Identity Cards Bill

I rise to make a couple of points. I notice that this amendment has left out the prevention of illegal working and I wonder whether that is a good idea. I understand that the IND or the ACID databases are up to a year behind on their updating and so therefore it may be quite difficult until things like that catch up. The problem is the interface with other Government databases. If we are relying on this information to decide whether someone can work or not then all the information needs to be up to date—not just the NIR information but that on other Government databases as well. It might be wise to leave some of those out of this at the moment so that we do not suddenly find that some poor people get a work permit but they cannot verify it online—or whatever method is required under the proposals—and cannot actually get work for six or nine months later. Or we have a fallback system in which case the entire thing is a load of nonsense anyway. The second point is that all this is about providing public services. As has been mentioned several times during Second Reading and elsewhere I know that the Home Office has been talking to the banking community about this being a wonderful thing for opening bank accounts. But why is opening a bank account a public service, or provision of a relevant public service? I presume it comes under the preventing or detecting of serious crime; in other words, it is all being thought of as anti-money laundering. But we know that the anti-money laundering provisions do not work at the moment: because I believe they caught £46 million laundered through London last year as opposed to the several billion pounds which is estimated to have actually been laundered? We know that it is all pretty ineffective anyway and could really be disposed of without making any impact on serious crime at all. I do not see how that provision is preventing or detecting serious crime. If we are to make proper use of the card maybe we should be widening the said provisions to include what citizens want. How we do that I am not sure, but if we are going to have this card we might as well make it useful. I have not really thought it out, but it is a useful way of opening up the debate on the matter.