Rebuilding Forensic Science for Criminal Justice (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Mair Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Mair]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Science and Technology Committee Rebuilding forensic science for criminal justice: an urgent need (3rd Report, HL Paper 256, Session 2024–26).

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to introduce for debate our Science and Technology Committee report Rebuilding Forensic Science for Criminal Justice: An Urgent Need. At the outset, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, responding on behalf of the Home Office. I thank the committee members who participated in the report, including those who have since left the committee. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, who was co-opted on to the committee, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Black, for her informative briefings to the committee and support of the inquiry. I thank the excellent committee staff who assisted in preparing this report: the clerks, John Turner and Daisy Robins; the policy analyst, Thomas Hornigold; and the committee operations officer, Sid Gurung.

The inquiry started in November 2025, we published our report in February 2026, and the Government responded in April 2026. The inquiry heard from a range of witnesses, including forensic scientists, companies, the regulator, defence barristers and witnesses from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice. Crucially, the inquiry was in part a follow-up to the inquiry that the committee undertook in 2018-19, in which I also took part.

Today, I will first set out the issues our inquiry found with the forensic science system, which many others have also identified. I will then discuss the Government’s response and their proposed policing reforms, which involve setting up a national police service with forensics as part of its remit. These risk kicking a lot of these urgent issues into the long grass. I will conclude with questions for the Minister.

Forensic science is unquestionably a critical pillar of the criminal justice system. We rely on good forensic science to establish the facts of a case. Miscarriages of justice can arise when mistakes are made, both in wrongfully convicting the innocent and in allowing the guilty to walk free. For this reason, a well-functioning forensic science system is critical to the interests of justice in the UK. Unfortunately, the forensic science system in England and Wales is not working for anyone. It is not working for the police, it is not working for forensic scientists, and it is not working for lawyers. Ultimately, it is not working for the public and for the criminal justice system. Our inquiry heard exactly this from Professor Angela Gallop, a prominent forensic scientist. We heard little to contradict it.

To understand the problems, it is necessary to know some history. Prior to 2012, most forensic science in England and Wales was conducted by the Forensic Science Service, which provided forensic science services to the police forces. This was shut down and replaced by a combination of in-house police laboratories and private commercial providers commissioned by the police. This model now suffers from a range of problems, many of which we identified in 2019 and have only worsened since.

First, no one takes responsibility for ensuring that the system works. Responsibility is split between the Home Office, via its responsibility for the police, and the Ministry of Justice—defence, legal aid and courts. But no Minister has forensic science explicitly in their remit. Responsibility for procuring forensic science or providing it in-house is divided between 43 different police forces, which are only loosely co-ordinated through bodies such as the National Police Chiefs’ Council. We identified this in 2019, but the joint structures promised in 2019 were not kept up, so no one really owns the overall responsibility for funding forensic science, managing the forensic science market or workforce planning.

Secondly, the market for forensic science services has collapsed. In 2019 there were three major commercial providers but now there are effectively two. One of them is Eurofins, with over 80% of the market share: a near monopoly. The only other major company emerged from administration in 2018 with a reduced range of services. This is not an efficient, competitive market. The providers run on thin or even negative margins. Our report asked what assessment the Government had made of this concentration risk. What is the contingency plan if Eurofins, the near-monopoly provider and a big multinational, decided not to provide forensic services any more? We did not receive a satisfactory answer.

Thirdly, and in part due to this market collapse, there is now fragmented in-house police provision of forensic services. Most forensic science spending is in-house: some £500 million compared to £100 million spent on external providers, which is to say more than 80%. As providers reduce their services more gets taken in-house, which is a vicious circle. This creates several problems: first, it lacks independence from the police. Scientists know that bias need not be a conscious or corrupt act. It can arise from what you choose to examine, what you choose to ignore and how you choose to interpret the results; it can arise unconsciously. In Scotland there is a sterile corridor between its forensic science and police services, but there are no such provisions in England and Wales. We suggested this as a model that the Government could adopt with their proposed new national forensic service. There has been no commitment to do this.

