I thank the hon. Gentleman for that clarification.

Last April, my constituent said, "Right, you've dropped the case. Can you take my DNA off the database?" He had had no answer by November. A few weeks previously, in early autumn, he says that he had again requested removal and that the PC had again said that she had forwarded his request to the professional standards department. Again, however, there was no further response. My constituent added-this was in evidence that he submitted to Liberty-

"It was after this that I got Paul Holmes to write on my behalf" to the chief constable. However, we are still not much further forward a few weeks later, in December. My constituent went on to say that the professional standards department

"confirmed that my complaint had been 'recorded'-but have never responded regarding the request for the return of my DNA nor to give details of how to make a request under the 'Exceptional Circumstances'" procedure.

The exceptional circumstances procedure recommended in ACPO guidelines includes all sorts of grounds on which a chief constable might agree to remove a DNA sample from the database. Those grounds include the fact that a false allegation was made; the subject was unlawfully or wrongly arrested or unlawfully cautioned; the caution was inappropriate; or the subject was unlawfully processed. However, most of those grounds do not touch on the possibility that the subject was actually innocent-that is not one of the reasons given for why the DNA might be removed from the database. As we have heard, however, there are lots of examples of chief constables making different interpretations. When the Secretary of State debated the issue in the Queen's Speech debate, however, he said that the practice of chief constables would not really change until the Crime and Security Bill had gone through the parliamentary process. Given that we have 70 parliamentary days before a general election must be held, that process is unlikely to reach a full conclusion.

There are therefore lots of problems with the database, including the way in which it has been accumulated, the huge percentage of innocent people on it, the difficulty that innocent people have in getting their DNA removed from it, the lack of clarification, guidance and procedures, the Government's stonewalling and the lack of a scientific base to underpin the Government's policies.

Why does all this matter? One argument that we hear is, "If you've nothing to fear, you've nothing to hide." One point that that I have raised several times, but which always gets rebutted, is that if we follow through the logic of the Government's wish to have the largest DNA database in the world-the database contains 1 million innocent people, as well as up to 5 million people with convictions of various kinds-the safest thing would be to record the DNA of everybody in the country. There are problems with such a scheme, such as its sheer size and cost, but that would be the logic of the Government's wish to have the biggest DNA database possible because the DNA might be useful in dealing with just over 0.5 per cent. of crimes in a given year.