Identity Cards Bill

I specifically do not commit to that for very good reasons. I shall deal with the point now. We would be an exceedingly negligent government if we were to expose in the public domain information of a commercially sensitive nature. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is in her place. Like me, she is a former employee of KPMG. I suspect that the accountants and those who have a duty to see that governments as much as anyone else stick to the rules would be pretty apoplectic if they thought we, as a government, were revealing information that placed us in a commercially vulnerable position. That would be quite wrong and, I suggest, a breach of our fiduciary responsibilities. It would also place the Government in a very vulnerable position indeed throughout the procurement process. It would be irresponsible of us to behave in such a way. However, that is not to say that we should not aim to put into the public domain as much information as we can and to validate it in the best way possible. I turn now to the particulars of the amendment. It seeks to insert into the Bill a new subsection the purpose of which would be to require the Home Secretary to lay before Parliament a report to demonstrate and certify for any particular public service that it will be cost-effective for that service to make use of identity cards and to calculate the costs and savings that would arise as a result of the designation of a document under Clause 4. There is already a provision in the Bill that requires parliamentary scrutiny under the affirmative resolution procedure of any proposal to designate a document under Clause 4. Also, where it is proposed to make regulations requiring a particular public service to be conditional on the production of an ID card under Clause 15, those regulations will need to be consulted upon to ensure that members of the public likely to be affected by the regulations are aware of the intention to introduce an identity card requirement and the reasons for it. They will also be scrutinised under the affirmative resolution procedure. As we have said, we have already published the estimated annual running costs of issuing passports and identity cards: the now often-quoted figure of £584 million per annum. It is perfectly correct to point out that these are issuing costs. They do not include the marginal costs to public services of checking identity cards. However, we should not fall into the trap of thinking that just because we are introducing biometric identity cards, every card check will have to be a biometric one. In many instances, as we have said on a number of occasions, a simple visual check will suffice. Where there is a good case for investing in identity card readers, of course that will be done. But it will be for each public service to determine its own cost-benefit analysis to provide for that. We would not expect the costs of issuing passports to be constrained by decisions on the use of passports by, say, the Immigration Service. I readily accept that the ID card scheme will take a number of years to roll out and that many of the benefits in, for example, combating identity fraud will be more easily realised once there is a high coverage of ID cards. We are working closely with other government departments to assess whether the benefits of identity cards will enable services to be delivered more quickly and efficiently, and to safeguard our enviable public services against fraud. We have already quantified the estimated financial benefits as ranging between a low figure of £650 million to £1.1 billion per annum once the ID card scheme is rolled out. I understand that in due course noble Lords will want to scrutinise individual proposals to designate documents under Clause 4 or to require identity cards to be produced to access public services under Clause 15. I am quite sure that the costs of doing so will be a factor to be considered at the time. That is a debate for the future. However, I do not think that it would be helpful to be constrained by the provisions in the amendment. For those reasons, I ask that it be withdrawn. During our discussion some doubt was cast over the reliability of costing assumptions. It is right to put on the record that the accounting firm KPMG has carried out what is in our view a robust, independent review of the identity card costings. It has concluded that the costing methodology as much as anything else is sound and appropriate for this stage of the development of the ID card scheme. The question has been put to me whether we can provide more information from the KPMG report. We will look at that request to see whether it is possible to do so without compromising commercial confidentiality, although clearly we will have to consult very carefully indeed with the authors of the report. I am prepared to say that that is something which we shall undertake to do. I have also been asked whether the Inland Revenue and Customs would be able to seek and use information. Yes, of course they will. I turn the attention of noble Lords to Clause 19(4). It makes the position very plain on the face of the Bill. I hope that my response clarifies the issues that have been raised as part of our debate. As I said at the outset of my response, we shall do what we can to ensure that we provide at all times during the course of the Bill’s trajectory through this House as much information on costs as we reasonably can. However, we believe that the position we have reached is robust. I do not accept the allegations made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, on this. I can understand why he might want to put forward his argument, but it is not one that I can accept. That is one of the reasons why we reject the amendment.