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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. At the beginning of her introduction to this important amendment, she mentioned the misuse of this legislation. I draw the Minister’s attention to the report in the Financial Times today—he may already be aware of it—that the Treasury used anti-terror powers to freeze Landsbanki’s assets in the United Kingdom. I realise that the Committee will not want to get into a debate on the financial crisis at the moment, but that bit of it must be commented on today. Is it true that the freezing order was issued under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which was passed after the September 11 attacks? If it was, the Government are doing something very serious: using completely inappropriate anti-terrorism powers that they already have, because there was no suggestion that the Icelandic bank was involved in terrorism or other crime. I leave that question with the Minister, and I hope that he will have an answer for me by the time we finish this debate. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that the matter of taking and using DNA must concern us all. I am sure that the Minister has the answer but, as far as I understand it, 1 million people, almost all of whom are innocent, are currently on the DNA database. Whether they can come off the database is entirely at the discretion of the chief constable. The Minister will know, because I have asked a number of Written Questions about this in the past few months, that there are very few examples of chief constables deciding to remove anyone from a database. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that that would ever be a priority for them, given all the other priorities that they have on their desk. They would have to review the whole file, and they are not going be very fast at removing innocent people from the database. That includes people who gave their DNA voluntarily to help the police to solve cases. This is a disincentive for people to volunteer their DNA in the future, and is one reason why the Government may choose to review this whole situation. People who have been acquitted of a crime also remain on the database. One of the fundamental tenets of British justice is ““innocent until proven guilty””. If someone is acquitted, they are deemed to be innocent. Nevertheless, they remain on the database. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, mentioned all the implications there are now of sharing such databases in Europe, so I will not repeat what she said but will say simply that we on these Benches, too, have deep concerns. We will undoubtedly want to return to this subject on Report, because it has particularly deep implications for people who volunteer their DNA, as I have said. I am grateful to those on the Conservative Benches for tabling this amendment.