Identity Cards Bill

I support Amendments Nos. 48 and 64 to which my name is added, and I share the concerns so powerfully expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and by my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns. We live in an age when our children are old before they are young, and we should endeavour to afford them as many freedoms as we can before they get into what at times seems like the remorseless grind of being an adult. And yet through successive legislation, our children risk becoming the most registered and watched members of our society. I am particularly troubled that the Bill would extend to the Secretary of State the power to lower the current age of registration. I simply cannot understand why that would be necessary or desirable, and I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of that power. The difference between the ages of 16 and 18 may be small in numbers but it is vast in the questions that it raises in this Bill, and it is absolutely right that we probe the Government on these issues.