Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 80B:"Page 40, line 6, at end insert ““as recorded in his passport, or in the form required for a passport””" The noble Lord said: I do not want Members of the Committee to feel that I shall be pursuing a trivial pursuit. The only reason that I put down this amendment is to ask the Government for clarification. What is a full name? I would hate to drag the Committee back thousands of years but, in general, we regarded a full name as having three component parts, possibly as did the Romans—the praenomen, which was effectively the given name or later the Christian name; the nomen, which would be the name of the clan; and the cognomen, which would be the family name. Finally, there could be the agnomen, which effectively would be the nickname or some other sort of name. Members of the Committee will remember when my noble friend moved an amendment some time ago. We had a rather fourth-form type of debate, which went on for a long time, beginning at 3.30 pm. The Minister, with great humour and charm, tried to diffuse it, although it was not a dangerous situation. But now I return to it and to the subject of logic. Having learnt from the noble Lord, Lord Gould, who monopolised a large part of that debate, that one must undertake some serious economic and social research, I remind the Committee that for many years I was a director of Research Services, which did the biggest social researches in this country. So, taking myself as myself, I have completed over the past week a number of telephone interviews and a number of real interviews. I asked everyone I met: ““What is thy name—nomen or nomine? What is your full name? What is your legal name?””. Frankly, no one knows. The object of my amendment is to return to a relationship between our existing documents and what may be our new documents. I have provided a brief for myself, a copy of which I gave to the Minister a short while ago. I have also written to her, but she has not yet replied. In response to one of two Questions for Written Answer, the Government said:"““A passport is only issued after an applicant’s nationality, status and identity has been confirmed, and is accepted throughout the world as proof of these””.—[Official Report, 22/6/04; cols. WA 121-22.]" Therefore my question is this: is the passport the ultimate proof of identity? If it is, the name in the passport should surely prevail, and any other form of documentation concerned with someone’s name should be related to the passport. Perhaps the passport sets out only three or four names, and many noble Lords have been kind enough to point out with good humour that they are not known by their real name. Surprisingly, when people are asked, ““What is your full name?””, sometimes they give only their first and last names. When asked if the first name is effectively their Christian or given name, some would respond by saying, ““Actually, it is not my Christian name because I am no longer a practising Christian””. The question is not only what is the name, but also in which order should those names be put. I have already explained that I have suffered from being known as ““Monsieur Right The”” and ““Monsieur Croydon Of””. More often I have been referred to as just ““Monsieur Lord”” or even ““Doctor Lord””. That has caused me difficulties, and to show how important the question is, I handed in my passport in order to get a bus pass. The bus pass, which has my photograph on it, refers to me as ““Lord McEacharn””. I asked whether it was right to call me by that name. The response was, ““On your passport, it is the last name on the second line””. I am not trying to be frivolous, but this frivolity could extend to matters quite serious. Noble Lords will know that one in 12 of the British population was born overseas. Of that number—in total around 4.9 million or 8.3 per cent—a Home Office document states, perhaps incorrectly, that 53 per cent are white, which assumes that 47 per cent are of other ethnic origins. This includes Bangladeshi, Chinese, Pakistani and Indian. Those noble Lords who understand something of the sub-continents will know that confusion over names can be very real indeed. Therefore the purpose of my amendment is simply to suggest that after ““full name””, we should insert a form of words that states in effect that the name written in the passport should prevail. I beg to move.