It is devoid of measures to tackle the wave of violent crime that is sweeping the country

Ann Widdecombe

But the government's Criminal Justice and Police Bill - which had its second reading in the Commons on Monday - will allow lawfully taken DNA samples to be available to the police forever.

The law will also allow voluntary samples to be retained indefinitely if donors have given their permission.

Mr Straw said serious miscarriages of justice had occurred on occasions when the DNA samples and fingerprints had been destroyed.

In recent cases, "compelling" DNA evidence, which linked one suspect to a rape and the other to a murder "could not be used and neither suspect could be convicted".

The home secretary said this was because that the matches had been made only after defendants had either been acquitted of another crime or a decision had been made not to proceed with the particular cases which the DNA profiles had been taken for.

Mr Straw said: "As the law stands at present, where somebody is convicted of an offence and is arrested in respect of another offence, the police have powers to take a sample at that stage and retain it forever."

Need for controls

He said he accepted that the use of DNA and fingerprints had to be "carefully controlled".

"What we propose is where a DNA sample is taken from a suspect, lawfully, then that sample should remain available to the police whatever happens at a later date, in terms of any conviction or otherwise."

The bill was first announced in the Queen's Speech late last year and also includes a raft of provisions aimed at the "yob culture".

These include an extension of curfew schemes from children under the age of 10 years up to the age of 15.

If the bill is passed, police are to get a range of new powers including the ability to arrest people suspected of kerb crawling and hit and run incidents.

Wide ranging measures

Mr Straw said: "It contains a wide range of measures which will provide the police and others in the criminal justice system with improved powers, better to enforce the law and to protect the public."

But Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe said the bill was "by no means perfect".

However, she said that her party would not oppose it at this stage.

She said: "It is devoid of measures to tackle the wave of violent crime that is sweeping the country under this government and it contains little to improve the rights and position of victims in the criminal justice system."

The government also has plans to introduce measures to tackle animal protests such as those at Huntingdon Life Science which almost led to the closure of the business.

In particular, the government was consulting on making it an offence to target individuals' houses, Mr Straw said.

Mr Straw said: "I want to place on record my personal thanks and admiration for the very difficult work which is undertaken by those who conduct research on animals."

Life in danger

Former prime minister John Major, whose constituency includes Huntingdon Life Science, detailed attacks on employees at the research centre by animal rights extremists.

"It is only by good fortune that no one has yet been killed by these anarchists, but one day, if they continue as they have been, then somebody will be killed." Mr Major said.

Major called for legislation

He called for legislation to protect employees.

"The present laws are being shown to be inadequate on a number of fronts," he said.

Mr Major won the broad backing of Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Simon Hughes.

"Whatever your view about the rights of animals or the welfare of animals, it does not entitle you to behave in the way that some people have ... in this country," Mr Hughes said.