Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Lord Hughes of Woodside and Lord Lester of Herne Hill

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lester of Herne Hill]

My Lords, I wonder whether I might speak briefly as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, because Members of the House will have the benefit of our report on the Bill, which is in the Printed Paper Office. In that report the committee—which is of course all-party, and beyond party—expressed the view that the scheme in the Bill is more proportionate and more likely than the previous regime under the Crime and Security Act 2010 to pass muster with the Marper judgment of the European Court of Human Rights.

I am not going to bore the House by referring in detail to what the report says, as it explains the issues very briefly and clearly. However, one matter that we expressed concern about, which I think is relevant, is that the committee said that it could not,

“reach a firm conclusion on the proportionality of these measures”,

without fuller information, including statistics on the operation of the National DNA Database, and asked the Government,

“to collect better records on the contribution made to the prevention and detection of crime by the retention and use of biometric material in the future”.

Paragraph 8 of the report states that,

“the measures in the Bill are likely to be a significant improvement on the measures in the Crime and Security Act 2010”.

As for the three-year versus the six-year period, with a renewal of two years, the committee commended and welcomed that as a,

“decision that a narrower approach to retention is appropriate”—

and so on.

The noble Baroness makes the point that Parliament should set a six-year term rather than having a three-year term renewed on application under the Bill. It seems no more rational or sensible to adopt a six-year period than to have a discretionary ability to increase for a further two years for a cause, as experience shows, but it is a matter of judgment about the better approach that one adopts. I say simply that the Government have the support of the committee itself in its report.

[Lord Hughes of Woodside]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Royall. I do so even though I am not entirely in agreement with her, simply because in my view six years is too short. I think that we should go further. This is not the time or the place to argue the whole case, but I want to place on record my total opposition to those who say, on libertarian grounds, that we should not keep DNA because it affects people’s privacy. I think of the people over the years who have been caught because DNA has been kept for 10, 15 or 20 years, sometimes not for a specific offence but because it was standard practice to take a DNA profile. I regret very much that we are going to the extent of saying that we should keep DNA only for three years, with all the qualifications that there are around that.

Technology has improved over the years, not least in the storage of DNA samples. We have seen a case recently, which is probably sub judice because it is now in appeal, where a tiny fleck of blood was found on someone’s shirt but that was enough to lead to a conviction. As I say, one defendant is appealing so I shall say no more on that.

With that one reservation, I give my noble friend my full support on this. If it comes to a vote then I shall certainly vote with her, but I think that even six years is too short. We are going far too far on the basis that people’s privacy is more important than the conviction of someone for a serious offence.