Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 5:"Page 1, line 4, at end insert ““in a form approved by Parliament””" The noble Baroness said: Before I begin, for the convenience of the Committee I can say that my noble friend Lady Anelay will not move Amendment No. 7. Amendment No. 5 seeks to assert a principle that will lie behind many of our amendments to the Bill. That is so because, as the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House rightly said, the Bill brings about a fundamental change in the relationship between the citizen and the state. Every aspect of it must be tightly controlled by Parliament. We fought a civil war and had two revolutions in the 17th century precisely to ensure parliamentary protection for the citizen against the encroachment on our freedoms by the executive. Parliament must not yield an inch of ground to the secretive and ever-more powerful 21st-century electronic state. Not even Queen Elizabeth I’s infamous Walsingham aspired to build up an audit trail of the activities of the Queen’s loyal subjects. I have read carefully the opinions of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House. It has made many important observations on the sweeping secondary powers in this skeleton Bill. It is skeleton not for the convenience of the public or of Parliament but of Ministers, who patently do not yet know, or will not say, what in detail they intend. Will the noble Baroness or the noble Lord give a commitment that they will accept all the recommendations of that committee and lay amendments at this stage of the Bill wherever possible? That would certainly speed up its consideration. For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that we do not share the committee’s view that this is a Bill for compulsion with a voluntary period preceding it. We have done what the committee could not do—we have read the Labour Party manifesto and found nothing in it either about compulsion or about compulsory volunteering. It is essential that Parliament controls encroachments on freedoms, particularly those of which no notice was given to the British public. Indeed, the Labour Party manifesto was explicit that a scheme would be rolled out,"““ on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports””." ““On a voluntary basis””—that is what the Government put to the people only six months ago. If the committee had seen that, it would not have construed that there was any mandate for compulsion. Indeed, the manifesto was explicit that even in relation to the issuing of passports, the scheme would be voluntary. That is not the Bill before us. The Executive cannot simply move the goalposts in a matter that the Constitution Committee has found to be so fundamental. Parliament must control every step, every pound that is spent, and the amendment is earnest of that. I draw the Committee’s attention to paragraph 60 of the Explanatory Notes to the Bill:"““The exact specification and design of ID cards has yet to be determined but when it is these will be set out in regulations””." Is it not remarkable that a government should set out on such a far-reaching, fantastically costly and probably unreliable scheme without even having worked out what the cards will look like or how they will operate? That is the open admission of Ministers: ““We do not know exactly what we want, but when we do we shall tell you and put unamendable regulations before you””. When was that a proper basis for legislation that will tax every Briton simply for being alive? Parliament must have far greater opportunities to control this situation and, if necessary, amend it. I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept the amendment and that in replying he will point to the sentence that I that must have missed in the manifesto which talks of compulsion or of compulsory volunteering and that he will tell us the exact specification and design of the ID cards. The public, whose money is being spent on this—rather than on schools and hospitals—have a right to know. I beg to move.