Identity Cards Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for clinging to his native heath just as I cling to mine. As for the manifesto commitment, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have made clear our position on the Salisbury convention. I direct noble Lords who were not introduced into the Committee at the time to the response of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to the Queen’s Speech following the election. We were not a party to the Salisbury convention. At the time there was an overwhelming majority of Labour Members of Parliament in the lower House and an overwhelming majority of hereditary Conservative Peers in this House. Those circumstances no longer exist. Our position is that the Government can succeed only by argument and pressing a proper case, not simply because in some glossy manifesto which looks like an estate agent’s brochure there was a sentence that referred to identity cards. We are concerned with the register—not the identity cards but the database. In the past, revolutionaries sought to seize the radio station. In the future they will seek to seize the database in which everybody’s records are set down. That, not the radio station, will give them control. This has been a very interesting debate and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. It is a matter that we should properly return to at Report and we may very well do so. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.