Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, Amendment 15 deals with membership of the National DNA Database Strategy Board. In Committee, I moved an amendment requiring rules about the composition of the board to be included as part of the governance arrangements. The Minister reassured me that the Government's rules would include full membership of the board. She said that an independent element in the form of representation from the Information Commissioner's Office and the National DNA Database Ethics Group would be included. She also said that she would be happy to receive suggestions to strengthen the independent element. This is such a suggestion. My point in that debate and now is that an independent element need not be, and possibly should not be, a member of the board in a representative capacity. Noble Lords will all have experience of boards to which independent members bring exactly that: independence. They come as individuals with not only independence but judgment, experience of the wider world and so on. If they are representatives of other organisations, they have a rather different role to play. My reason for moving the amendment again is not just to respond to the invitation issued in Committee but to ask the Government to bear this in mind and not exclude the desirability of having true independence involved in the governance of the board. I beg to move.