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Firearms Residue Testing (Criminal Cases)

On the case itself, I would then make this suggestion—I am not able to give legal advice; I am not a lawyer in any sense. I would have thought that if there is new evidence, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is the body that should seek another judicial stage, if that were to be sought. In that sense, this is not, as we have said, a matter for Members of Parliament or, indeed, Ministers. In terms of the alleged miscarriage of justice, the use of a forensic test in the case is questioned. That goes to the heart of my hon. Friend's request for a review by the Home Office. Forensic science is an essential tool in the armoury of criminal justice. Forensic service suppliers in England and Wales provide some of the quickest turnaround times and highest-quality forensic science in the world. The Government have recently reappointed Andrew Rennison as the forensic science regulator to provide strong, independent regulation of quality standards, and it is right that the Government set the direction for and expectations of the quality standards to be used in the criminal justice system. I want to be clear in that context that, as a test for the presence of lead, the sodium rhodizonate test is not fundamentally flawed. It is the case, however, that forensic science techniques are available today that would provide considerably more information than those in use in the 1970s. That does not mean that convictions from that time are unsafe or that a court has not properly relied on the scientific evidence available to it at the time.