A DNA WTF?

I am not impressed by several reports today that the Coalition has gone back on its intention to delete DNA from innocent people in line with the system we have here in Scotland. This was set in stone in the Coalition Agreement and something that Nick Clegg was very keen to promote.

There will be some improvement in that the samples will ne held in anonymised form. However individual police forces will retain sufficient information to marry up samples with their owners' details. And we've had quite enough examples of unscrupulous people accessing information they have no right to have recently.

I'm fairly sure I heard something on tv recently about the number of police forces in England being reduced so this information could end up being Held in fewer places, making access even easier in the long term.

I want to hear what our Lib Dem ministers' take on this is. On face value, this is very bad news indeed. I don't understand why on earth these samples are not going to be deleted. Retaining them in this form seems pointless unless there's some agenda to reunite all the information once the pesky Lib Dems are out of the way.

Maybe it's time for an intrepid person to submit a topical motion to Conference on the subject. It is, after all, a core issue for we Liberal Democrats & one on which we need to take a stand.