Identity Cards Bill

I, too, welcome the amendments although it would be fair to say that we have gone over quite a lot of this ground already. But they introduce one or two novel elements, and it is worth going through them to cover some of the questions they raise. We are trying to introduce the scheme in a practical way. We want to be thorough about it; we want it to work. Even the scheme’s opponents recognise and appreciate that. We have the political authority to do it and we make no bones about that. The practicalities of introducing an identity card scheme are such that we did not think it right to have a ““big bang”” approach, as we have said before. That is why it is incremental. Identity cards are issued initially to those who apply for them either as a stand-alone item or linked to the renewal of a passport or other designated document. In this initial phase, no one who refuses to apply for an identity card could be liable for a penalty. Once we have designated passports under Clause 4 which will require parliamentary approval under the affirmative procedure, anyone applying for renewal of a passport will also be issued with an ID card. By that stage, we will already have biometric passports and the application process will be very similar, if not identical, for the passport and the ID card. Some people may prefer not to use the ID card that is issued to them with the passport and no one will be subject to any penalty if they choose not to apply for or renew a passport. For those reasons and others, I cannot support Amendment No. 138. It is unnecessary because the only provisions that can be used to compel people to obtain an identity card are those contained in Clauses 6 and 7, as has been said. Amendment No. 161 is also unnecessary as we already have an adequate safeguard in Clause 18, which is entitled:"““Prohibition on requirements to produce identity cards””." Clause 18 will make it unlawful, in advance of compulsion, for anyone to require an ID card to be produced as proof of identity unless there is also a reasonable alternative method allowed for establishing identity or, in some limited circumstances, where the requirement relates to the provision of a public service which has been linked in regulations to the identity card scheme. This means that if a bank requires proof of identity before someone opens an account, it will be able to ask for an identity card but, in its initial phase, it would have to allow for the option of producing, say, a passport or a photo driving licence as alternative proof of identity. Of course, it might be said that the safeguard in Clause 18 should continue after compulsion. That would undermine one of the purposes of the scheme, and it is an important one—that once every resident here can be expected to hold an identity card, that should become the gold standard of identification and there should be no bar to using it as such. Clause 18 is there to prevent organisations jumping the gun by insisting on an ID card being produced when only a small proportion of the population have been issued with them. I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, but the ID card scheme will be rolled out incrementally over a number of years. In the initial phase, it will not be compulsory to hold or use an ID card. The second, compulsory phase will only be introduced some time after the initial roll-out, once a high proportion of the population has already been issued with an identity card. That is our case against these amendments. They are useful to debate and I hope that the noble Baroness, although she disagrees with what we are trying to do, will recognise that the way in which we are doing it is designed to make it work better and that many of the fears about penalties that might be imposed as a product of the roll-out process are not in fact there at present.