---

Forensic Science

: I shall bring my remarks to a hasty end in the next few minutes. There is a complex interrelationship between science and technology, and public policy, policing, investigatory practice, the arena of the courtroom and so on. It is essential that forensic science develops in that social environment, but I am not sure that we have yet addressed that problem as much as we ought to have. The authority of the science must be associated with the organisational identities of the different bodies in our country and the social imperatives in our culture. Forensic science will need a wider correlation with political, economic, social, technological and legal events. We need a deeper analysis of the role of the Home Office, ACPO and the Forensic Science Service, where we identified different patterns of management. We need to get those bodies working together on a broader basis. If we are to get the high profile that we want from the report in the criminal justice system and if forensic science is to play its part, I have a feeling that we are going to need a much stronger and longer inquiry, to bring together all the problems that have been identified in one place. The bodies involved in that might want to consider how they handle such interactions. I do not think for a minute that the Committee said that it had all the answers or that it knew what structures should develop. It is for the practitioners to address those issues. Forensic science will obviously play an increasing role in crime detection, with all the new technologies and discoveries that are coming along. It will be much more important, so we shall have to take it much more seriously and get those interactions going. For example, we could start with the current concern in society about the ethics of scientific research and accountability. By that I do not just mean animal experiments, but the issue of the ethical interaction of society with scientific and technological discoveries. That is a new field that we have not yet hit, and professional groups make a mistake if they do not recognise that public concern about the ethical and moral questions is part and parcel of those interactions and of understanding the role that forensic science is going to play. We could make a good start by thinking about that and getting some ethicists. One can find medical ethicists on every street corner these days—the fastest-growing profession in Britain. There is big money involved. A quarter of a million? That is nothing to the medical ethicists—they start at £500,000 these days to tell people how they should think about morality, philosophy and so on. That is an important job to turn to, should a Member lose their seat. [Interruption.] Sorry, did the Minister wish to take the job? There will be huge debates about the ethics. The core structures in universities will need to be handled, which will require vice-chancellors to get moving and to think how multidisciplinary interaction could take place. I do not decry Amanda Burton. I do not decry some interaction between departments with the word ““forensic”” in the title, but it has to be meaningful. Such interaction need not always be vocational, but it will have to be considered in those terms as well just because there are not that many jobs around—there are perhaps more forensic practitioners than we need in our society. There is a huge problem. I finish with what I think is a deeply interesting point, which is international collaboration. For example, the other night, I saw something about how substances would be detected in the underground in Washington and New York, which one of our reports said that we knew. That has been developed over there, so that a terrorist attack involving sarin, of the sort that happened in Tokyo, could be tackled in those major cities, yet London Underground refused to handle that new technology. That is part and parcel of science and technology inputting into the changes in our society and of recognising that it has a part to play. That is where interaction—in the Home Office, between Departments and different scientifically trained people, thinkers, commentators and ethicists—could help to make the enterprise a jewel in this country and benefit not only crime detection but our anti-terrorism policy and the prevention of such incidents. Now is an exciting time to be a forensic scientist. I hope that this Parliament will continue the fight to ensure that they are listened to, that more of them are trained, that we give them the opportunity to develop and that they are not hidden away in funny departments, but come out and become the Amanda Burtons of the future.