Identity Cards Bill

I want to make one point but, before I do so, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, that we are not really discussing in this series of amendments whether or not he can get certain information about where someone happens to be living at present or even where his grandfather was on a particular night on which the census was held. In fact, the information in the census does not tell him any more than where an individual was on a particular night. We are talking about the requirement of all sorts of people, who are nothing like as clever as the noble Lord and who do not have the computer equipment that the noble Lord has, to provide accurate information that changes very frequently. I believe I am right in saying that about 60 per cent of the population of London change their address every year. So this is a question of the burdens that are being placed on people. Last night the noble Lord described this as the poll tax Bill, and I took him up on that. But if it is unpopular and if people find that the burden is unreasonable, that is not his object and it is not my object either. We are trying to make this a reasonably practical and workable scheme, and I was greatly encouraged by the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, who was clearly trying to give us that assurance. I have one further thought on the matter. Having heard what the noble Baroness said, and having heard what was said about regulations, I think that we will have to consider whether we should write into the Bill at least some of the restrictions on time and duration and so on which she said are likely to be introduced in the regulations so that there is some constraint on government. I mean, we may have to go back 30 or 40 years as the Bill is drafted. The Minister has indicated that probably the Government will not want us to go back, except in very exceptional cases, more than six years. She has already indicated that probably the three-month residence qualification is likely to be the sort of thing that would be included in regulation. We need to consider before the next stage, and having read very carefully what the Minister has to say, is whether some upper limits should be placed in the Bill so that the Government are constrained in the drafting of their regulation. As has been said, we all know the difficulties about dealing with regulation. Parliament is very reluctant to give totally unconstrained and unlimited powers in Acts of Parliament that enable governments to do things by regulation. So while I very much welcome what the Minister has said—it was positive and she has responded to almost all the anxieties I raised—I think that we need to consider whether there still should be some outer limits placed on government which make the provision very much tighter than it is.