Protection of Freedoms Bill

David Hanson Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Alan Johnson]

Potential rapists, murderers, burglars and car thieves knowing about the science of DNA is certainly a deterrent. The argument here, which the Home Office shares both under its new management and its old management, is that we need to look at that hazard curve. The propensity of those arrested to be rearrested is much higher than for the general population. The crucial issue is how long it takes for that curve to even out. If we do not find that out and set this accurately, we will wipe the DNA of people who are likely to commit more crimes—some of them the most serious crimes—and not have the DNA to find and convict them.

The Government persist in seeking to apply the Scottish model in England and Wales, when all the evidence and the very strong police advice—from both sides of the border—is that Scotland should apply the model of England and Wales. Scotland’s rape conviction rate is less than half that of England and Wales. The DNA database in Scotland is far less effective in solving crime than that in England and Wales. In 2009-10, a DNA profile loaded on to the DNA database in England and Wales had an 18% higher chance of finding a match than was the case in Scotland. In 2008-09, 79 rape, murder or manslaughter cases were matched from DNA profiles belonging to individuals who had been arrested but not convicted, 36 of them for non-serious offences. The chief constable of the west midlands, who leads on this issue for the Association of Chief Police Officers, estimates a loss of about 1,000 matches per year if we use three rather than six years.

Let us, for a moment, turn those dry statistics into the actual facts about the people we are here to protect. Abdul Azad was arrested for violent disorder—a non-serious offence—in his Birmingham home in February 2005. A DNA sample was taken and he was released without charge. Five months later, a stranger rape occurred in Stafford, 25 miles away. There were no clues until skin from beneath the victim’s fingernails was profiled and was found to match the DNA taken from Azad. The senior investigating officer said:

“We would never have caught him had his DNA not already been on the database”.

He continued:

“He didn’t even live locally so we had no intelligence leads either.”

Under the Government proposals before the House today, this rapist would have escaped justice.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that not only would this person not have been caught, but he may well have committed further offences? That answers the point made by the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) about why it is important that we take action on this database.

[Alan Johnson]

Given that we know that the nature of rapists is to rape again if they get away with it, that is a very important point.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

When I look at the Members of Parliament who contact me about the DNA database, there are not huge stacks of correspondence relating to the retention of DNA. The correspondence relates to the many people who complain about their DNA remaining on the national DNA database when they are innocent of any crime, and who say how that offends them. Let us look at some of the cases involved. GeneWatch UK has been quite helpful in highlighting the issues. There is the 12-year-old schoolboy arrested for allegedly stealing a pack of Pokémon cards; the grandmother arrested for failing to return a football that was kicked into her garden; the 10-year-old victim of bullying who had a false accusation made against her; and the 14-year-old girl arrested for allegedly pinging another girl’s bra. Those people have been arrested; their DNA would be retained under the arrangements that the previous Government seemed to laud. That issue of injustice is very much at the heart of the matter.

[Mr Hanson]

Will the hon. Gentleman place in the Library information on exactly how many letters he has received on the topic and how many complaints he has had, as compared with the number of innocent people who will be killed, raped, maimed or injured because of the proposals before the House?

[James Brokenshire]

I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to try to take us down that path. I am speaking honestly and fairly about the correspondence that comes from hon. Members on both sides of the House on the injustice that some minority communities feel in particular. The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has highlighted how acutely many communities feel about the issue.

Ultimately, it comes down to a question of judgment and balance. The Labour party, when in government, did not focus properly on putting the guilty on the database. We are focused on doing that, and on not retaining all the DNA of those innocent of any crime. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle may perhaps suggest that privacy is in some way a science, but it is not. Liberty cannot be decided on by testing in that way. It is a question of judgment and looking at the evidence, and reaching a conclusion on how to strike the balance fairly between collective protection and individual liberty.

As for what has been said about the previous Government’s proposals, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle may pray in aid all sorts of things, but there was very limited support for the idea that six years was appropriate. We believe that the protection given by the Scottish model means that that is the right approach, and it strikes the right balance, and I therefore commend it to the House.

