Written question asked by Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) on Wednesday, 23 May 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 4 June 2007. It was answered by Lord Reid of Cardowan (Labour) on Thursday, 7 June 2007 on behalf of the Home Office.

Genetics: Databases

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what forecast he has made of the number of individuals who will have profiles on the National DNA Database in the next (a) one, (b) two and (c) five years, broken down by ethnicity.

Answer: A forecast of the total number of people expected to be on the NDNAD (not broken down by ethnicity) was produced for internal purposes in early 2006, giving an estimate of the total number of individuals expected to be on the Database in each year between 2007 and 2010. The then Home Office Minister for State made this public in response to a question from the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) on 18 April 2006, Official Report, column 290W. In a further reply to the hon. Member on 2 May 2006, Official Report, column 1409W, he stated that there were no plans to estimate the future composition of the database by age, gender or ethnicity.There are no plans at present to make any further forecasts of the future numbers on the database, either in total, or broken down by ethnicity.

Secondary information