Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I also support Amendment 1, for the reasons set out so eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I respect entirely the Government’s wish to revisit the balance and to ensure that there is public confidence in the retention of DNA. I have not been an overstrident defender of police powers or police databases for their own sake. However, this is one area where the Government are in danger of getting it wrong and coming down on the side of a change that will not be in the interests of the public. It is now 12 years since I retired as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and there have been more advances in DNA science in those 12 years than in the whole history before that period. More and more cases can be reviewed in a cold case way, particularly in the area of sexual offences and violence, where the database has been invaluable in bringing to justice people who have been vicious assailants of both men and women. If, as I suspect, the Government are not of a mind to give much way on this amendment, I hope the Minister will at least give us some reassurance on how the advances in science and DNA will not be neutralised by shedding DNA databases, which will be so valuable in looking back as well as forward.