Forensic Science Service

Debate between Michael Ellis and Andrew Miller

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

The Government have supplied £20 million to maintain operational continuity and some £8.7 million to cover staffing costs in recent months. There is no point in Opposition Members taking the anti-privatisation and anti-capitalist approach and saying that the best approach is for the Government to run everything from the centre. That is not the best approach. We know from numerous examples over the past 20 or 30 years how the commercial sector has driven better results and circumstances for the Government and for the individual.

[Andrew Miller]

The hon. Gentleman will find that neither I nor any other member of the Select Committee from either side of the House has ever criticised the principle of having private sector providers. LGC and other providers are first-rate scientific laboratories. However, that does not make the economic case.

[Michael Ellis]

It was Sir Robert Peel who set up the Laboratory of the Government Chemist in 1842 to analyse alcohol and tobacco products. It remained in situ until 1996, when it was privatised. There has, in effect, been a managed decline of the Forensic Science Service for years, including under the previous Labour Government.

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[Michael Ellis]

I do not accept that at all, but I am very pleased that the hon. Gentleman has had a chance to give his view.

Private companies already provide 35% of forensic services to the criminal justice system. To counter points that Opposition Members have made about a potential conflict of interest in the police analysing forensic evidence, I point out that there are already numerous examples of constabularies up and down the country being responsible for analysing forensic evidence such as footprints, fingerprints and the like. They farm out some areas of forensic science, but there is no suggestion that there have not been numerous examples of the police analysing evidence themselves. I see no reason why we should fear impropriety.

The archives will be retained, which is right. It is also right that staff are being moved prior to the controlled shutdown of the FSS and that work is being safely transferred. I note with some interest that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Keir Starmer, who I believe was appointed by the Labour Government, remains satisfied that the closure is orderly and that things can be properly managed. The financial service regulator has also—

[Andrew Miller]

Not the financial service regulator, the Forensic Science Regulator.

[Michael Ellis]

Forgive me. The Forensic Science Regulator has said that laboratories, prosecuting authorities, professional bodies, the judiciary and the Association of Chief Police Officers all feel that they can support the Government’s measures. The concerns being expressed by one or two Opposition Members are not duplicated by those authoritative organisations.

Twelve new service providers have already been contracted, and some already have vast experience of dealing with particularly significant cases of public fame and notoriety. They already have the type of experience that the FSS has under its belt.

Getting forensics right is important to the defence as well as the prosecution. One tends to hear the argument that it is important to secure prosecutions, but forensic results can also exonerate people who are suspected of criminal offences. They therefore serve the wider public interests of justice. The defence should be factored into what is done, and there is no reason to think otherwise.

As I alluded to in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), the managing director of LGC Forensics, one of the larger companies doing private work in the field, has pointed out that privatisation has provided and will provide capacity where the Forensic Science Service cannot necessarily cope. As in many other fields of privatisation, that greater capacity will provide faster turnaround times, which will be in the wider interests of justice. That gentleman gave the example that it takes six weeks in Germany or the United States to get some results that we in England and Wales can obtain in two to three days.

The private sector can invest in the future and in innovation in a way that Governments tend not to be able to do, or to be as efficient at doing, because of the sheer size of government. Commercial entities must innovate or die, and the private sector companies involved in the field of forensic science will be looking to innovate in certain areas. That will have a beneficial effect on the wider interests of justice.

I give as examples two inventions in the forensic science field that have been credited to LGC. Automated fibre analysis and the analysis of minuscule amounts of DNA are new fields of forensic analysis that were invented by that private company, and apparently both were used to aid the prosecution of the killers of Stephen Lawrence. I do not wish to focus only on that company, but it is right to point out that it has some 650 forensic scientists or experts in its employment and turns over £170 million annually. Such companies can expand, advance and examine what advances are being made internationally. That is another signal reason why privatisation can be in the wider interests of justice.

It has been my experience in the courts of England that juries are not particularly interested in what company a scientist comes from. If anything, they are more focused on their qualifications or experience. They are particularly impressed by how long a scientist has been working in a particular field and what his or her qualifications are. In my view, they are not likely to focus on whether the scientist comes from company A, company B or the Forensic Science Service. That will not influence juries.

[Andrew Miller]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point, but does he agree with me, and with Andrew Rennison, the regulator, that a jury is much more likely to be persuaded by somebody from an accredited laboratory?

[Michael Ellis]

No, I do not think I do agree with that. Of course I accept that a laboratory must be accredited, but it is most unlikely that a judge, never mind the prosecutor or the defence, would accept without question evidence from unqualified scientists. The scientists will be highly qualified to give persuasive evidence to a court, but it is of course necessary to ensure that scientific laboratories are properly accredited and qualified.

[Andrew Miller]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s last point—that is critical in the interests of justice. The Science and Technology Committee has said that whether laboratories are in the private or the public sector, work should be done in accredited laboratories; otherwise, justice could be at risk.

[Michael Ellis]

There is a very big difference there. Hon. Members will do well to recall that under the McFarland review the previous Labour Government effectively accepted a move towards privatisation but botched the job. There is no point in trying to get away from the fact that the FSS is urgently in need of change, and the Government’s move is the right one for the wider interests of forensics.