Sorry to say, I am not surprised! As a normal reader of Hansard, I predicted
this step.
See
http://amberhawk.typepad.com/amberhawk/2010/03/labour-positions-itself-on-dn
a-retention-and-more-cctv.html
C
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/07/dna-database-reform-alan-john
son
Conservatives drop opposition to DNA proposals following Alan Johnson
ultimatum
Tories consent to retaining DNA profiles of innocent for six years
after home secretary's threat to withdraw all provisions to bill
Alan Travis and Polly Curtis
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 April 2010 14.55 BST
Alan Johnson, the home secretary, whose threat to scrap DNA database
reform would have left the UK's system in breach of a European Court
ruling. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The Conservatives have dropped their opposition to the government's
crime and security bill, including its controversial provisions to
allow the police to retain the DNA profiles of innocent people for up
to six years.
Instead of blocking the bill, the shadow home secretary, Chris
Grayling, made a fresh commitment that the Tories would bring in early
legislation to ensure the DNA profiles of innocent people arrested for
minor offences would not be retained on the national police DNA
database.
The police would, however, be allowed to continue to keep the profiles
of those arrested for serious violent or sexual offences.
"We will not seek to block this bill because the indefinite retention
of innocent people's DNA is unacceptable and has been ruled illegal,"
said Grayling.
"DNA data provides a useful tool for solving crimes. A Conservative
government will legislate in the first session in order to make sure
that our DNA database will only include permanent records of people
who are guilty, instead of those who are innocent, and to go further
than the government to help fight crime."
He added that on taking office the Conservatives would also change the
official guidance to the police, to give people the automatic right to
have their DNA withdrawn from the database if have been wrongly
accused of a minor crime.
Grayling stressed that the Conservatives would also make extra efforts
to collect the DNA of all existing prisoners, those on probation, on
licence from prison, or under the supervision of the criminal justice
system.
The decision follows a threat by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to
ditch the DNA provisions of the crime and security bill entirely,
unless the Conservatives dropped their opposition to keeping profiles
of innocent people on the database for up to six years.
Johnson said this morning he would pull all provisions from the
amendment bill today if the Tories refuse to assent to the
government's plans. The bill is destined for this afternoon's wash-up
session to complete the government's legislative programme ahead of
the dissolution of parliament for the election.
Johnson told Sky News: "This is a basic example of how they [the
Tories] talk tough on crime but act soft."
Labour intends to put the issue at the heart of the election on Friday
when the party has lined up Linda Bowman - the mother of Sally Anne
Bowman, who was brutally murdered in a crime solved using crucial DNA
evidence - to join the prime minister on the campaign trail to
highlight the issue.
Bowman, an 18-year-old aspiring model, was murdered and her corpse
raped in 2005 outside her home in Croydon, south London. Mark Dixie,
37, was convicted of her murder in 2008 after his DNA was collected
following a pub brawl, matching him to the crime.
The Conservatives have said they want to follow the Scottish system
under which DNA samples are stripped from the register after three
years, when people have been acquitted, and are only collected from
people accused of the most serious sexual and violent attacks.
The government has faced strong criticisms on privacy grounds for its
controversial DNA register and is being forced to limit the time that
samples are stored for, following a European Court of Human Rights
ruling that indefinite retention was illegal.
If Johnson's threat had been carried out, the current system would be
in breach of the European ruling, and other reforms - to introduce a
uniform system of appeal for people to argue to have their profiles
removed from the database - would also have been lost.
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