The lobby will be held between 2-4pm on Tuesday 30 March. Representatives and members of Prospect and the Public and Commercial Services union will be in Committee Room 10 to explain to MPs why they believe plans for a public-private partnership for the Forensic Science Service will damage the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

More than 40 representatives will attend from all seven FSS laboratories at Chorley (Lancashire), Wetherby (West Yorkshire), Birmingham (Trident Court and Priory House), London (Lambeth), Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire), and Chepstow (Gwent).

Among those speaking will be MPs John Grogan, Colin Burgon and Lindsay Hoyle, and negotiators Mike Sparham from Prospect and Jeremy Gautrey from PCS.

Staff and unions are campaigning against the privatisation of FSS which they fear will raise costs for the police, lead to fewer samples being analysed, destroy the public service ethos of the organisation, damage close working relations with the police and compromise the quality of science carried out by FSS, currently an executive agency of the Home Office.

An early day motion (348) opposing the privatisation was put down by Lynne Jones MP in January and has so far been signed by 65 MPs. Staff and unions argue that the FSS should be set up as a not-for-profit trust in order to preserve its current impartial and independent status.

A pdf version of a Prospect leaflet opposing the privatisation of FSS is available atwww.prospect.org.uk/campaigns/fss.php. Hard copies will be available at the lobby.