Identity Cards Bill

I am in a pickle here, one which applies probably only to Members of your Lordships’ House, who seem to change their names with monotonous regularity—at least those 92 of us who remain under those circumstances. Even so, it appears that when the late and much lamented George Brown wanted to take the title of Lord George Brown, Garter said, ““You can’t call yourself that because you will be muddled up with the youngest son of the Marquis of Sligo””. The problem of lots of name changes is very particular to those of us who are here, but there is a serious point to it. It will be very irritating, as it is already, to be addressed as ““Mr the Earl of””, which I am frequently. I should think that almost every Earl here has been addressed like that. Computers cannot cope with this and as governments tend to get computer things wrong, the concept of a central database getting it even half right strikes me as remote in the extreme.