Identity Cards Bill

This Bill goes so far against the grain of our historical traditions, the fact that the Government have the power to make it compulsory and the fact that compulsion will inevitably result in prosecution and conviction, any changes of something of this standard of seriousness should not just be allowed to be made by regulation which has to be prayed against. Surely, they should be made by statutory instrument and affirmative orders. We are dealing here with new territory and the loss of old liberties. I have not been persuaded of the necessity for changes to be made in this way, and the further this Committee stage has proceeded the thinner the persuasion has become—the benefit of this or that, of which I am completely unconvinced. However, if the Government are determined to have them, they must justify every single piece of the nibbling away of our old liberties. They must justify to Parliament again and again every change that they make, which means affirmative orders as a very minimum.