Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and Kit Malthouse

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

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.

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. With regard to digital forensics, I remind him of the case of Liam Allan, where errors made by the police in the disclosure of digital evidence eventually led to the acquittal of the accused. Following that case, we saw a chill go through the prosecution of rape, to the extent that the number of rape cases brought to the courts plunged. We are still struggling with that issue, which points to exactly what the hon. Gentleman said about the confidence of the system in the forensic capability, practices and standards used to bring people to justice.

[Wes Streeting]

I am very grateful to the Minister for that intervention because it underlines the point I am making. There can be nothing worse for victims of serious crimes than knowing that the perpetrator has gone free because the forensics were not handled appropriately or sensitively, so we absolutely have to get this right.

[Kit Malthouse]

I just want to be clear that in the circumstances of the case I referred to, the person accused of the crime was found innocent as a result of further disclosure, which proved that person’s innocence. To an extent, it was a case that was prosecuted on possibly false pretences, because of poor digital forensic practices and disclosure.

[Wes Streeting]

I absolutely understand. I was referring to victims whose crimes are not punished, but it is important that the justice system gets it right. Sometimes people will be wrongly accused, and contaminated evidence giving a misleading impression is not a good outcome for anyone either.

The Forensic Science Regulator’s 2020 annual report also raises concerns about levels of compliance on the classification of firearms:

“It is unlikely that there will be a significant further move towards compliance while the Regulator has no statutory enforcement powers.”

Efforts have been made to incentivise police forces to seek accreditation, but that process is made more challenging by the regulator’s lack of statutory powers, particularly in the context of rising cost pressures. The 2019 “Forensics Review” found suggestions that that deficiency meant the police

“de-prioritised investment and meeting deadlines for accreditation”

and

“described difficulties in achieving accreditation for inhouse services digital functions. In some cases, accreditation was seen as an additional cost pressure amid a number of competing priorities.”

At this point, it is hugely tempting to talk about the cost pressures on police forces, whether the Metropolitan police, who cover my constituency, or Essex police, who cover yours, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not go there, because you will very quickly rule me out of scope on the Bill, but it is none the less beyond question that if police forces are thinking about cost pressures and where to deploy resources for officers and the kit they need, there is a real risk. There have been occasions where police forces have not invested in forensics to the extent that they should have done because they had other, arguably more important priorities. Frankly, they should not be forced to choose. It cannot be right that police commissioners, commanders and senior officers are placed in that position. That is about the Government ensuring the police receive the resources they need and about having the regulatory framework in place to ensure resources are directed to the right place.

[Kit Malthouse]

I know the hon. Gentleman is not advocating a blank cheque for policing and recognises that there are always finite resources, but he alights on an important point. It is perhaps worth stressing the notion that investment in forensics and in making sure that forensic investigations are conducted to very high standards means there will be enormous savings on abandoned trials and prosecutions that go nowhere. He may well be right that some forces take a short-sighted view, but forensics should be a spend to save, because it will make the police force more effective.

[Wes Streeting]

The Minister makes a very good financial case for investing in forensics. It will lead not only to better outcomes in criminal justice but potentially to cost savings from resources. That does not mean that he should wander away from the manifesto commitment to replace almost all the police officers the Government have seen away in the past decade.

Police Grant Report

Debate between Wes Streeting and Kit Malthouse

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and to support the shadow Policing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), who has done a fantastic job holding the Government to account for the cuts that are blighting our communities.

On Sunday afternoon, I attended a community meeting at Glade Primary School in my constituency about burglary, which has been blighting the lives and safety of residents in Clayhall and right across my community for not just weeks but months and years. I arrived expecting to find dozens of residents ready to speak about their experiences, but there were well over 300 people gathered at the primary school—so many that we had to gather in the playground, where, one by one, they described their experiences as victims of crime in our community and their demand that we do something about it.

We heard from a mother who described her family’s situation following a burglary. She said:

“My 11-year-old does not keep fiction books under the bed – do you know what he keeps? He keeps hockey sticks. He has an evacuation plan where he takes his seven-year-old sister and a phone to the bathroom if we get burgled. We shouldn’t feel this unsafe in our own home.”

Another resident said that her children were also talking about action plans, adding:

“It is not a matter of if, but when our house will be burgled. We feel like we are just waiting for our turn. What are we meant to do if someone tries to get in, the police don’t come out when we call 999 – what practically can we do?”

