Forensic Science Regulator Bill

Lord Oates Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Oates (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill and the fact that it has received support from across the House. Before I address the specific issues arising from it, I pay particular tribute to the forensic scientists working in police forces up and down the country, who are almost always grossly under-resourced. Their dedication and commitment, in often difficult circumstances, needs to be recognised.

These circumstances have not been improved by the plethora of changes and reforms to the way in which forensic science services have been organised since 2005. These changes, carried out under Governments of all colours, have left us with a mess, as my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond set out so clearly. The Bill is an attempt to address part of that mess: the failure to provide the forensic science regulator with the statutory powers it needs to do its job.

It seems extraordinary that the regulator which operates in this most sensitive of areas, where the effectiveness or otherwise of forensic services can determine whether the innocent are convicted or the guilty go free, has, since it was brought into being, had no statutory powers. It is able to provide only advice and never direction—despite the fact that the former forensic service regulator, Dr Gillian Tully, repeatedly highlighted the need for statutory powers for her office, and that this view was endorsed by committees in this House and the other place. The Bill corrects that important omission and I congratulate Darren Jones in another place and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in this place on introducing it, and the Government on supporting it.

While it is an important step forward, on its own the Bill cannot tackle the many challenges facing forensic science in this country. As the report of your Lordships’ Science and Technology Committee noted in May 2019:

“The quality and delivery of forensic science in England and Wales is inadequate.”


This is a major problem because, as the report and other noble Lords also noted, in many criminal cases forensic science evidence is pivotal. The delivery of justice depends on the integrity and accuracy of that evidence, and the trust that society has in it. The report went on to quote what it described as the “stark warning” of the forensic science regulator that

“profound changes to funding and governance are required to ensure that forensic science survives and begins to flourish rather than lurching from crisis to crisis”.

At the heart of the problem is the huge reduction in the money spent on forensic science. Andrew Rennison, a commissioner at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, told your Lordships’ committee that in 2008

“there was probably £120 million being spent on forensic science. That is now down to about £50 million or £55 million”

at a time when the demands on forensic science services are greater than ever. This poses an obvious and major risk to the integrity of our criminal justice system.

The lack of statutory powers for the regulator, combined with budget cuts, reorganisation and a huge growth in the need for new services, such as digital evidence, have proven a toxic cocktail. The Bill will tackle one important element of that cocktail but there is much more work for the Government to do to provide effective organisation and resourcing of forensic science. That work needs to be undertaken with urgency so that forensic scientists are provided with the resources to do the job that we ask of them, public trust in forensic science evidence is restored and the justice system is properly served by our forensic science services.