Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 138:"After Clause 7, insert the following new clause—" ““REGISTRATION: VOLUNTARY NATURE    Apart from the provisions of sections 6 and 7, registration is a voluntary matter and the Secretary of State may not exercise powers of compulsion in such cases without the authority of both Houses of Parliament.”” The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 138 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 161 grouped with it. I have to confess that I do not like the Bill very much. It should not be imagined that everyone on this side is happy about it. I certainly am not. It is not so much the idea of cards; we had them during the Second World War and got used to them. However, we always regarded them as temporary and I recall that we were delighted when we did not need them any more. The noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, is quite right about that. Rather it is the creation of a national register, a database, that many of us find unacceptable. In my view it transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state. There is no suggestion either that the whole set-up is of a temporary nature to be used during a perceived emergency. Once in place, it will continue. Who knows what the future may hold? A register of the kind envisaged would be a tremendous weapon in the hands of an authoritarian government. I do not doubt the intentions of the present Government; I am sure they are entirely benign, but it may not always be like that. We are told that the amount of information required on each individual will be limited and that privacy will be protected. That may well be so at the beginning, but as we know, the technology exists to make the scheme very extensive, and who really wants that? Most people value their privacy. A few may not—they may write diaries intended for publication—but for many their privacy is part of their identity. Their family history, their health records, their marital—and, yes, their extra-marital—records are their personal property, to be divulged only with agreement for specific purposes. The reasons advanced by the proponents of the new scheme do not seem very persuasive to me. They have been discussed many times in the debate today. It is for these reasons that I have drafted a couple of amendments. Some people say they support the introduction of such a scheme; they claim they would find it useful. So let us have a genuinely voluntary scheme and say so on the face of the Bill. Incidentally, it would be a good indication of just how popular the idea really is with most people. The amendments also oppose the introduction of compulsion by stealth. It will not be possible under Amendment No. 161 for any provider of services, whether in the public domain or private, to insist upon the production of an ID card before goods, services or employment can be provided. It has been claimed again today that the system is likely to be popular, but I think few understand that an over-arching system of surveillance of the whole population is intended to which access will be relatively easy. The indications are that when people begin to realise precisely what is intended, support for the scheme would substantially diminish. I believe that the scheme should be a voluntary one. If it turns out to be popular, then consideration could be given to compulsion. But that should only become necessary, in my view, in situations of dire public danger, the like of which we have not seen since the Second World War. I appreciate, of course, that we discussed the issue of compulsion or not compulsion earlier today—and no doubt we will discuss it again—but my amendments are slightly different and less complex than those put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. I am sure that we will come back to the issue of compulsion as against voluntariness when we discuss the matter on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to move my amendment.