From 4.15pm on Wednesday 11 November, the House of Lords will
debate the recent report of the Science and Technology
Committee, Rebuilding forensic science
for criminal justice: an urgent need, in Grand Committee
(Committee Rooms 2A and 3A).
The Committee's report, a follow-up on its 2019 inquiry, revealed
a collapsing forensic science system in England and
Wales. Describing it as a national scandal in
the making. A system with a nearmonopolised and fragile
commercial market; a lack of equality of arms between the
prosecution and the defence; inconsistent and poorly overseen
inhouse police provision of forensic science; and a digital
forensics backlog exceeding 20,000 devices that has barely
improved for years. Even the storage of critical forensic
evidence has proved problematic, and witnesses to the Committee
said that it was likely to lead to more miscarriages of justice
in the future.
The Committee called for immediate reform with recommendations
including the creation this year of a National Institute
for Forensic Science to oversee best practice, drive
research and development, and the preservation of specialist
forensic skills and to help ensure the independence of forensic
evidence and prevent miscarriages of justice. The Committee also
expressed concerns that long-overdue reform to the forensic
science system would risk being kicked into the long grass by the
large-scale, ongoing Policing Reform, which proposed the creation
of a National Policing Service with a forensic capability.
The chair of the Committee, , will be among the speakers in
the debate. of Flint, Minister of State at
the Home Office, will be responding on behalf of the Government.
The full speakers list