I will never forget the woman, a victim of burglary, who came to my surgery and told me she slept under her living room window because she was frightened that if she slept in the bedroom people would burgle her house. She is probably looking with horror at the most recent reports of aggravated burglary in my constituency. These thugs do not care whether a home is occupied, as a family in Peel Place discovered when five thugs entered their home, hit their 11-year-old boy with a hammer, held the father down and repeatedly cut his hand with a knife. These are not one-off examples; this is an accurate picture of the burglary that is making my constituents’ lives an absolute misery.

Our London Borough of Redbridge has one of the highest burglary rates in London. Tonight, Redbridge Council enforcement officers will be out patrolling the streets, on foot and by car, doing the job that the police should be doing, so I ask the Minister the question that residents asked on Sunday afternoon: where are our police? I can tell the residents where they are. Many will be unemployed or seeking other work. Police numbers are now at their lowest levels in three decades. In London, we have lost 2,600 officers and 3,000 PCSOs and £700 million has been lost from the Metropolitan police budget.

We can see the impact on crime. It is up almost 16% in Redbridge. Violent crime and knife crime are up in my community and right across London. In spite of the nakedly party political attempts by the Conservative party to lay the blame at the door of the Mayor of London, people know, from this debate and from police and crime statistics from across the country, that violent crime and knife crime are rising not only in London but in cities right across our country. Those cities have one thing in common: the level of cuts inflicted on them by the Home Office. It is an absolute disgrace. As one Conservative councillor said on Sunday afternoon, “I expected our lot to make cuts, but I never believed they would cut the Army and the police.” Is that not the truth? Whether people vote Conservative or Labour or for another party, they do not expect to see the Conservative party inflicting real-terms cuts on the police service. Perhaps that is why barely half a dozen Back-Bench Conservative MPs could be found this afternoon to come in and support the Minister. The great amassed numbers on the Conservative Benches know that what the Government are doing to policing in our country is wrong, and we are seeing the consequences, with rising crime in our communities.

What does that mean in practice for victims of burglary? As residents said on Sunday afternoon, it means that when they dial 999, no one comes; that although forensics turn up a few days later, they never actually see the copper they think will be investigating the crime; that when they dial 111 to report back intelligence, no one answers; that people are smoking and dealing drugs with impunity on street corners in broad daylight; that boy racers can tear down Woodford Avenue knowing that there will not be a police car to pursue them; and that burglars have the front to break into people’s homes while they are in knowing that, even if they or their neighbours dial 999, the chances are they will be in and out before a police officer responds.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)]

Why doesn’t he speak to Sadiq Khan?

[Wes Streeting]

And how dare Ministers talk about Labour’s record on crime and counter-terrorism? Members should look at our record in government of funding the police adequately and then look at this shambles of a police grant, which provides barely 50% of what the Metropolitan police asked for to tackle terrorism. We are facing an unprecedented terror threat. We saw it last year with the attacks on this place, across London and in Greater Manchester, and we know that the nature of the terror threat evolves all the time. How on earth can the Minister stand at that Dispatch Box and defend a police grant that would fund barely half of what the Metropolitan police asked for?

The fact is that the Conservative Government are presenting a proposal that no one should support. We should send them back to the drawing board and tell them to come back with a proper plan to protect our communities with adequate funding that does not leave my constituents paying high levels of council tax for a service that is not as good as the one that they had before.

Representation of the People (Young People’s Enfranchisement and Education) Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and Kit Malthouse

Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

I rise today as an honorary president of the British Youth Council, a former president of the National Union of Students and—just about—a millennial. I will be brief because people watching this debate should know that there is a desperate attempt to prevent people from moving to a vote on this motion. I want to nail the fallacy that young people aged 16 and 17 do not have the maturity to vote. We have already heard about the things that 16 and 17-year-olds can do, but we have heard voting compared with gambling, drugs and alcohol. Now, I know that it is customary for Government Members to gamble with the country’s future when they put their Bills forward. In fact, people sometimes look at various Government policies and wonder whether people have been taking drugs when producing them.

[Kit Malthouse]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want your advice on whether it is in order for the hon. Gentleman to misrepresent what I said in my speech. He said that I was comparing granting the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds with gambling, which I absolutely was not. I was merely saying what I was saying, and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was obviously not listening to what I was saying. He is my colleague on the Treasury Committee and normally does listen to what I have to say, albeit with a grin, but—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have the gist of the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is not a point of order; it is a point of debate. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) is interpreting what the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) said, and there is disagreement with the hon. Gentlemen. That is what I would expect in a debate of this kind. The hon. Member for North West Hampshire might have an opportunity to put the record straight about what he said, but it will be in Hansard for everyone to read.