth supported the provisions on it. Issues need to be explored in Committee, as the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) mentioned, and I will consider all the points that were made. The hon. Member for Woking asked about penalties, and I gave him some indication of my response. They are covered in section 63 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, which relates to standard financial penalties and imprisonments for a breach of a penalty such as the one set out in the Bill. I shall return to that in Committee. There will be a pilot and we will consider those issues, which are key. The provisions on air weapons received general support across the board, and I do not need to reflect on them in particular. Mobile phones in prisons were discussed, particularly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East, who wished that we would do more about them. A penalty of two years for possession of a mobile phone in prison, which will be brought in if the Bill is passed, is severe. It supports previous legislation that we took through in the Offender Management Act 2007 to ensure that it is an offence to bring phones into prison, not just to have possession of them. We have taken further steps on blockers and are considering closely whether we can block signals altogether. The private security industry has featured heavily. The hon. Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and for Ilford, North showed their broad support for the measures in the Bill but expressed the wish to explore them to ensure that they are effective. We will have a compulsory licensing scheme, and in conjunction with the Security Industry Authority we will consider legislation on limiting penalty fees, the regulation of towing, requirements for warning signs and effective and fair complaints processes. I know that not only were those ideas supported in the debate today, but my right hon. Friend the Minister for Regional Economic Development and Co-ordination has been instrumental in undertaking work on them. We will return to them, and we have proposals to do so. We will consider other matters in relation to the industry in due course. All the issues that I have mentioned have been important, but the key debate has been on the national DNA database. There have been a range of contributions on that, and I think I speak fairly and openly when I say that with the noble exception of that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East, none has been in support of the proposals that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has introduced. I have to say that I believe other hon. Members will be proved wrong in due course by our proposals. We have had to make a judgment, and it was made on the basis of protecting the public, preventing the creation of future victims and ensuring that we meet the obligations that we rightly have under European legal judgments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the hon. Member for Eastleigh, my hon. Friends the Members for Walthamstow and for Sheffield, Hillsborough and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy all expressed concerns, which will be debated further and were mentioned in the opening speeches. We have been clear about what we want, and we had previously consulted on the DNA database. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has moved from our original proposals to ones that are the maximum that we can undertake under legal judgments, but that will ensure that the measures in the Bill are fair, proportionate and achieve their objectives. Our original consultation proposal in May 2009 was a 12-year retention period in a non-conviction case. We have changed that to six years following consultation, which is in line with European legal judgments but gives us the flexibility to do what we need, which is protect the public, prevent the creation of victims and bring people to justice. We have similarly moved on the issue of under-18s. We originally proposed retention of six years or until the age of 18, whichever was the sooner, and we now have revised proposals for three years' retention. The Government have listened, but ultimately we have to make judgments. Our judgment in the Bill is that we need indefinite retention of fingerprint and DNA for convicted adults.