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Forensic Science

: I shall use the time remaining to me; I have only a few moments, and I want to address more of the points raised this afternoon. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green said that if the Government were building a database by stealth they should say so. We are not. We have no intention of building a national DNA database covering everyone in the country, even though others might favour such a proposal. Only a small number of people—about 30 highly security cleared individuals—have direct access to the national DNA database. The hon. Lady said that an assurance had not been given on the subject; I have given that assurance before, but I repeat it again. It involves only a small number of highly cleared people. It is not true that the DNA database can be accessed from police stations. There are strict controls on who is able to gain direct access to that information. The hon. Lady asked about the sharing of information and the principle of its availability in Europe. It may be in our interests to co-operate. The DNA database holds details of unsolved crimes as well as those of individuals. I hope that by sharing some of our information on unsolved crimes with European colleagues, we can solve crimes that have remained unsolved for many years. I want to see more, not less co-operation. A further safeguard that the Committee can be assured of is that the statutory purposes of the national DNA database are clearly laid down in statute. Those purposes do not include use in the divorce courts or in the other places about which there was speculation. The statutory purposes are clearly linked to the prevention and detection of crime. That is the clear focus of the database. Those provisions were amended by Parliament to include the identification of dead bodies, following the awful tsunami in south-east Asia. That change, too, had the support of the whole House. The statutory purposes of the database are clearly limited in law, and people will welcome that. Many other issues were raised today, and in the normal run of events I would give hon. Members a full answer. I shall seek to write to hon. Members who raised specific points. I was pleased to hear about the developments in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East with Zentek Forensics; I hope that my constituents too might benefit from that. I heard what the hon. Member for Kettering said about police force expansion, but I was completely unconvinced by the logic of his argument. In fact, I think that a strong argument can be made that larger police forces would use science far more effectively and invest in it far more strategically. I cannot do justice in the time available to the legal issues raised by the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). I assure him that commitments given by the Attorney-General to the Committee in November have been—