Crime and Security Bill

I shall speak also to the amendments grouped with this one and to our objections to Clauses 14 to 23 standing part. With this amendment we come to the subject of DNA. In the first debate in which I spoke on the Home Affairs portfolio, I said that for Liberal Democrats, civil liberties are in our DNA. The Minister protested that they were in his too, and I do not for a moment doubt it. Unfortunately, although they might be in his DNA, they are not in this Bill. The current law on DNA retention has been held by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights to breach the European Convention on Human Rights. The "blanket and indiscriminate nature", to use its words, of the law under which the police may retain indefinitely the DNA of the person arrested, whether or not convicted or even charged, failed to, ""strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests"." Following the case of S and Marper the Government have got to do something. However, what they are choosing to do in this Bill is only a marginal improvement. Those arrested but not charged or convicted will still have their DNA profile kept on the national DNA database for at least six years. In our view, the retention of the DNA profile of an innocent person for six years is six years too long. I spoke at Second Reading of the importance of the presumption of innocence over guilt holding in our technologically advanced world; of arrest not being confused with conviction; and of the stigma attached to DNA retention. Evidence of that was debated not only in this House but in the Commons and given to the Home Affairs Select Committee, which has recently published a report on the matter. The Home Office has relied on research which itself relies on the flawed premise that arrest is an indicator of the risk of offending—arrest not conviction—and it measures the risk of offending by the risk of rearrest. So it appears that two arrests are evidence of criminality. I could go on but I shall not do so because I am aware of how much business the House has to get through—I was going to say tonight but perhaps I should say before we start business again tomorrow. Members of the Commons discussed the matter at length—they went on because they had more opportunity—and the Conservative Member Mr Brokenshire said that, ""the measure fails to take account of one of the fundamental principles of our liberal democracy: the presumption of innocence before the law unless one has been proven guilty. That principle should be an important guiding factor in framing the debate on retention, rather than being an inconvenient anomaly, as the Government appear to view it, given their historical approach to DNA retention".—[Official Report, Commons, 8/3/10; col. 41.]" He said that when introducing an amendment that is exactly the same as the amendment we have tabled. I do not often flatter the Conservatives—either sincerely or insincerely—but they will recognise the imitation on this occasion. I made it clear at Second Reading that the amendment is a compromise. The Scottish model, which this is—or, one might say, the model of my noble friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness—self-evidently is more proportionate than the provisions in the Bill. Innocent people are treated as innocent but there is an allowance for a three-year retention of data in the case of those suspected of sexual or violent offences. I have flattered the Conservatives and now I shall quote the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones. At Second Reading—which seems a long while ago—she said: ""In the absence of a much better put together case than the assertions that we heard this afternoon, the Scottish system has shown that it is capable of delivering. It is the reason why we on these Benches prefer that model. We believe that the state should not retain the DNA profiles of those not convicted of an offence, except in circumstances where the charges relate to a crime of violence or of a sexual nature".—[Official Report, 29/3/10; col. 1234.]" That is quite right. In winding up for the Conservatives, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said: ""Suffice it to note that both the Joint Committee on Human Rights and your Lordships’ Constitutional Committee doubt whether Clauses 14 to 21 really are Human-Rights-Act-proof".—[Official Report, 29/3/10; col. 1268.]" He said that predicting what would happen with the Bill was above his pay grade, although it was obvious from his speech that he expected it not to see Royal Assent. I therefore trust that the noble Baroness will not now support the Government in view of her own and her party’s clear position previously. I await to hear her views with interest, but if she tells the House that this is a matter for review and if her party finds itself in a position to conduct a review it will do so, why not on the basis of the Scottish model rather than the regime which her party and she have condemned and which may well be—following high legal costs and much emotional agony—condemned by the European court? I beg to move.