---

Counter-Terrorism Bill

I thank my noble friend for that interjection. There may be some merit in it which needs looking at. As regards the amendments to this part of the Bill, we have not yet got to the argument about people under control orders. The Bill does not add anything new. No new groups of people will have samples taken; nothing new is being added. This part of the Bill relates to information that is already taken and held by the security services, not the national database. It is intended to rationalise that information, hold it properly and deal with it in the same way. That is why I do not believe this is the right time to open up the much broader debate—which we will need at some stage—because there is nothing new in the Bill. We will not be going out and taking any more samples than are being taken at the moment. Samples—the covert and other material—are already taken and already held on lots of files all blobbed up together. That is how the information is held and it is better to have that rationalised and able to be used. That is what this part of the Bill is about. It is not about anything new being taken and it does not relate directly to those under control orders, which we will come to with the next amendment.