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Counter-Terrorism Bill

I thank the Committee for that input. It is clear that everyone in the Committee feels that this is a very complex area. There is a great deal of legislation involved. When this provision was discussed in the other place it was accepted that there is a need for a much wider debate on the retention and use of fingerprints and DNA samples. Although I do not believe that this debate is the forum in which to do it, there is a need to have that wider debate. Before I try to explain some of the detail in accordance with what my noble friend Lord Harris was saying—I may be able to expose some of the detail and show that it is not as worrying as some might think—perhaps I may just mention the issue of the Icelandic banks that the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, raised. The assets were frozen in a freezing order under Part 2 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. That applies to all three of them. Freezing orders are not limited to terrorism, so it was not done under a purely terrorist measure. This measure came in because SOCA felt that it was needed for serious crime and things like that, as well as terrorism.