Protection of Freedoms Bill

I rise, of course, to lend my support to this welcome Bill and to thank the Government for starting to deal with the plethora of inroads into our civil liberties that were made by the last Labour Administration. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said that this is a Christmas tree of a Bill. It deals with a number of separate matters or, as he described them, baubles on the tree. It is none the less welcome for the simple reason, of which the House will be aware, that inroads into the fundamental freedoms that this House exists to protect and that we have taken for granted for the entirety of our lives and our history need only be made, in short order, for us to subsequently to see further inroads made into those liberties, in a way that none of us in this House ought to welcome. One has only to consider the point I put to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) about the retention of the DNA of innocent persons to know that the last Labour Government struck the wrong balance. The proposals in the Bill, in my judgment—and it is a question of judgment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) made clear a few moments ago—strike the right balance.