Forensic Science Service

Debate between Alan Campbell and Michael Ellis

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

Let me first place on the record my thanks to the Science and Technology Committee for its report and to my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) for the excellent leadership he has shown and the way in which he introduced the debate.

I hesitated to speak in this debate for two reasons, both linked. I had responsibility for the Forensic Science Service in the very last months of the previous Government. Therefore, there is inevitably a hesitation when one rises in such debates, not only to say something positive about what we did, but to talk about one’s successor, because the second point is this. I do not think it is fair when Ministers have left office if they jump up at every opportunity to criticise or comment on what their successors have done. The Minister deserves my support, in exactly the same way that he gave me support when I was honoured to hold the position that he now holds. However, I want to make some brief observations, not from the perspective of a criminal lawyer by any means, but from the perspective of what I think is good or bad public policy.

Whatever else has been said, the reality is that the fortunes of the Forensic Science Service have proved difficult for every Government, and would have done for any Government—both for this Government and the previous Government. They have been difficult for all sorts of reasons, not least because of the changing nature of forensics in recent times, particularly with the proliferation of DNA testing, but also because of a market—if one wants to call it that—that has been complex and in which both the Forensic Science Service and a number of private providers have played a part. When I say that in my experience some of those providers proved to be fickle, that is in no way a criticism of those who do an excellent job and are an integral part of the market; indeed, nothing that we did was about undermining what they were trying to do. However, it is true that some companies put their toes in the water and tended to look for the cheap things they could do to make a quick profit before moving on. This particular aspect of the criminal justice system deserves better.

Where I would disagree fundamentally with the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) is that we should not take an either/or approach to the forensics sector. There is no reason to believe that it would be better just in private hands or just in the hands of Government-run bodies. That was the approach that we took, and that is why the transformation programme was necessary. It was not a subsidy, as he suggested; rather, as the name suggests, it was meant to transform the Forensic Science Service from being a loss maker—which we all acknowledge it was—to being a player that could continue in the forensics market. I believe that the FSS brought, and still brings, something of great value to the forensics market. It helps to be a guarantor of the highest standards, which are not simply necessary for criminal justice in our country, but well regarded and well respected elsewhere.

The transformation programme was radical in what it intended to do. It aimed to close four laboratories around the country—not three, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston said. Crucially, however, in the seven that remained, work was to be done differently, because it was entirely unacceptable that an organisation such as the FSS could continue to make a loss. That was the whole point of the transformation programme as we saw it.

The Government’s defence, in their response to the Select Committee’s report, is that the FSS was continuing to lose £2 million a month. I dispute that figure, not least because the numbers were coming down. Also, in answer to a point that was raised earlier, the intention was not to have a Forensic Science Service that was continually indebted to the Government and the taxpayer; it was to have one that could stand foursquare on its own two feet. In that sense, therefore, I do not think the transformation programme has been characterised properly. The Government’s response to the report warns:

“Without funding from the Government, the FSS would have entered administration in early 2011.”

I have news for the Minister, although he already knows this: all the discussions that we had throughout the transformation programme took that for granted—not that the FSS would be in administration, but that it would always be on the edge of difficulty. Again, that was the whole point of the transformation programme: to ensure that if we wanted a Forensic Science Service, things would have to change, and they did.

Let me ask the Minister a question that I hope he will address. One of the issues that was in danger of tipping the FSS into difficulties was the black hole in the pension fund. Forgive me, but if the FSS is closed, I would imagine that there necessarily remains a commitment to the pension fund. Somebody will have to fill that hole at some point along the way, so how much of the money that the Government are using to close down the FSS will go into the pension fund?