[Mr Hanson]

I confirm to the Minister that this is a matter of judgment—a judgment as to whether one is on the side of victims and the prevention of crime. There are very difficult issues that the Minister knows we have wrestled with to do with balancing civil liberties with the protections that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) has so eloquently spoken about today. I pay tribute to him; he has made a compelling case that Government Members ignore at their peril. I do not say that to the Minister in a threatening way; I am simply saying that I suspect that there will be people who are victims of crime because he rejects my right hon. Friend’s amendment this evening.

The Minister will know that my right hon. Friend and I included the provisions that we are discussing in the Crime and Security Act 2010 after considerable thought and consideration of the European judgments that were brought against us. We tried to balance the civil liberties of the British people with their ability to secure their future, free of murder, rape and crime. The Minister will know that there are balances to be struck; ministerial life is about balances. I accept the point made by the hon. Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), and for St Albans (Mrs Main): if the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend is accepted, there will be people whose DNA is on the database for three years longer than the Government propose. Those people may not commit a further crime, and they may well feel aggrieved, but the purpose of the House is to protect the rights of citizens as far as we can.

When my right hon. Friend and I were in government, and were Ministers in the Department in which the Minister is now privileged to serve, we felt that, within European law and within the rights of protection of those liberties, we should try to extend the window of opportunity so as to protect as many people as possible, by ensuring that DNA was collected. We have to balance the aggrieved feelings that the hon. Member for New Forest East mentioned with the rights of citizens as a whole. There will undoubtedly be people who feel aggrieved, but we have to accept those consequences. Ministerial life is about making not just judgments, but the right judgments. On this occasion, the Minister has got that judgment wrong.

Britain is leading the world in DNA technology, which provides critical investigative leads. The DNA database provides the police with almost 3,300 DNA matches per month. There were 832 positive matches on the DNA database in cases of rape, murder, and manslaughter and other serious crimes in 2009. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) mentioned his concerns; Chris Sims, the chief constable of the West Midlands police, who leads on the issue not for the West Midlands but for the Association of Chief Police Officers, has said that much more detailed information is important to ensure that we protect the public from serious crime. There is no dispute about the fact that three years should be included in the Bill—both sides have accepted that. We are arguing for the maximum envelope that we introduced in 2010, which will protect future victims of crime.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

In the oral evidence given to the Select Committee on Home Affairs by Chris Sims of ACPO on 5 January 2010, it was clear that while DNA evidence is an important tool used by the police, it is just one tool that is used in 0.67% of convictions.

[Mr Hanson]

Why make the police’s job harder? There are people who would be on the database because they have been caught—they have not been charged or convicted—whose DNA would be on record for between three and six years. My right hon. Friend eloquently described cases that led to people being arrested who would not otherwise be arrested. Those people have been arrested, and as a result they have not committed more crimes: they have not gone on to rape if they are serial rapists; they have not gone on to kill if they are serial killers; and they have not gone on to commit serious violence if they are individuals who commit serious violence. The public is safer, so I do not understand why the so-called party of law and order can sit back and watch a Minister roll back crime-fighting tools that would save people from becoming victims of crime in future.

Unpublished evidence, which freedom of information requests have dragged out of the Home Office—my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) mentioned this last week—shows that every year, 23,000 people, who under Labour’s system would be on a DNA database, will, under Government plans, go on to commit further offences. In the next eight minutes of this short debate, I urge the Minister to tell us which one of those 23,000 crimes he can explain to future victims of crime? Can he look them in the eye and say, “We could have stopped that and prevented it from happening, but we chose, for the sake of the civil liberties of the few”—and I accept those few do have civil liberties—“to allow 23,000 people to become victims of crime in future.”

Of those 23,000, some 6,000 a year will go on to commit serious crimes, including rape, sexual offences, murder and manslaughter. The Government’s so-called hazard curve supports Labour’s six-year retention plan, rather than three years. Members do not have to believe me or the Home Office: that is independently verified by the House of Commons Library. Changes to DNA evidence will make it harder, not easier, for the police to catch and convict criminals. The Government’s weakening of the DNA database goes against Home Office evidence, and 17,000 people arrested but not charged with rape will, amazingly, be removed from the database, thus putting more women at risk.

