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House of Lords Science and Technology Committee: debate on Forensic Science report

Published on 26 April 2021

On Monday 26 April the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee's inquiry into Forensic Science and the Criminal Justice System will be debated in the Grand Committee.

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On Monday 26 April the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee's inquiry into Forensic Science and the Criminal Justice System will be debated in the Grand Committee. The debate will be broadcast on the Parliament Live website. The report and the Government’s response are available on the Committee’s website

 The report was first published in 2019 and it  outlines the health of forensic science in the UK.

 LRCFS contributed written and oral evidence to the committee, where we raised specific concerns around the robustness of scientific evidence and how research into forensic evidence types should be led and conducted. Here we outline our reflections on the report and the recommendations which have important implications for the forensic science landscape across the UK.

 LRCFS Director Professor Niamh Nic Daeid who gave evidence to the enquiry wrote an article for The Conversation in response to the report in 2019, ‘Lords inquiry says forensic science is broken: here's how we can start to fix it’.

Our mission is to work in partnership with the public, legal, scientific and policing community to ensure that our justice system has access to the best science possible. This is a long-term process reflected in our funding for 10 years by the Leverhulme Trust.

Research at LRCFS is focussed on building the scientific validity around a range of evidence types through rigorous testing, the development of new techniques and the collation of robust data. Our approach is open and collaborative. The interpretation of evidence is of huge importance and our work in statistics and communication runs through all of our work.

We wanted to highlight that the report raises specific concerns and reports on the health of the forensics science system in England and Wales. It is important to share that there is a very different system in Scotland and in Northern Ireland. However, we should all be concerned as to the fragility of the marketplace for Forensic Science and the UK Home Office have recently committed to ensuring that stability is improved.

There is a clear call from the Select Committee for further funding for research and development to restore the UK’s global leadership position. It is vital that the whole of the UK plays their role in this response and that funding for science is increased and that it has strategic direction.

LRCFS is committed to raising standards and promoting a robust evidence-based understanding of scientific evidence presented in court. The public play a vital role in the legal system in this country, so ensuring they are aware of the limitations of forensic evidence as they are of its strengths is essential.

In order to support people in understanding the background to the report we have compiled a collection of previous reports on the status of forensic science. These are all key pieces of work and understanding which have contributed to the current report and to our structure and approaches at LRCFS.

Story category Research