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Crime and Security Bill

As a typical Bill at the tail-end of a Parliament, this had all the potential to be a doggy-bag of a Bill, with a combination of leftovers from what the Government have been doing right across the Parliament, a last-gasp attempt to win support from some frustrated groups ahead of the general election—the kind of Bill that should be relatively uncontroversial and which, given the Government's record, would probably turn out to be pretty meaningless as well. But as always, the Government have left one big sting in the tail. For that reason, we will not stand by and allow the Bill to pass through Parliament before the election. It is nice to have a debate on a real point of principle. That is what we will debate this afternoon. Unless the Home Secretary finally accepts that his proposals on the DNA database are opposed across the House and unless he accepts that things will have to be different, we cannot support what he is doing. His remarks, if anything, have further confused rather than clarified both his position and the debate.