I hope that the Minister will reflect on that, and listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, who has served this country in high office, and who has looked at the issue seriously to protect the public, as we all have. We will not crow in triumph if the Minister supports my right hon. Friend’s amendment: we will cheer his common sense. If he does not support the measure, perhaps he can look at amendment 108, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), whom I congratulate on his promotion to the shadow Cabinet, where he will serve with distinction. My right hon. Friend’s amendment, which I am pleased to support, suggests that perhaps we could delay the measure for a few years, so that we could consult ACPO on what is going to happen.

At the moment, the Bill allows police forces to apply to the so-called biometric commissioner for provisions on those who are arrested but not charged, which means that police forces can effectively say that they do not want to have someone deleted from the database. There could be an additional 17,000 cases, and how much police time will be devoted to that? The Minister is transferring risk from the Home Office to the chief constable of every force in the country, who will say, “I will not apply for that risk. I will not apply to ensure that that happens.” What will the work load be for the biometric commissioner? What resources will they have? Who is responsible if a chief constable applies for a waiver, it is not dealt with, and the person concerned commits a further offence?

The Minister has not thought through his proposals, and as my right hon. Friend said, this is about people. It is about John Warboys, the black-cab rapist, who was caught because his DNA was stored when he was arrested, but not charged, for a sex assault. [Interruption.] I would love to give way to the Minister, but his programme motion allows us four more minutes of discussion, and my right hon. Friend needs to reply. If he wishes to reconsider his position, I will certainly give way. The black-cab rapist was caught as a result of DNA evidence. [Interruption.] Well, Kensley Larrier, whom we discussed at length in Committee in 2010—officials presented good information then, so it must be correct, as it was the information supplied at the time—was arrested in May 2002 for the possession of an offensive weapon. His DNA would not be retained under Government plans, but he was jailed for five years, and his name added to the sex offenders register for life.

Mark Dixie murdered 18-year-old Sally Anne Bowman close to her home. DNA evidence was retrieved from the murder victim, and within five hours, he was under arrest, and sentenced to life imprisonment. I do not want to see other Mark Dixies wandering the streets in those three years; I do not want crimes to be committed by other individuals who could be caught and stopped. I accept that civil liberties issues are at stake, but our job is to balance those civil liberties, and make a judgment that protects the public. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend, because this is about judgment. His judgment is right, and I believe that the judgment of Opposition spokespeople is right. I believe that, sadly, if the Minister does not change his mind, the Government’s judgment will be shown to be flawed in due course.

[Alan Johnson]

I have been a Member of the House for 14 years, and I have not heard such a feeble reply from a Minister, not because he is any way inadequate—he is a very good Minister—but because the paucity of the argument is unbelievable. We heard an argument from the Opposition that there was no research behind the three-year Scottish model—that argument was not refuted. The Opposition made the argument that there is no evidence whatsoever that suggests that if someone is arrested, but not convicted of a non-serious offence, that makes a difference to their propensity to go on and be arrested for a serious offence. We put forward evidence about the proportion of DNA evidence and forensics that are used increasing from 6% in the mid-1990s to 25% now, showing the importance of DNA evidence. We put forward evidence of individual cases where, if the Government’s policy became law, murderers and rapists would not be caught, because their DNA would not be on the database.

The arguments that we get back are that the Government originally wanted to keep DNA indefinitely, which is not pertinent to the argument today, or that we would have as many names on the DNA database as we could, as though we were evil repressionists, which may be what the Minister believes, whereas those on the Government Benches are civil libertarians to the core, despite the fact that most of them want to abolish the Human Rights Act. The Government need to engage in the argument. There is no evidence for what they are seeking to do—no evidence whatever about three years. The evidence that has emerged since the Scottish model was introduced in 2007 supports six years. All the projections made by the Department indicate that DNA should be kept for six years.

We are seeking to save the Government from themselves. Members on the Government Benches had better understand, as those who support the amendment understand, that the issue will come back to haunt the Government. The question put by the Leader of the Opposition to the Prime Minister about the number of rapists being wiped off the DNA database is only the start. Ignore the amendment and the Government make trouble for themselves, as well as making this country a less safe and secure place.

Question put, That the amendment be made.