Identity Cards Bill

My noble friend has done a service to the Committee in focusing our thoughts on ““convenient”” because it cuts both ways. I am inclined to think that it is wise to leave the word ““convenient”” in, but we should look and read what has to be convenient. It has to be a ““convenient”” method for individuals to prove registerable facts about themselves. One of the most cumbersome registerable facts that later provisions of the Bill require are all of the addresses at which one has lived over a substantial period. Fortunately, a number of amendments have been tabled to limit that period and one hopes that they will be looked at favourably. Certainly, I will listen carefully to the arguments from the Government for going back many years. It will be clear from my other speeches that I am particularly concerned with the section of society that is unlikely immediately to get an identity card, passport or driving licence. I am talking about the minority of 10 per cent or 20 per cent, some of whom will be frightened about asking for an identity card as soon as they begin to think about it. They may well think, as noble Lords have said in support of the Government, ““I would like something to prove my identity. It gives me some status in society””. However, when they discover that they will have to provide a lot of detail about their exact working status, that will be a source of anxiety for many people. The Government may say, ““Ha, ha! That’s a good thing””. Perhaps that is part of the side wind of the Bill, but it will cause anxiety. On the question of residence, going back to the 1970s when I lived in Lambeth, young black men were regularly required to leave home by their parents at about the age of 16 or 17 and went to live in empty dwellings, which were rife in Lambeth in those days in what were known as housing action areas—areas where housing was empty and the local authority took no action whatever. But that is where they went to live. However, among the people with whom they went to live, some were nice young men but some were undesirables. Under paragraph 7(d) of Schedule 1, there is a right to check up and record anything you find when checking out such information and it may be that you were living with someone who had a criminal record and you are a little worried about it. All I am saying—and I will stop here—is that the word ““convenient”” has a great many important sub-aspects to it. I hope the Government will bear that closely in mind.