Identity Cards Bill

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part to assert that this is an important question. My main contention is that, prima facie, a pretty big change is taking place in the environment of the Immigration Rules arising from this Bill and the partner Bill on immigration. It is therefore implausible to think that simply carrying on with the current Immigration Rules will deal with a huge volume of people seeking to register under the ID card scheme. Do we really want them to come forward to register and so regularise their position? Many of them will qualify to do so. I apologise, but I am rather sympathetic to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, about the aesthetics of some of the language we are using, but as George Orwell said, there are worse things than the word ““regularisation””. Now that we have some statistics which quote the figure of around half a million, perhaps the Government and the opposition parties will have the courage not to play politics here, but will try to look behind what a lot of these people are doing. We can all imagine what I would call the Daily Mail way of treating this subject, but some of us think that we should not be too intimidated and worried about what the Daily Mail says because we can look at the reality of how our economy is working at present. There is no rush to do this nor, perhaps I may say, is there any reason to tilt at windmills. I am grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for the positive tone of her response, but perhaps I may put on the record that not only is there no wish on my part to undermine the immigration control system, but also that I quite specifically did not use the word ““amnesty””—although a partial amnesty might be implied if one wishes to use the word. I am afraid that when my noble friend used the phrase ““blanket amnesty””, she was tilting at a windmill. I want to take the opportunity to make it clear that that is not the idea behind the amendment. On the basis that the Government will look at the picture presented by the real people involved in all the various areas of employment, at this stage I wish to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 7 agreed to.