Identity Cards Bill

As this is not a Second Reading debate, I shall return to the substance of the amendment. The proposed subsection is very useful because ultimately if the costs are too great the scheme will not work and will not be worthwhile. I am particularly interested in proposed paragraph (c), which refers to reviewing,"““whether . . . it is the most effective means of achieving the purpose set out in subsection (4)””." I have often thought that, to a certain extent, ID cards are being introduced as an answer to problems created in the first place by bad legislation. For instance, the simple answer to the problem of having to produce utility bills to open a bank account is to remove that requirement. It is not a very effective measure anyway because an individual could change address a week after producing a utility bill. The answer is to attack the international money-laundering committee and the FSA and get them to remove that requirement. You do not need an ID card to do that—not that I think it will help, anyway. It is argued that the ID card will improve access to health. A health card is to be introduced, and I would have thought that it was the most effective way of giving access to health rather than requiring the production of an ID card also. Therefore, this is a particularly important subsection. I do not think that people have really thought out what the purposes are and the most effective way of achieving them. Given technological developments, the card will probably become irrelevant after a short while. It is anticipated that there will be fast enough fingerprint and iris readers in the street so that you are the card. It all goes back to the central database anyway, so the authorities will simply need to take two fingerprints—I do not know how many fingers you want to give the Government—which will get sent up-line. If they compare okay, more of them will not be needed and the individual will not need to carry a card. But what you have got is a central registry of everyone’s data. That, I think, is the current plan. Another aspect of proving citizenship that we need to knock on the head is the proposal that everyone resident in this country for more than three months should have an ID card. That would not imply citizenship or belonging at all.