Skip to main content

Genetic Fingerprinting

Volume 225: debated on Thursday 27 May 1993

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to introduce additional measures to increase the availability to police forces of genetic fingerprinting techniques and resources; and if he will make a statement.

Police authorities determine what resources should be allocated to their forces. It is then for chief constables to decide how these resources should be deployed. Tayside and Strathclyde police laboratories already carry out DNA testing or "genetic fingerprinting" and Lothian and Borders police plan to introduce such a facility when their new laboratory opens in 1995–96. Scottish police forces also have access to the facilities provided by the Forensic Science Service in England and Wales and by the private sector.