Strange as it may seem to many people here in Pendle, at Westminster I am not always arm wrestling with political opponents. Sometimes we make common cause. When Jenny Willott, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff, asked me to be one of the sponsors for her bill to regulate the DNA database, I agreed without a second thought. I had raised the issue in Parliament myself and had been pressing for action.

Jenny wants the removal from the database of DNA samples taken from individuals who are not charged with any offence or who are acquitted.

The UK database is the world’s biggest, with 4.5 million people on it, and growing exponentially. It holds details of an estimated 1 million people, including 100,000 children under 18, who have never been charged or convicted of any offence.

We all know that DNA has been a great breakthrough in crime detection, and I have no problem with DNA samples being held on convicted criminals, but the random inclusion of innocent people who have been stopped by the police is a step too far.