Identity Cards Bill

I agree that it has been a very good debate. The only way to understand the Bill is to try to consider in practice what it will and will not do, what it will and will not achieve, and what it will and will not do for individual citizens and residents of this country. I entirely understand why the noble Lord, Lord Gould, says what he does, because that is what quite a lot of opinion polls have shown. Most of us have been through a period—I certainly have—of thinking that identity cards were a very good idea. We thought that when we were in government for a bit—at least, we discussed it with favourable views—and then we drew back. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, reminded us, the Australians also drew back. However, just in the course of today’s debates, we have sussed out from the Minister that, at present, they would be pretty well useless to the police unless and until they were compulsory and carried. The noble Baroness shakes her head.