The previous Government, of whom I am proud to have been a member, introduced a reform programme. However, contrary to what we have heard this evening, we started from an assumption that at one point in the future the FSS would be—could be—privatised. My only concern was that it would have to be demonstrated that it was better to put the FSS into private hands than for the Government to continue to have an interest in it. In my view, that needed to be demonstrable, and the evidence was simply not there. However, as far as I remember, closure was not an option that was seriously considered—or, indeed, seriously sought. I wonder where it came from, because it is quite a major step from where we were. Will the Minister confirm that the Home Office scientific adviser played a key role, not in responding to the decision, but in formulating it? What was the role of the forensic science regulator? The report talks about Andrew Rennison in excellent terms—he is indeed a fine man—and about how he has been reappointed, but was he consulted before the decision was made? Or again, has he simply been asked to make the best of a bad job? What did the police say? We can only really know that once the Government have published ACPO’s response—I refer not, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston did, to how the police will cope, now that the Government have already made the decision, but to whether they said it was a good idea or not.

We were criticised for how we introduced the transformation programme. I still have the scars on my back, not least those inflicted by a Deputy Speaker who was, and remains, a doughty fighter for his constituents in Chorley, over one of the labs that was to close. Let me say this. On looking at the decision, how it was announced and the consultation, it makes me think, although Mr Deputy Speaker will not agree, that what we did was a model way of doing it. I am afraid this Government’s response is not acceptable.

I want to pay tribute to the excellent men and women of the Forensic Science Service. They have given, in some cases, decades of commitment, building up decades of experience not just for the service, but for our country. The reality is, as we have heard, that when the FSS goes, some of those people will leave forensics and some will stay in it but go to other countries, which will benefit from the experience that we built up over a long period. I simply ask whether this is the right decision.

[Michael Ellis]

Does the hon. Gentleman not think that those excellent scientists will have more places in the private sector to go to and may well end up with a wider choice and earn more money? That is the free market at work.

[Mr Campbell]

They may do. It is entirely their choice if they want to do that, but let me ask the hon. Gentleman a question. When the Gulf states, which are running out of oil and are making investments for a modern state, wanted the very best forensic service for their country—indeed, the best in the world—who did they go to? They did not go to America or to Germany; and when they came to this country, they did not go to the private companies either. I will tell him who they came to and still have a contract with, as far as I understand it: they came to the Forensic Science Service. What is it that the Gulf states appreciate about this service that we apparently no longer do?

I have enormous respect for the police, for the science and, indeed, for the courts, but there is an issue about what will happen if forensics lies mainly or wholly in the hands of those working in police labs. They are doing their best, and we know that they will not cut corners or come up with the wrong decisions for whatever reasons people might suspect. The criminal justice system, however, is about more than that. It is about respect for people in that situation. I want some reassurance from the Minister, who has nodded his head when this matter has been raised, that when the FSS has gone, along with the expertise, status and respect that goes with it, we will not see miscarriages of justice or court situations where cases are thrown out because the police have not only caught the criminal and aided in the prosecution, but have provided the forensic evidence as well.

This debate is about whether we want a forensic science service in the future and what it will look like. We would have known what it looked like if the transformation programme had been given a chance. We asked some hard questions, so I ask the Minister whether those same questions were asked when he looked at the world beyond the FSS. For example, can he guarantee that in a major incident a forensic officer will be in there within four hours? It seems obvious that one will be, but is that the case? We asked that very hard question of the FSS, which sometimes struggled to give us an answer.

What will happen, God forbid, if there is a 7/7 or a 9/11? Is the Minister convinced that we will have the capacity in forensics to deal with that situation? At the time of the report, Durham, Cleveland and South Yorkshire constabularies not only did not have the necessary facilities, but did not have the contracts with external providers either. Yet we are told that the FSS is going to disappear this year. I wonder whether we are taking risks.

My final point is that this is a risky decision. I do not envy the Minister the decisions he has to take; I envy him his job, but not his difficult decisions. This is one decision, but what about all the other things happening across Government? What about the cuts in police numbers? What about the Justice Secretary’s acceptance that crime will inevitably rise in a recession? What about the changes to the rules on DNA that the Government are making in the Protection of Freedoms Bill? Add them together, and I am worried. Whatever the Minister’s motives, this is the wrong decision. I do not doubt that the Minister has gone to the nth degree to look at the issues, but I worry. This is my final question: why is it that instead of spending taxpayers’ money to get an FSS that is fit for purpose, we are spending the same amount of taxpayers’ money to end up with no FSS at the end of it all? It just does not make sense.