Biometrics Commissioner and Forensic Science Regulator

Debate between Rupa Huq and Graham Stringer

Thursday 20th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. It is also a pleasure to serve on the Science and Technology Committee under the chairship of the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). I associate myself with his questions and the general points that he made, with one exception. The history of the Science and Technology Committee looking at forensic science goes back even further than he set out. I have been on the Committee a long time, but the first report on the subject came out before I joined it. Called “Forensic science on trial”, the report was published on 29 March 2005. The right hon. Gentleman referred to issues that have been examined repeatedly by the Committee—these are not my speaking notes, Dr Huq—but not to all the reports and the responses of the Government that have been produced on this issue.

The “Forensic Science on Trial” report went through the even longer history of forensic science. The way in which the Home Office has responded over time to the changing science is interesting and relevant. Science and the ability to examine and get information from crime scenes have changed enormously over time. It was only in 1988 that DNA led to the conviction of the double murderer Colin Pitchfork. Since then, DNA has been used thousands of times for many different crime scenes.

What worried the Committee then was that there had been big changes. Back in the early 90s, police forces went along to the people who did forensic science and asked for analysis of things from a crime scene, and they got it with no cost. The then Home Secretary, the noble Lord Blunkett, thought that there should be a more commercial relationship between the Forensic Science Service and police forces, and that the Forensic Science Service should be moved into a public-private partnership body. The Science and Technology Committee looked at that proposal and said that things would be lost if the service was changed in that way. A lot of evidence was taken, and the Committee’s report, which I will summarise, having just read it again, said that the evidence was not there to justify doing that.

Nevertheless, after the 2010 general election, the new coalition Government looked at the funding of the Forensic Science Service. They said that it was losing £2 million a month and things would have to change. They said that there was a real possibility, given that the Forensic Science Service was world leading, that we could sell our services internationally and make money from them. The Committee looked at that and said that the case was not made, because the statistics claiming that the cost was £2 million a month were based on false information. The laboratory at Chorley had already been closed, and the people working in the Forensic Science Service on the other side of Lambeth bridge were very worried about their future. The Committee certainly was not convinced that the changes should be made.

I will say this now so that there is no mistake: the Labour Government made some of the original decisions to change the Forensic Science Service, the coalition Government made a number of changes and the Conservative Government have made further changes. I do not see this as a party political matter at all. Like the Minister and other hon. Members around this Chamber, I want the forensic science facilities, whether private or public sector—it is not about differences between private and public—to yield the best information that will lead to the conviction of criminals. That is the key issue. It is not an ideological issue. Having said that, there has been a failure of Government, right the way through the process, to properly consider how to keep our elite status in world forensic science—it looks as though we have lost it now—and how best to deliver forensic science for the criminal justice system.

One of the conclusions of the Committee’s forensic science report, which was published during the 2010 to 2012 Session, was that if and when the Forensic Science Service disappeared, which it did, one of the things that would be lost was the context of the crime. The private sector does a very good job when it comes to simple, repetitive operations, such as doing fingerprint or DNA analysis. What is missing from the service at present, however, is the ability for the police to go to a public sector body, or a private sector body for that matter, and ask, “What question should we be asking? We are not scientists.” Previously when I visited the Forensic Science Service, it was very strong on the point that it would be able to help the client—the police, the criminal justice system—ask the right questions, which it could then examine scientifically before giving the information back. That has not happened, and that is one of the losses to the service.

The other loss to the service, to which the Government have never really responded, is that when the Forensic Science Service went, the money going into forensic science research and forensic science was lost and has never been replaced. The different science funding bodies do not really recognise forensic science as part of their bailiwick or funding responsibilities. Not only are the right questions not necessarily being asked, but the money going into research and science has been lost, and I believe it should be replaced.

During one of the many inquiries we have had, we heard from Dr Tully, who worked for the Forensic Science Service, then became a regulator and has now gone into academic life. When she came before the Committee, I asked her three or four times whether murderers and rapists would get off because of the changes in the Forensic Science Service, and every time she answered positively—that that would be the case. The right questions would not be asked, so the right information would not be fed into the courts system and very bad people would not be brought to justice. Murder and rape are the worst crimes, but the problem goes right the way through the system. If we do not have a good forensic science service, we do not have a good criminal justice system, because the criminal justice system relies on the scientific interrogation of crime science.

When the original decision was taken to disband the Forensic Science Service and leave things up to the market, there was an internal Home Office problem that I think indicates a broader problem. Professor Silverman, who was then the scientific adviser to the Home Office, told the Committee he was not consulted, and nor was the then Forensic Science Regulator. That indicates that the decision was viewed entirely as a cost-saving issue and not as a way of ensuring that the criminal justice system worked as well as it could to bring criminals to justice.

The other side—which the Committee has written about in every report since, including the latest one—is that now that the Forensic Science Service has effectively been disbanded, we all rely on the market to work. At different times, as the Minister will know, because he has replied to this point, the market in forensic science has been close to collapse for a number of reasons—most recently, because of covid, not as much work was being commissioned. One of the good sides of covid was that there was less crime, so there was less need for forensic science.

Another driver, over a longer period, was that the police were taking a lot of forensic sciences in-house to save money. However, they were not only saving money but using non-ISO-accredited systems to do that. They lost the good Forensic Science Service and replaced it with something with no accreditation, which makes it more challengeable in court. That was another reason why the Committee did not support the disbandment of the Forensic Science Service—because the market was too volatile and not stable enough to ensure that the forensic science that the police and the courts needed would be there to be used.

I do not know why Governments of different political colours have not got this correct and have dragged their feet on the regular call for the Forensic Science Regulator to be put on a statutory footing. It is half on a statutory footing now because my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), with Government support, took a private Member’s Bill through. However, even that Bill does not deal with biometrics in terms of the statutory basis for the regulator, so that demand has only partially been met.

I do not know whether the Minister, who has been in office for a period, knows why the Home Office, under different political parties, has not given the service the political prioritisation that the public would want, because I think the case is overwhelming. The public have an enormous appetite for television shows about forensic science and for reading detective novels, in which cutting up cadavers is the main focus. Yet, at the same time, our forensic service has gone from being one of the best in the world to, quite frankly, being moth-eaten and not as good as it should be.

I have spoken for quite a long time, but I want to emphasise a point that the Chair of the Committee made about custody pictures. If you, Dr Huq, were arrested—I am sure you would not be found guilty of anything—and taken into a police station, your DNA, fingerprints and photograph would be taken. If you were arrested by mistake, your DNA and your fingerprints would be destroyed if you wanted them to be, and you would have no criminal record, but your facial record would remain in the computers. With all the connections those computers have, that is very worrying. Most people do not know that they can ask for those photographs to be deleted. The Chair of the Committee referred to the Government’s commitment that they would be automatically deleted after six years. That is too slow. I do not think police forces have any right to keep a picture of you or anybody else who is not guilty on record, where it can be misused and accessed improperly in many cases. The Government have not, over that period, given the resources to police forces to delete those pictures. However, I have spoken long enough and I will let other people speak.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

The first of our Front Benchers, who is also a Committee member, is Carol Monaghan.