Identity Cards Bill

I do not think that we can agree on that. Clearly, an individual would not be called for an interview if they were advancing the information voluntarily. I am sure that they would want to do that. In practical terms, the way in which the scheme would operate will mean that people will be able to inform their local enrolment officers about changes not necessarily by having to appear in person, so I cannot absolutely agree with what the noble Lord said. There are some differences of interpretation here. I want to try to answer as much as possible the concern that was drawn forth in the contributions from noble Lords and return to where the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, started. He wanted to understand how we saw the scheme working in practice and that was how the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, and others came to this. In general, we are trying to ensure that the scheme, as it operates, will be as convenient as possible for the individual—the point from which the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, started—without compromising the scheme’s integrity. Amendments Nos. 105, 152 and 169 would remove the requirement for an individual to,"““attend at a specified time and place””," for enrolments or notification of changes, while Amendment No. 108 would remove the requirement to attend ““at a specified time”” for enrolment. Such requirements for the purposes of obtaining official documentation are nothing new. For example, birth and death certificates are issued once registered at a registrar’s office. Up to now, the UK has been one of the few EU countries that did not require personal attendance to obtain a passport. In the context of the ID card scheme, attendance at an enrolment centre is required to record biometrics and take part in a personal interview. Those are vital elements in preventing fraudulent applications. Indeed, removing them would be very much at odds with next year’s introduction of interviews for first-time adult passport applicants by the UK Passport Service as part of its important efforts to strengthen passport security. I am sure that noble Lords will be very much on board with the need to do that, not least because of terrorist threats and the importance to national security of having a more secure passport system—and because of the important improvements to ensure that we have a firm and effective means of controlling immigration, which I believe is an aim that is shared cross-party. It is our intention to make attendance at a centre as straightforward and convenient as possible. It is envisaged that the appointment booking process will allow individuals to provide preferences with regard to the time and enrolment centre that they wish to attend—so they will have a choice as to the enrolment centre that they attend. There is no intention that the average applicant will be presented with an appointment time as a fait accompli, as has been suggested during this debate. However, it is necessary to ensure that a specific time is agreed so that workflows in enrolment offices can be managed efficiently, and individuals who wish to disrupt the system by repeated failure to attend appointments cannot freely do so. That is why there has to be that civil penalty. The workflow thing is very important, too. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, who is not in his place, made a point on the back of an estimate made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, of how many enrolment centres we might have. He came up with the figure of 70 enrolment centres. That is not a figure that we have published in connection specifically with the development of the scheme, but it is one that I recognise as being attached to the improvements that the Passport Service plans next year with the addition of the interview process. We believe that we can learn from that experience, because it will give us an interesting test of the volumes of work that it is anticipated will follow when the enrolment centres are set up.