Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill — House of Commons, 2020-09-25
Topic: Mixed Topics
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): In a spirit of cross-party consensus, it is a pleasure to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) I was very disappointed to learn that the parliamentary editor of PA, Richard Wheeler, said of our proceedings this morning that they lack "the razzle dazzle of a Lords" sitting Friday. If he has been paying full attention this morning, I do not know how he can possibly have missed the wonderful tour de force of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), who even occasionally addressed the contents of the Bill, as well as a wide range of other issues; the interventions of the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller), who talked of "digital whatsits"; or the story from the Minister, no less, about the transit of cold, dead hands from Germany to the United Kingdom for the purpose of forensic investigation I find that we always learn something new on sitting Fridays. On this occasion, the most surprising revelation was not the gory story about the cold, dead hands; it was actually the revelation that this seems to be the only issue that did not appear in the 2019 Labour manifesto. We covered literally everything else. There was a policy on literally everything—no expense was spared—yet somehow, we overlooked forensic science regulation. No doubt, under the new leadership—the forensic leadership, no less—of the Leader of the Opposition, we will redress that imbalance. If only the omission of this policy area from the manifesto was the reason we lost the election—that would make things more straightforward for us than they are One of the other great things about a sitting Friday, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) assured me, is that finishing at half 2 gives people plenty of time to be back home in their constituencies in time for "Gogglebox". I know he is an avid viewer Turning to the matter at hand, in his opening speech my hon. Friend set out very clearly why the Bill is important, specific and very timely. As we have heard, following the abolition of the Forensic Science Service in 2012, the responsibility for providing forensic services has fallen to the private sector and, in practice, to a fragile and often uncompetitive market, hindered by widening capacity gaps and dominated by a few big providers. That brings with it the likelihood of supply shocks and market collapse, exacerbated by the absence of fully enforceable quality standards. That is the central case for the Bill set out by my hon. Friend My speech will focus on the urgency and timeliness of making this a statutory regulator. The Minister has alluded to the fact that the Bill ought to have Government support. I hope that it will, because since the office of the Forensic Science Regulator was created in 2008, it has operated as an independent public appointee with Home Office sponsorship but has lacked the statutory powers it needs Indeed, the FSR’s annual report published in 2020 illustrates the consequences of having such regulation without statutory power. Forensic services carried out in-house by police forces are not subject to contractually mandated compliance with quality standards and so carry the risk of consistently lower levels of compliance. The report states: "The Regulator regularly receives correspondence from commercial providers of all sizes complaining about the lack of a level playing field for compliance with quality standards. The Regulator welcomes the police requiring compliance through commercial contracts with their suppliers. It is however imperative that policing achieve that same level of compliance for their own internal services, whether those be long established disciplines or the more recent, digital field." The annual report also makes the point that the development of improved guidance on quality standards for taking forensic samples from complainants in sexual offence cases underscores the need for a regulator with the statutory ability to ensure adherence. The success of sex crime prosecutions relies on sexual assault referral centres minimising the chance of DNA contamination. There has been an example of DNA from one case contaminating the swabs from a different case handled on adjacent days in the same SARC, yet the commissioners of some SAR services are still reluctant to pay for the testing of their SARC environment to minimise the risk of contamination. Compliance with the quality standards set by the Forensic Science Regulator will mean that anti-contamination practices and testing will have to improve. When discussing a Bill that may appear very technical, we should not underestimate the human consequences of getting this right.