Identity Cards Bill

A number of us—and I see two of my noble colleagues here this evening—in this House are now very much concerned with the details of statutory instruments. If the Minister is saying that a great deal of this detail is going to have to be relegated to regulations then I totally understand what she is saying because there is clearly going to be an enormous amount of detail that will not go into the Bill. One of the difficulties at the moment about regulation making is the consultation process. Normally speaking the Cabinet Office deals with business, and the effect of regulations on business. This is not that sort of case at all. This is a case where members of the public are going to be personally affected in very many different ways and will be asked to give a lot of information about their previous lives and their circumstances and so on. I do not expect the Minister to answer tonight, but how does the Home Office suppose that they are going to have a consultation process which is not going to lead to a great deal of dissatisfaction when the regulations are eventually laid? Once they are laid, we have the usual problem about them not being able to be amended. I ask the Minister to think about this issue because it is a very serious problem if you are going to consult every single member of the population of the British Isles.