Practice varies between police forces; there is limited co-ordination as to the forensic science capabilities of each force and there is limited oversight of them. What is done in-house, what is done externally and even how exhibits are submitted all vary from force to force, creating what the Minister for Policing and Crime herself called a “postcode lottery”. This fragmentation is inefficient, with police forces duplicating labs and capabilities. Ministers admitted that they did not know how much was spent on certain activities and by which forces. There is voluntary guidance from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the independent forensic science regulator can set standards that would bind police labs. Most forensic science activities should be accredited according to the Forensic Science Regulator’s code. But in practice our witnesses were concerned that the regulator is underresourced and might hesitate to use its powers to disrupt a fragile forensic science system. We asked the Government to publish the accreditation status of every police force’s in-house forensic science. It agreed in principle but, six months on, no force-by-force data has been published. Accreditation itself creates issues; witnesses described it as slow and burdensome. Compliance is still patchy and the high costs involved drive smaller providers out of the market.

A fourth major issue is that there is no equality of access for the defence. In court, the police have access to their in-house forensic experts and the large forensic science providers, but the defence must rely on a small, fragmented and underpaid community of individual forensic experts. The problems with legal aid are well documented, but what is less well known is that defence experts are paid less by legal aid than the prosecution. In our inquiry we heard that the rates are £83 per hour, paid by legal aid, for the defence experts, while £130 per hour is paid by the Crown Prosecution Service for prosecution experts. Given the struggles to obtain legal aid in the first place, we heard that many companies and experts do not pursue defence work because the pay is so limited.

This lack of overall co-ordination gives rise to a host of other issues. Perhaps no issue better illustrates the dysfunction than how forensic evidence is stored. Often, technology advances, enabling subsequent better analysis that can convict or exonerate someone. Storing forensic evidence properly is therefore critical. Under the old Forensic Science Service, there was one national forensic archive that stored forensic evidence to a high standard, but when the FSS closed, responsibility was dispersed to each of the 43 police forces to store their own materials. They are not experts in how to do this. They were not funded to do it. Some forces invested in it but some struggled and the result is that many pieces of critical forensic evidence are getting lost or damaged, jeopardising criminal justice.

One defence barrister told us of an unsolved cold case in which a key exhibit was eventually traced to a police officer’s home, where it had been used to train other officers. A quite staggering aspect of this is that the forensic archive still exists. It still stores all the evidence from the old Forensic Science Service’s archive and has been expanded to hold material from a collapsed provider of forensic services. The forensic archive once expanded responsibility for storing evidence. I am sure that the police would be relieved to have this burden taken away. The Home Office Minister, Sarah Jones, was asked whether the Government should fund a national archive and said, “yes, quite possibly”. The Courts Minister, Sarah Sackman, said that expanding the archive was a great idea and that

“we need consistency across the country”.

Yet all the Government have said that they would do is review the forensic archive’s remit. Many months on from our report, there is no commitment to expand the archive. In reducing duplication, it would likely save money. A modest investment in already existing facilities could prevent the national scandal of justice not being done because no one has funded proper storage of the evidence.

Another major issue created by this lack of overall co-ordination is that certain specialisms of forensic science are dying out. We heard that areas such as marks and traces and analysis of fibres, glass, paint and footwear are all suffering. We heard from Professor Angela Gallop that the Stephen Lawrence case would not have been solved without fibre evidence. Some 10 to 15 years ago, there were 40 fibre scientists but now there are just about four or five. Because there is no national-level co-ordination of forensic science, no one is in charge of making sure that we retain vital capacity in these areas, which fall between the cracks of the police and forensic science providers.

DNA testing is clearly a marvellous tool, but it cannot solve every case. Our witnesses were clear that, without these specialisms that I have outlined, some cases would never have been solved. If they die out, there will be preventable miscarriages of justice in the future. As long as forensic science is determined by what disparate, underfunded market actors are willing to pay for, rather than what justice requires, this is where we are headed. The Government recognised that niche disciplines were under threat. They did so in 2019, but the police steering group tasked with looking at this was quietly disbanded. In 2026, the Government have also accepted that these disciplines matter, but there is still no sign of any action to preserve them.

The same is true when it comes to training the next generation of forensic scientists and harnessing new technologies. There is a lack of national co-ordination. Digital forensics is a huge and growing area of concern, yet there has been a stubborn backlog of 20,000 digital devices still awaiting examination. AI could potentially be used to reduce this, but it also poses new challenges in the form of deepfake evidence. The Government have introduced PoliceAI, which funds some pilots on digital evidence, but its funding is not ring-fenced for forensic science. As most digital forensics is done in-house by the police, there is an urgent need for standards and training, including in the use of new tools. Our report recommended the establishment of a national institute for forensic science to maintain tools and guidance for best practice, help to run training courses for forensic scientists and conduct research and development into new forms of forensics. But, again, the Government have not agreed to this.

