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Crime and Security Bill

Do not ask me why the commission has sent letters to Members suggesting that. Of course, there are profound misunderstandings on this point. There are profound misunderstandings among those who sit on the Opposition Benches. Let me give one example of such a misunderstanding from the hon. Member for Ashford, who stated a while ago—he has not repeated it since, so perhaps he understands—that Scotland had a better success rate than England. He said that he had read the statistics from the 2006 national DNA database annual report, which showed that the Scottish DNA database had a 68 per cent. success rate and that that in England and Wales had only a 52 per cent. success rate. I trust that he has since found out that he was not comparing like with like. In Scotland at that time, they were able to compare the matches with the crime scene and the crime scene with the individuals. In England, we had only half the story in 2005. Now we have the whole story. The annual report for 2009 will show that the success rate in England and Wales is 13 per cent. higher than that in Scotland. There are an awful lot of misperceptions about this, and all I know is that this Parliament must make up its own mind. It will be bombarded with evidence from all sides and with evidence and pleas from the victims of crime. I believe that on the basis of the evidence and research that is now available, we should certainly not adopt the Scottish model and should adopt the measures set out in this Bill.