Identity Cards Bill

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, but let me analyse her answer to me about half an hour ago. I asked expressly how the provision would help the police constable in Brixton. She said that the individual would be taken to the police station—I do not know how, because there is no power of arrest, but that is not the point—and would call himself Mr Brown. I am assuming that it is a Mr Brown sufficiently identified that he can be somebody who is on the register. Then, by entering his 13 biometric details—his 10 fingers, his eyes and the shape of his face—it can be shown that he is not that Mr Brown. That is all that can be shown. That is not much help and that assumes that he pretends to be someone that he is not. Over and above that, the measure is completely useless. Roughly 20 per cent of the population will not have a card unless or until it becomes compulsory. Then it will still not be much use to the police, unless or until people carry it because there are serious social downsides not to do so or it becomes compulsory to do so, as it is in Holland, with all those things that cause people to worry. When it becomes compulsory, we must look carefully at the detail of what can be required—what information must be given. What the public think, which is where the noble Lord, Lord Gould, should start fashioning the question for his next opinion poll, is that the Bill will solve the problems of fraud, terrorism, immigration, illegal working, and—something that no one but a bureaucrat would think of—efficient and effective public services. That is what the Bill tells the public is its purpose. Let us leave the problems of public services out—that is just a mop-up. The proposal will be of very limited benefit to fraud, terrorism, immigration and illegal working unless and until it becomes extraordinarily detailed and assertive. Then, as my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour said, the devil is in the detail, which is in Schedule 1. We need to work out all those details. Even when we have worked them all out, towards the end of our debates—when we have really scrutinised the Bill—we must decide whether we have a Bill the benefits of which are worth the costs. The noble Baroness may not believe me, but I genuinely keep an open mind on that. I hope that she will be provided with more information with which to persuade us.