I now turn to what the Government are doing about all of this. A major development that could be extremely positive, but which also creates a huge deal of uncertainty, is the policing reform White Paper, which has committed to the establishment of a new national police service and, as part of that, a national forensics capacity. Our committee welcomed this idea in principle because of the total dysfunction of the existing system, but when the White Paper was published, around the time of our report, we were also—to quote our report—concerned

“that the much-needed rebuilding of forensic science in England and Wales gets kicked into the long grass while we await uncertain, long-term structural reforms”.

Ten months on from the White Paper’s publication, there is still no Bill before Parliament to set out what will actually happen. The proposed mergers of police forces are still very uncertain and will likely take years, and there is still no launch date for the national police service and its forensics service. There has been continuity in the Home Office at ministerial level, which suggests that these reforms will go ahead, but it is all very uncertain and, in the meantime, the problems that we have identified are continuing to get worse. Although we have suggested that any forensics service should be operationally independent of the police, perhaps through a “sterile corridor” between them, the Government have not committed to this.

Reform will, of course, take time, but our report urged the Government to act now to stabilise the forensic science sector as well as setting it on a firmer footing in the long run. Uncertainty around the long-term reform should not be an excuse for inaction now on issues such as the storage of forensic evidence, addressing legal aid funding for defence experts, preserving niche disciplines and setting up a national institute for forensic science, as many other countries have done, to safeguard expertise while the policing reforms are undertaken. All these could be undertaken now, but on the vast majority of our recommendations there has been little sign of movement.

In summary, the issues with the system that our report identified are not new. Many were identified in our earlier report in 2019 and have not been addressed. The Westminster Commission on Forensic Science report also identified many of these issues last year. The Government have a real opportunity to grasp this problem, prevent future miscarriages of justice and rebuild a forensic science system in which the public can have confidence. We have been sounding this alarm for a long time about such glaring issues in an area that is core to criminal justice, but the Government’s position has shifted from neglect to an abdication of responsibility. We will get the justice that we are willing to pay for, so investment in shoring up the system now is vital to avoid preventable tragedies where the innocent are convicted and the guilty walk free.

I conclude with just a few specific questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer. First, when can we expect to see the police reform Bill introduced, and when will the proposed national forensic service actually start operating? Secondly, will the Minister commit to making the national forensic service operationally independent of the police, as in the Scottish model, and to putting that independence in the Bill? Thirdly, what measures are the Government taking to shore up the marketplace for forensic science? If Eurofins, with 80% of the external market, withdrew tomorrow, what is the Government’s contingency plan? Fourthly, Ministers, officials and witnesses all praised the forensic archive and suggested that it should be given funding and responsibility to store forensic evidence, and it is keen to do so. Is there an ongoing review of its capacity? Will the Minister commit to allowing it to expand? Finally, while the wider police reforms are under way, what will the Government do in the next 12 months on three important issues: preserving forensic specialisms; supporting defence experts with parity of pay; and setting up a national institute for forensic science.

Our Select Committee has looked at this twice, in 2019 and last year. Our report warned that, the next time that we have to do so, it will not be a diagnosis but a post-mortem. The Minister still has time to prove us wrong, but not much time. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mair (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his replies. I am sorry if he felt too much on the ropes, but many of his replies were very much from the heart. We understand the position. What is still a concern is that everything is just delayed until a national forensic service is set up, and that is being presented as a sort of panacea to everything. Our remaining and key question is therefore: how long? What is the timeline for this national forensic service to be set up, what is the timeline for the police reform Bill to be published and will the national forensic service be made independent of the police?

There is also the question of funding for the forensic archive and why that cannot not be done now rather than having to wait for the national forensic service to be established. The Minister mentioned the review by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, which is currently determining how many police forces will be optimal, but the question is, again, what is the timeline and direction the of travel, what would a national police service and a national forensic service do and do we really have to wait for the precise number of regional forces to be determined before these actions can be taken?

Our overall concern, which I think the Minister appreciated in his reply, is that we are very anxious to see resolution of these urgent issues that we have identified. As I said in my opening speech, as did many other members of the committee who have taken part in this debate, and I thank them, the forensic science system in England and Wales is not working for anyone. We would therefore appreciate it very much if the Minister could write to the committee on any issues left unanswered in today’s debate. I commend this report to the Committee.

Motion agreed.