Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, on the same point about the balance of proportionality, I am assuming that this clause is based on a detailed and careful analysis of the evidence, so perhaps the Minister could share with the House the numbers of people who are affected in terms of their DNA samples being removed and destroyed. Over the past few years, how many individuals whose DNA would now have been removed from the database would not have been brought before the court for offences that have either subsequently come to light or where their DNA has subsequently been matched? It is incumbent on the department to place this evidence before us. That would deal with the concerns raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. If in fact there is no evidence and a judgment has simply been made that three years is better than for ever, but there is no reason why it should be three years instead of five, six, seven or two, that is not a sound basis for making an extremely important decision, not least for the sanity of the victims of serious crime where the perpetrator might otherwise be convicted. It is a very unwise position for this House to be making that judgment without an understanding of the evidence. The proposal to ask the police to make a recommendation to extend for a further two years is a strange one. I can conceive that the Government do not particularly want to get themselves on this hook, but if the expectation is that the police will simply refer all such cases and say that they should be extended by two years to five, then that would be a way of doing it. No doubt that would salve a few people’s consciences and mean that fewer would escape conviction than would otherwise be the case. I cannot believe that that is the intention of the legislation, in which case what are the arguments to be used in determining whether to make that extension from three years to five, and who is to make those judgments? Is it simply going to be on the say-so of an individual police officer? How will that be subject to challenge? Say that an individual who is arrested but not charged is told, ““Your DNA is being held for three years””, but then after three years the police come forward and say, ““We are seeking an extension of this period to five years””. Is that not a statement by the police that, ““We believed you were guilty all along?””, and is there not stigma associated with that? Surely that is not a proper way of managing these things. Perhaps we could have a hard and fast rule that is based on hard evidence.