DNA and CCTV (Crime Prevention)

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies]

One purpose of this debate was to flush out the fact that people do support CCTV, even though they are always reluctant to say so, and I am therefore grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that he now supports it. On his point, surely the solution is to have more CCTV, because if there is more CCTV and more ANPR systems no community can feel that they are being unduly picked on, or picked on to the exclusion of others. If everybody has the systems, nobody can feel that they are treated unfairly. I think that the hon. Gentleman’s argument is, therefore, for more rather than fewer of these systems, and I wholly support him in that.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Gentleman, or any Member here, ever had a constituent come to their advice surgery asking for less CCTV, or for CCTV systems to be taken away?

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Lady makes a fantastic point. I certainly have never had anybody in my surgery making such a request—quite the opposite. If I am ever lobbied by any of my constituents regarding CCTV, it is because they want more of it—they would like some of it down their street, for tackling crime.

Of those surveyed for a 2005 Home Office report into public attitudes towards CCTV, 82% either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Overall, the advantages of CCTV outweigh the disadvantages.” I do lots of surveys in my constituency, and fear of crime is always the top issue, whatever else is in the news. It seems, therefore, that the public, once again, are streets ahead of politicians in recognising the importance of these crime-fighting capabilities.

Many opponents of CCTV and ANPR use this “civil liberties” argument, but I fail to understand how footage taken by CCTV cameras on a public street invades anyone’s privacy. If someone chooses to walk down a street, or go shopping in a town centre, they have made a conscious decision to do so in the public domain and their actions are clearly not private. I could understand the concern if it were proposed that CCTV cameras were put into people’s bedrooms or bathrooms, because those are clearly private domains, but the only thing that a public CCTV camera can possibly do is prevent people from committing crime, or from doing something antisocial or something that they should not otherwise be doing. It does not impinge on their freedom to go about their daily, lawful business.

The same civil liberties argument seems to be used against the DNA database, with people claiming that innocents’ profiles should be removed. Again, I do not understand for the life of me why forensic laboratories holding somebody’s DNA infringes that person’s liberty; it does not prevent anybody from going about their daily, lawful business. We all have a national insurance number, which is used for identification purposes, and I am sure that hon. Members know the benefits of national insurance numbers in identifying constituents when corresponding with various parts of the state, for example the Child Support Agency and Revenue and Customs for tax credits. How is a DNA number different from a national insurance number? The use of DNA is heavily restricted by legislation that permits its retention only for purposes related to the prevention or detection of crime.

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[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

In essence, the debate is about what we mean by “freedom” and whose freedom. The body snatchers have taken the Conservative party and turned it into a libertarian party in which the rights of the individual are supreme over those of the community. The safety of the community gives many people their freedom. For an elderly lady who wants to cash her pension at the post office or a woman who works shifts and goes home at night from the tube station, a CCTV camera can provide freedom. For someone who can drive or has someone who will drive for them, and has a secure home in an area where there is little or no crime, these things mean nothing, but, for most of our constituents for most of the time, these things give them freedom. Not only freedom from actual crime, but freedom from the fear of crime, allowing them to use their lives to the best of their abilities, go to work and enjoy a social life, without which their lives, and our lives, would be sad and miserable.

At certain point, the media always appear to go one way, and those who are regarded as part of the intellectual class move away from our constituents. In my experience over the past 13 years, our constituents are the ones who generally get it right, such as on tackling anti-social behaviour, as the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was brave enough to do when he was ridiculed by the media. Now, our responsibility as MPs—representatives of our constituents—is to say no to the Government and no to those forces who see this as an arithmetical argument. It is an argument about an individual’s safety and the detection of crime, and things that allow us to lead our lives as we see fit. Not only us, but the people who are the biggest victims of crime in town centres—young black men. They are often the people used to oppose CCTV and the DNA database, but they will tell us that those tools provide them with safety and security.

We must be suspicious of the things that we read and of the great causes often presented by individual newspaper columnists who do not see life as we or our constituents see it. Our constituents are the people to whom we should give first prominence.