Identity Cards Bill

Until my noble friend Lady Carnegy’s intervention, I was going to be a lot kinder in my response than I now have to be, because I think that my noble friend has elicited from the Minister a very worrying attempt at reassurance. The Minister tells us that we do not need to be concerned if we have—as I have—a passport renewed only within the last year because renewal is something way off in the future that I do not have to worry about. The fact is that on 15 November in this House, as reported at col. 994, the Minister estimated that, by restricting the scheme to passport designation, by the time—if this Government—it they were still in power—wished to move to the full period of compulsion, 85 per cent of the population would already be on the national identity register. That does not square with the reassurance that she has just tried to give my noble friend. We will need to debate that point at length in other groups of amendments because it goes to the very heart of the reservations some of us have about this scheme. I will return to the part where I was going to accept some reassurances—if I can reassure the Minister on that. The Minister gave a very careful and detailed response to my amendments, for which I am grateful. She gave an assurance with regard to Amendment No. 101 in particular, which I will read extremely carefully in Hansard. But I took it that I could be assured that the Government will not require the surrender of a document in order to engineer the issue of a designated document. The noble Baroness nods her head. In that case, I shall want to talk to my noble friends who are speaking to the Road Safety Bill because, as I understand it, when we divided recently in this House to remove Clauses 29 and 30 from that Bill, it was to ensure that the very assurance that the Minister has just given us was enshrined within that Bill for driving licences. The assurance that the noble Baroness has given the Committee today on Amendment No. 101 may well mean that the Government will not seek to overturn the decision of this House to remove Clauses 29 and 30 of the Road Safety Bill. For today, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendments Nos. 102 and 102A not moved.] On Question, Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?