Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Scott Leslie Mann (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I commend the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) for bringing forward the Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), who, as we have heard, tried unsuccessfully with a similar Bill in the previous Parliament I am far from an expert in forensic science, but I guess the beauty of private Members’ Bills and sitting Fridays is that we get a chance to explore things that we would not normally show an interest in. I have spent the last few days going through the Bills, the Select Committee hearings in the Lords and other things The Bill establishes the Forensic Science Regulator as a statutory office holder. The regulator can exercise those functions and powers in respect of forensic science activities for the purposes of the criminal justice system in England and Wales. The regulator will be required to publish, and keep under review, a code of practice about forensic science activities, subject to approval by Parliament. Among other powers, the regulator can investigate and take enforcement action in relation to forensic science activities carried on in a manner that risks prejudicing the course of legal proceedings Forensic providers for police forces need greater quality control when processing evidence. I know they are fictional depictions, but we see programmes on Netflix or drama shows all the time, where solicitors look at evidence and dig into it further, trying to find a way to say that it was not collected correctly, that it was incorrectly labelled, or that processes had not been properly followed. Although that is a depiction, there is probably a bit of validity regarding how the process operates, and it makes sense for us to have not poorer quality control, but much better quality control I welcome the fact that dozens of police forces across England and Wales are making improvements in areas of forensic science, such as fingerprint comparison data, the examination of crime scenes, and the extraction of data from digital devices. It is vital that the Government act quickly to provide statutory powers, which have been promised for a number of years. I welcome this Bill, which has my full support. There is a clear need to build public consensus and confidence in the quality of forensic evidence used in court proceedings, and the powers in the Bill will help that to happen. Our constituents demand that our systems are robust In 2019, the Science and Technology Committee in the House of Lords published a report on forensic science and the criminal justice system that highlighted a number of interesting and informative points. Forensic science has been under sustained scrutiny over the past 10 years, and that complicated discipline interacts with a wide range of fields, including science, policing, government, and law. Clear and deep-rooted challenges have been identified but not addressed, and the inquiry highlighted the importance of effective, robust, and high quality forensic science, and its contribution to the justice system. It also stated that we must enable a world-class forensic science regulator Forensic science applies scientific methods to the recovery, analysis and interpretation of relevant materials, providing data for criminal investigations and the court proceedings that follow. For both intelligence gathering and evidential tools, it is vital that we assist the justice delivery mechanisms. Forensic science is traditionally viewed as a collection of different sub-domains that share overarching principles, processes, and activities. Within those sub-domains there are a range of primary aims and variables in the scientific underpinning of those robust methods Professor Peter Sommer, Professor of Digital Forensics at Birmingham City university, summed those activities up well. He makes four relevant points. The definition is: "‘Trace’ or ‘wet’ forensics: where a laboratory carries out…a series of standard tests to identify or match some material found at a scene of crime or associated with an individual…Interpretation: where the result of the examination of the trace is ambiguous but nevertheless some sort of inference or conclusion is desired. "Interpretation" may mean…a statistical probability of likelihood" which leaves the door open to being challenged. His definition also includes: "Reconstruction of events: where large numbers of different ‘traces’…and testimonial evidence are combined by a skilled investigator who produces a reconstruction of a sequence of events. Examples include road traffic accidents" Finally, there is opinion evidence, where an expert looks at a range of circumstances and offers an opinion based on skill, training and expertise Forensic science is rather unique, sitting in a nexus of science, law, policy and investigation. It should be viewed as a process that encompasses the crime scene through to court. Professor Claude Roux has said of forensic science that a free society is dependent on the rule of law, which in turn relies on the quality of access to justice. The Lords Select Committee’s report says: "The evidence we received points to failings in the use of forensic science in the criminal justice system and these can be attributed to an absence of high-level leadership, a lack of funding and an insufficient level of research and development. Throughout this inquiry we heard about the decline in forensic science in England and Wales, especially since the abolition of the Forensic Science Service." This private Member’s Bill addresses many of these points. Professor Roux went on to say: "When I was a student, England and Wales held, essentially, the international benchmark. It was the ‘Mecca’ for forensic science. Some 30 years later, my observation from the outside" was that it had fallen away. In the past 10 years, there have been nine reports, each with numerous assessments of the state of forensic science in England and Wales and recommendations to address some of the challenges. In addition, there have been two influential reports from the United States with similar findings Some of the concerns that were raised were that major crimes could go unsolved unless the Government did more to support forensic science, that forensic science provision was under threat because the police were increasingly relying on unregulated experts to examine samples from suspects and crime scenes, and that cost had become a greater factor in the tendering process than quality. There was concern that without statutory powers to enforce compliance, which this Bill introduces, the Forensic Science Regulator could not ensure that science used in the criminal justice system would be carried out to the required standard.